For my past few birthdays, Susan has planned little trips and surprised me every single time. Susan is good at planning things and surprising me and I am good at being surprised, so it all works out. Last Friday Susan asked me to pack an overnight bag and prepare for a fun overnight adventure, and I did.
Shortly before our departure, Susan filled me in on what she had planned: an overnight stay at an AirBnB trailer located at the Tee Pee Drive-in in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, right off of Route 66. She also said several of our friends would be joining us for a fun evening at the drive-in. How fun!
On our 90-minute drive to Sapulpa, Susan spilled the beans on how many months this trip had been in the works, and begged to know if anyone had let the secret slip. Nobody had. I was completely blindsided by her plan. In my defense, I bend over backwards not to spoil surprises. If I see a sack sitting on the table around my birthday, I won’t peek inside. If I see boxes in her car’s trunk around December, I’ll look the other way. If anyone had tried to clue me in to the weekend’s plans, I would have stopped them.
We arrived at the Tee Pee Drive-in around 4pm, three full hours before the main gates opened. Fortunately, Susan had a secret code to let us enter through the employee’s gate. This gave us plenty of time to unpack, set up all the snacks Susan brought, and enjoy the air conditioning in the trailer for a bit. There are two Royal Spartanette trailers located at the rear of the drive-in, one in crimson and cream for OU and the other in orange and black for OSU, and Susan had reserved them both. Each trailer had a yard surrounded by a white picket fence, clearly defining our space and leaving plenty of room for all of our guests to set up their lawn chairs and watch the feature film which turned out to be… Despicable Me.
The film choice didn’t matter to us for multiple reasons. We were so far away from the screen that even under the best circumstances, making out the projected image on the screen might have been difficult. On the evening we were there, the circumstances were… not perfect. The overbearing heat combined with I assume the air conditioning inside the projector booth caused condensation to continually build up on either the projector’s lens or the piece of glass it was projecting through. About once every 10 minutes the shadow of a mysterious hand would appear up on the projected movie screen to wipe all the condensation off from in front of the camera. Within a minute or two it was back, and by the time the picture had devolved to a series of unrecognizable color blobs, the hand would return. For anyone seriously trying to watch a movie it would have been a maddening situation, but for the most part we had our lawn chairs in a circle where we shared food, drinks, stories and laughs. Everybody in our group who wanted to see 2010’s Despicable Me had already seen it.
After the movie ended and everyone left for home, Susan and I retired to the “other” Spartan trailer. We had turned the air conditioner down as low as it would go and let it run for several hours before bedtime, so it was nice and chilly by the time we were ready for bed. The mattress was not as good as what we have at home, but better than the ones I slept on a couple of months ago in the RV. A small fan helped blow the cold air from the air conditioner in our general direction. The inside of the trailers were very spacious and well designed.
Although Susan had reserved the trailers several months earlier, it wasn’t until the day before we arrived that the owner informed Susan that a Shriner car show was scheduled to begin at 8am Saturday morning. Neither of us are late sleepers and it’s a good thing as revvy-rev Harley-Davidson owners and hot rods with loud pipes began arriving right around 7am. The quiet road behind us quickly turned into truck and trailer parking, with people walking around and through our little campsite. At 7:45am, as Susan was taking her shower, the event’s DJ cranked up the music so loud that it rattled our trailer’s windows. I’m only half complaining here — we were up, and 60s classic rock is pretty inoffensive, but had we been trying to sleep in it would have been one heck of a wake up call!
We ducked out of the drive-in shortly after 8am, had breakfast in Sapulpa, and did some other stuff in Tulsa that I’ll write about later this week.
I know not everybody who was invited was able to come, but we had a wonderful time celebrating with everyone who was able to make it. I can’t think of a better way to spend a birthday weekend than with a bunch of my bestest friends! And as always, none of this would have come together without months of hard work by Susan. Thanks for helping me send off my 40s in style.
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