VAN LIFE OKLAHOMA (better than it sounds)

This might be the most middle of nowhere I've ever been.

Lamb testicle.

It's amazing the impact that a random act of kindness can have.

Does this mean our bike ride is over?

I'm standing in the exact center of the United States of America.

Between red and blue, between servant and citizen. Between our freedom and our fear.

Hi, Karen. Nate. After spending four years traveling the world full time and documenting our journey to 100 countries, 2020 brought us back to the US where we bought a converted sprinter van to visit all 50 states. After spending 24 hours at the world's largest gas station.

I can't do it. I can't wear the hood inside.

Yesterday we made the six hour drive north to our 22nd state of Oklahoma.

Good morning. Yesterday we made it almost all the way to Oklahoma City and ended up camping at a Little Vineyard about 30 minutes south. Last night.

Could have sworn I had a hammer.

That should be straight.

All right.

I should have done that about six months ago.

All right. A few weeks ago, we asked for your help deciding what we should do in our last 30 states. And so far we've received over 7,000 recommendations. So thank you to everyone who took the time to send one of those in. And over the next couple days, as we road trip north through the state, we're going to be stopping at some of the most popular and unique recommendations from this list.

As if we hadn't already eaten enough food from BUC EE's before we left Texas, we stocked up on a few more snacks. Corn, nuts and dark chocolate espresso beans.

So good.

All right. For lunch, we are stopping at the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the entire state.

It smells so good out here. I think the kitchen must be right there.

We're pretty hungry. If you can't tell.

It'S a cool door.

Have a great day.

You too. Thank you.

I already love this place. We decided to get takeaway because there was not an MVC in the entire restaurant. So I got to talking to the lady at the register while we were waiting for our food and she was so sweet and said she she threw in a surprise for us. I can't wait to see the shake. This is probably the fanciest meal we've ever eaten in the pan.

So we got a 16 ounce porterhouse steak. It feels so weird eating such a fancy steak with a plastic fork and knife. Oh, good idea. Thank you. It's so juicy.

It's amazing. I haven't had very many nice steaks in my life, but this one just melts in My mouth. I don't even feel like I need steak sauce. It's perfect all by itself. And she told me that they make the rolls every day from scratch in house.

Tastes like it was baked with love by an Oklahoman grandma. This is great. But I am a little sad that we're couldn't eat inside, because Cattleman's was built in 1910. So as soon as you walk in the building, you're just, like, transported back in time. In 1945, the owner of this restaurant lost a game of dice, and instead of paying him money, he just gave him the restaurant. Pretty crazy. Now, this is something that I never thought I would see on a menu in the United States. They're called lamb fries on the menu here, and it says house specialty, but they don't go into detail about what it actually is. It kind of looks like a thick potato chip. We had them sauteed in Lebanon.

This is the testicle thing.

Get some sauce. Get some testicles. I never thought I would be eating lamb testicles, but here we go.

I just thought about it for a second. Didn't think I'd ever have them again. But here I am about to eat another lamb testicle. Never thought those words would come out of my mouth.

Mmm. This is fantastic. So crunchy, you can hardly taste the meat. I love them. I'm gonna eat them. Nate, it's your turn. Don't let me get you a big one. Whoa. Just taste it in all of its fried testicular glory.

I feel like you can't taste it at all.

Don't eat them all. Save me some.

This is what a fried testicle looks like on the inside. I like the uniqueness of this place. Also, there were real life cowboys going in that restaurant.

For real. Should have been a cowboy. Oh, she wrote, have a great trip. This must be her surprise.

She got us two pieces of pie. Oh, my gosh. It's chocolate pie with meringue and a coconut piece.

It's amazing the impact that a random act of kindness can have. Now, I just assume that everybody in Oklahoma is super friendly and generous.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Mmm. This was the best way to start the day. Real quick, we want to say a big thank you to Surfshark for sponsoring today's video and keeping our online identity safe, no matter where this van takes us. With the best VPN on the Internet. If you don't know what a VPN is, it stands for virtual private network, and it encrypts all the information sent between our computer and the Internet so that no one can steal our personal data. Most of the time we rely on public WI fi to upload these videos. These public connections can be a gold mine for hackers, but thankfully we're protected with Surfshark. And a VPN can be used for more than just security. It can also be used to unlock content that isn't available in your area. It is super easy to change the virtual location of your computer and get access to a new content library.

I say dance, they say how high?

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As we head north to Tulsa, we've decided instead of taking the interstate, we're going to take the slower, more scenic way on historic Route 66. Last year we drove about a thousand miles around Route 66 and loved all of the quirky and unique places along the way. This place is awesome and we're super excited because this is a portion of it that we haven't done yet.

This place is called Pops and it is a Route 66 icon. It has over 700 different kinds of soda and we thought it'd be fun if we each picked one out that the other person had to try.

Are you gonna be mean or nice when you pick out mine?

I haven't decided yet.

I feel like in elementary school this place would been a dream. Like so many different sodas, so many pretty bottles. Now I just kind of see sugar everywhere. But I'm excited to try one. I just realized this entire refrigerator is all root beer. I want this one that says root beer like Route 66.

Oh, you want it?

No.

Nate hates celery. His blue ones look fun. I've decided what I'm going to make you try.

Oh gosh, that was traumatic. It's called the Flying Cauldron. Butterscotch beer. I mostly picked it because I really liked the label. Good luck.

Is this for me?

No way.

How do we miss this one? The old pickle soda. This is the one you're trying.

Oh, cute. Had a good one.

You too.

Things got a little out of hand. We weren't planning on buying this One.

We have a bottle opener, right?

All right.

Oh, it's actually green.

It's so green.

It's like, don't shake it up. And then. Oh, there's not even actual pickle in here. No. It smells exactly like a garbage.

This looks like what we should have been drinking in the castle last week.

The one I picked for you is way better than the one you picked for me.

Honestly, that's so sweet. I can't even drink it.

I kind of like mine.

It's like a Sprite that you mix with a little bit of pickle juice.

All right, let's switch. I think that's.

I feel like my pee is going to be green.

It tastes like drinking syrup.

Oh, yeah. I literally feel like somebody just put a cupcake in a blender.

Oh, this is really sweet, too. All right, we're going to try the celery.

Okay.

Oh, no.

Oh, it's so bitter. Ah.

I don't even like celery, and I kind of like this. Oh, wait, it hits late.

I can still taste it.

It's weird, but it's my favorite. Okay, if you come to pops, try the celery soda back on the road. Wow. Things we do for this channel.

Our next stop on Route 66 is the Arcadia Round Barn. It's over a century old. Their claim to fame is they are the only round Barn on Route 66. Since there are a lot of tornadoes in Oklahoma, the farmer who built it thought that if he made the barn round, then the tornado would have something to go around instead of going through it. There's no scientific evidence to prove that that works. Okay, I'm back.

Am I editing to you?

No. You sound very normal from here.

It doesn't do it here, but right here, I echo so loudly in my ears because of the dome shape.

That's the round barn.

All right.

The quirky stops along Route 66 are great, but my favorite part is driving through all the small towns. I feel like normally when you're on a road trip, you're on the interstate. It's pretty sterile, and it's all about getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible. But Route 66 forces you to slow down, and it allows you to see parts of the country that you never have a reason to visit.

Otherwise, this is going to sound silly, but we just started watching a show called Yellowstone, and it's all about cowboys. So to be in this part of the country where there are real cowboys walking around, we're driving past, like, farm after farm after farm. I just feel like I'm living in a country song right now. This has turned into one of my favorite drives we've ever done. And it's just this random part of Route 66 in the middle of Oklahoma. Who would have thought?

All right, tonight we are camping at another vineyard through a service called Harvest Host. If you've never heard us talk about them before, it's a membership that you join. You pay less than $100 a year, and then there are almost 2,000 wineries, breweries, and other unique accommodations that you can park for free at overnight, as long as you have a camper that has a toilet inside.

This is our home for the night. So beautiful, Sam.

Hey, Siri. What is the weather in Tulsa, Oklahoma? It's currently clear and 39 degrees in Tulsa. It's getting colder the further north we go.

The Harvest Host that we stopped at last night ended up being one of our all time favorites.

Top three for sure.

The people were super nice, the wine was good, and we actually ended up learning quite a bit of history about the town. So the building where the winery is now was actually an old schoolhouse that was built by John D. Rockefeller for the children of the employees who were working in his oil fields. So that building has been here since the 1920s. Also, every label that they use on their wine bottles is an old mural from the town. So with each wine that we tried, we learned a new historical about the town that we're in. It's got to be one of the best ways to learn history.

For some reason, stories just got better and better.

Typically, a public park wouldn't be on our top things to do list, but so many people recommend this park. It's called the Gathering Place. And we learned it cost half a billion dollars to build, so we just had to come check it out. They have a coffee shop, so I was instantly impressed. And it's just massive. And now we're laying in the grass and the sunshine and I never want to leave.

I think if we were parents, this park would be the highlight of our road trip through Oklahoma. The playgrounds here are pretty epic, but you're just gonna have to take my word for it because there's no way as an adult man, I'm going to walk around pointing my camera at a playground.

If we would have showed up in Tulsa on a cold, rainy day, we probably would have just grabbed a quick coffee and driven straight through it.

But because it was sunny and warm, we had an unforgettable time here. Thought we were going to be Getting exercise. But turns out these are electric bikes. They pretty much ride themselves. This is true for so many of the places we've traveled, which is why it's really difficult for us to answer the popular question, where's your favorite place you've been? Because it's really hard to separate the destination from the circumstances we find ourselves in. What we're trying to say is we're so glad we got to spend the day enjoying Tulsa and riding bikes downtown to get ice cream. This has turned into such a fun day. I love Tulsa. Even though we had some technical difficulties. Difficulties? My pedal just fell off, and then I ran over, and it was very traumatic. Does this mean our bike ride is over? I don't know what to do. I can't, like, tighten it.

Look how you have the pedals.

What do you mean?

Imagine trying to ride this bike right now. Oh, I'll ride this one.

Are you sure?

Yeah.

We'll see how this goes.

I figured out how to ride an electric bike with one leg. Not very fast, but it's better than pushing it.

We made it.

Well done.

I guess we'll just get another one.

What happened this time?

I was just riding along, and I literally almost fell backwards off my bike. My seat, just out of nowhere, went, oh, no. There's any way to fix this without a tool? I thought $8 was a pretty good deal for an electric bike rental for this day. Yes. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

All right. We are now driving two and a half hours east to our last stop in Oklahoma, and we may have saved the best for last.

So I didn't do such a great job planning our last stop in Oklahoma. We've driven two hours into the middle of nowhere to get to the Great Salt plains.

I was picturing more of the Bolivian salt flats.

Ahh. This is so crazy.

I feel like you'd really have to get out into the middle of it to truly appreciate it. But apparently it's closed during the winter. They let you come out here and dig for crystals in the summer, and I knew you couldn't do that in the winter, But I didn't realize the entire place was closed down. I guess that's it for Oklahoma. I'm crying a little bit. Not because it's closed, but because it's so windy.

All right. We have left Oklahoma behind. We're somewhere in Kansas looking for the center of the United States. This might be the most middle of nowhere I've ever been. We've also left the pavement behind.

We haven't seen A car for at least 30 minutes.

Human life.

We're not alone.

There was actually no reason to be on that dirt road. That was just a little Google Maps detour. We are just outside the small town of Lebanon, Kansas, and right now, I am standing in the exact center of the United States of America.

And I didn't realize it when I put it in the GPS this morning, but this is also where the Jeep super bowl ad was filmed. In this small chapel right behind us. There's a chapel in Kansas standing on the exact center of the lower 40 48.

It's so cute. Oh, my gosh. Look at these teeny, tiny pews. Little one person pews Looks a lot.

Smaller than in the commercial.

Apparently, this church is never closed. Oh, look, this is the Bruce Springsteen commercial. I think they wrote down everything he said. There's a chapel in Kansas standing on the exact center of the lower 48.

You have to read it with a deep Bruce Springsteen voice.

Between red and blue, between servant and citizen, between our freedom and our fear. It belongs to us all. Wherever you from, wherever you're from, Our light has always found its way through the darkness. And there is hope on the road ahead. Amen. Would you like to hear any more messages?

All right, from here, we still have about an hour's drive north to our 23rd state of Nebraska.

You loved the USA.

Is that what you think of when you think of Nebraska?

I don't know. I don't know anything about Nebraska. State line, here we come.

Let's do the sign. Yes. Kansas. Kansas. Kansas. Kansas. Kansas. Kansas.

Kansas.

Kansas. Nebraska. The good life. Welcome to the good life.

We are about to be living the good life in Nebraska. Here we go.

Fun fact. To start this Oklahoma road trip, we just passed the largest casino in the entire world. I would have never guessed it was located in southern Oklahoma.

So we're going to the slot machine.

We don't play slots.

I'll try not to get them all soggy. Okay.

Nobody wants soggy lamb balls.

Nope.

That's strong. It's like. Smells like cocktail sauce.

I thought that was a dirty joke.

I don't get it.

Cocktail sauce.

Dipped in cocktail sauce. If I didn't know better, I would think I was eating with a mushy fried shrimp.

I think I'd rather have a fried festival than a mushy fried shrimp.

They see me rolling. It's very hard to go up hills.

All right.

I didn't make it uphill a bit. Workout today.

Thank you. Oh, I should have been a cowboy. Should have been a cowboy.