My wife and I like to go on drives, and since we’re also book dragons (a new term I learned recently), we sometimes combine a drive with going to bookstores, especially used books. You never know what treasures you’ll find when you do.
The way it generally works is that my wife pulls up Google Maps and navigates while I drive. In this case, it was a little different. She found the bookstores and then did up an itinerary for me and I followed it. I knew there was a way to put in multiple stops on Maps, but had never done it myself. I’d never had need for it. If you haven’t used it, it’s a wonderful utility.
Anyway, technical challenges aside, on this particular trip we decided to go into Oklahoma. I can’t remember how we decided what towns to hit up, but in the end, it was Tahlequah, Muskogee (made famous by Merle Haggard), and Tulsa. We picked Tulsa as an end-point simply because there’s a huge used bookstore called Gardner’s there that we’d visited before but hadn’t been to in quite some time.
The first part of the drive saw us heading west on Highway 412 to Kansas, Oklahoma (confused yet? Yes, that’s the name of the town), where we went south on Highway 10. It’s a beautiful, scenic drive that roughly follows the Illinois River, passing several places to rent canoes and kayaks and stay in their resort cabins. At one point, the road even edges up under a bluff. It was a gorgeous early spring day, and we were seeing country we hadn’t seen before.
Our first stop in Tahlequah was an indie bookstore called Too Fond of Books (clever, eh?). It’s right in downtown, which is full of historic buildings. There were two bookstores to visit there: Too Fond of Books and One Feather. And keep in mind that Tahlequah is also the capital of the modern Cherokee Nation as well as that of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, so there are some unique books in this store that have to do with western and Oklahoma history, especially as it relates to Oklahoma once being the Indian Territory.
For myself, I finally acquired a copy of Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb, a book I’ve been wanting to try for years but couldn’t find a used copy of. They had the entire trilogy there, but as ever, I erred on the side of caution and only bought the first volume. I’m looking forward to reading it.
The other book we got there that concerned me was Bigfoot Comes to Town by RE Glenn, who lives in Tahlequah. It’s self-published, and it’s a journalistic view of Bigfoot stories, something he’s been researching for years. It takes the approach that it’s not trying to prove the existence or lack thereof when it comes to the creature in question, and that’s just the kind of book I’m seeking for my own project. I haven’t read it yet—too many books in my TBR pile, naturally—but I promise I’ll get to it.
I was looking for something like this on this trip because the North American Wood Ape Conservancy has a research area, dubbed Area X, in the Ouachitas of Eastern Oklahoma. It’s a remote area, and NAWAC is taking a very scientific approach to the subject. There’s also a popular conference in Honobia (cancelled this year as the director of the regular venue decided not to allow them to hold their conference there any longer) called the Honobia Bigfoot Festival and Conference. There’s also the Oklahoma Bigfoot Symposium held just south of Stillwell. As I write this—Sunday, March 10th—the Symposium was held March 9th, so I guess I won’t be going this year.
Anyway, my wife, being the sneaky person she is, found Bigfoot Comes to Town and managed to buy it without my knowledge, then surprised me with it when we got to the pickup. She’s sneaky, but it’s always of benefit to me, because she loves doing things like that.
From there, we made our way down the road to One Feather, only to discover we were too late, as they closed at 1:00 p.m.
After we finished there, it was on to Muskogee. I’d been wanting to visit Muskogee for years because there’s the Castle at Muskogee, which holds a renaissance faire in the spring as well as a couple of holiday events later in the year (Halloween comes immediately to mind). There was one bookstore to visit there: Bear’s Bookstore, a used bookstore we’d heard about but hadn’t had a chance to visit.
Bear’s was a pleasant surprise. Even with the help of Google Maps, it was a bit difficult to find the entrance because it shares a building with another business. But once inside, all I can say is it was amazing. The owner told us she has over 40,000 books, and I can believe it. It was a book dragon’s dream come true, with books everywhere. It’s not a large space, so it’s something of a maze when you’re there, but I found some treasures, such as Runestone by Don Coldsmith, a historical novel by the author of the Spanish Bit Saga, a series about a Native American tribe that passes a bit from a Spanish conquistador down through the generations as an heirloom. Runestone is a little different in that it’s about Norwegian immigrants coming to America, following the course set by Leif Ericson, and their adventures here.
If you visit Bear’s—and I recommend that you do—be sure to watch for the colored stickers, which denote a clearance. My wife was able to buy several books by Kathy Reichs for a good price.
So, we left there and went to see the Castle, which isn’t open yet. They have lots of parking and I’ll be sure to try and come back for their faire if I can.
After that, it was off to Tulsa where we wanted to visit Gardner’s and Magic City Books, the latter another indie bookstore.
To be honest, we hadn’t visited Gardner’s in quite some time as we’d had trouble finding anything we wanted to buy. But we decided to visit for two reasons: we hadn’t been in so long that maybe we could find something this time (we tend to have the same problem at Once Upon a Time Books in Tontitown, Arkansas a local used bookstore we dearly love; it’s like both stores don’t change their inventory often enough to suit us), and we wanted to have dinner at a place just a couple of blocks away called Mom’s Family Diner, where they serve a chicken fried steak that’s about the size of a regular dinner plate, smothered in gravy and accompanied by whatever you want, though I tend to go for mashed potatoes (hence, my girlish figure).
Gardner’s was a success this time, as we came away with several books. To be honest, they’re blurring together, so I can’t tell you for sure which other books we got where, sad to say. But altogether, we made a good haul, and I would recommend Gardner’s if you’re ever in Tulsa.
From there, we went to Mom’s, where, as usual, we ate way too much—including a wonderful piece of pie, which fans of Twin Peaks will know is highly important (in this case it was a cookies and cream pie made with cream cheese and Oreos).
Then we made our way to Magic City but were unable to visit. It’s located right in downtown Tulsa, and there was some kind of event going on that night so we couldn’t find any parking. Maybe we’ll give it another try, maybe not. I mean, it’s downtown in a midsize city, so parking may always be at a premium there. Still, if you’re in the area, give them a visit and let me know how they are. They get a 4.7 on Google, so they must be a good store.
By then, needless to say, we were tired. We’d driven almost three hundred miles, and it was dark with a roughly two-hour drive ahead of us, so we headed east again, leaving Tulsa behind, only making one stop to buy some water for the trip. We were tired when we got home, but happy we’d made the trek. We plan to be more social and get out of the house more, as we’ve developed a bad habit of sitting at home on weekends and reading or something like that, and it’s dragging us down.
So if we’re out and about, say hi. In the course of looking up these locations on Google Maps, I discovered there are at least two more bookstores and one other diner in Tulsa that we need to visit, so stay tuned for updates.
Happy reading,
