It was my intention to do each day as its own diary entry, but you know how it is. I took more pictures on some days than others, plus I got distracted last night and then just plumb forgot I was doing a thing until I had no energy left to finish. Did you know it took actual physical energy to blog? Neither did I until I had this last surgery. I’m learning all sorts of things about my body now, mostly about how petty-minded and resentful it apparently is. Anyhoo, I came back to the computer to discover my unfinished post and had a choice between finishing it right there, which seemed impossible, or finishing it today, which seemed demoralizing as that was literally the ONE thing on my To-Do list yesterday, or publishing it incomplete, and we all know what I went with.

I don’t even know why I’m telling you any of this. I could say anything at all about what day certain pics were taken and you’d have no way of fact-checking me. And even if you did, I’m a pathological liar for a living. I could be convincing. But I’d always know the truth and there’s nothing sadder than someone who has to lie in their own diary.

Anyhoo, moving on. Still November 1

We made a couple of stops that first morning, mostly at gas stations just long enough to stretch our legs and refill our thermoses, so by the time we reached our first checkpoint, I was so ready to get out and really walk around. Those who know me will probably not be surprised to learn that all of my planned stops along our route were of the…less conventional variety, and if you don’t know me, this should serve as a fun introduction to the kind of person I am.

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This, as you can probably read, is the grave of Elmer McCurdy. You can read more about this extraordinarily mediocre outlaw’s life by clicking that link, but of course, the real legend begins after the poor guy died. After getting shot down by the law following a botched train robbery, McCurdy’s body was taken to the local undertaker for embalming, where it went unclaimed. As was the custom in those good ol’ days, without loved ones to object to the mistreatment of a corpse, the undertaker put it on display and charged the law-abiding folks a nickel apiece to see the Bandit That Wouldn’t Die. FIVE YEARS LATER, a man claiming to be McCurdy’s brother showed up and took possession of the corpse (I like to imagine he did so with a few nasty words to the undertaker about the immorality of commercializing a body that ought to be laid to rest with Christian forgiveness and love), then took it with him to San Francisco and put it on display himself, for, PLOT TWIST, he was NOT McCurdy’s brother at all, but one of a pair of con artists attached to a traveling carnival. After SIX MORE YEARS of exhibiting the “Embalmed Bandit”, the corpse was sold to another carnival. Six years after that, it was sold again…and again…and again…

By this time, as one can well imagine, the corpse no longer looked very lifelike, but it continued to make the rounds as a horror prop until it ended up hanging in the funhouse at The Pike, an amusement park in Long Beach, California. During the filming of an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, the ‘fake mummy’ was moved, only to have its arm break off in handling, revealing human bones. A lengthy investigation followed, ultimately revealing the particulars of McCurdy’s amazingly well-traveled afterlife. It’s the sort of story that almost certainly would have led to more exhibitions, but fortunately, more socially-conscious heads prevailed, and McCurdy was sent on his last adventure and laid to rest in the Boot Hill section of the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma…under half a ton of concrete.

I first read about McCurdy in my Big Book of Death and visiting his grave to pay my respects has been on my bucket list ever since. Plus, cemeteries are just good places to walk around. Quiet, peaceful…and the really old ones like Summit View have some beautiful old monuments. There are some interesting, hilarious and heart-breaking stories written between the lines of the epitaphs.

We left Summit View well-rested and in good spirits (my sister had never heard of Elmer McCurdy; she thought I was referencing an episode of CSI when I told her about him) and traveled on to our second and last major stop for the day:

The Museum of Osteology

The building is out on the edge of town, not easy to find but real easy to drive past even while earnestly looking for it. Makes a person grateful for GPS navigational systems, because if I just had an address and a map like in the good old days, I’d have probably given up. Fortunately, we’ve been conditioned to mindlessly obey when a robotic voice tells us to turn, so we did, and we found it! The lady behind the desk assured me I could take all the pictures I wanted, and boy, did I! I’m not going to put all of them here, but I want you to know that it was almost physically painful to have to choose just a few of them to represent the sheer awesomeness that is inside that unassuming brick building. If you have an interest in skeletons or want to see flesh-eating beetles in action–

Who doesn’t, am I right?

–or just like the smell of bones in a purely platonic way, you have got to visit this place. I had a blast, and Cupcake had so much fun that he jumped out of his carrier and nearly got left behind. He’d have gone on to have his own epic adventures, I’m sure, but I’d have been devastated, so I’m glad I found him right away.

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Ha, classic Cupcake! He has the enthusiasm and energy of a toddler, always climbing on stuff and hopping away from the group.

Cupcake, posing with the Rules For Safety.

The second-coolest thing about the Museum of Osteology is how they pose the skeletons, so that they seem to be enjoying the same activities they did in life. The monkeys are climbing on branches and peering curiously out at the viewers. Birds are perching. The otter is swimming. The raccoon is digging through trash. Honestly, the museum is not all THAT big, but we spent an easy two hours there, just taking it all in.

Speaking of taking it all in, Cupcake and I are so mature, we were able to stop giggling long enough to get this picture.

We left the museum with a bag of souvenirs and drove directly to a restaurant called Mama Lou’s for our only sit-down meal of the day (We had healthy homemade snacks in the car, I promise).  My sister had soup and a sandwich, and Cupcake and I split the mushroom swiss burger. I was too tired to eat much, but it was really good food, and I highly recommend them.

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Then it was back in the car and on down the road for another hour or two, just over the border into Texas, to our last stop of the first day: a motel.

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Cupcake was asleep as soon as his frosting hit the pillow. I managed to stay awake long enough to snap this pic, and then I joined him. It was a big, big day, but a fun one, and I finally got that omen-souvenir at the Museum of Osteology, an awesome little magnet with a bone on it that says It’s Going Tibia Okay. It’s hanging on my fridge now that I’m home, where I see it each and every day, and so far, it hasn’t failed to make me smile yet.