A Day Trip to Tuttle

On Wednesday, we got up early in the morning and met with others behind the Eye Mart on Highway 97.  At 7:30 a.m. we departed Sand Springs for Tuttle, Oklahoma.  Tuttle is just a few miles southwest of OKC.  I had to wonder if the driver of the chartered bus was from Oklahoma since he got up on Highway 412 and drove east toward downtown Tulsa.  When he got to the interdispersal loop, he made his way south, eventually getting on the turnpike for OKC.  (Had he gone south on 97, he could have gotten on the turnpike at Sapulpa, saving time, fuel, and a portion of the turnpike fee.  I overheard one of the passengers tell him about the shortcut, which he took on the return trip.)

The trip was sponsored by the Sand Springs Senior Citizens Center.  I especially enjoyed this trip since I did not have to drive.  I brought my Kindle along with me and worked on puzzles while we rolled down the highway.  My favorite puzzle is called "Every Word: Crossings."  The object of this game is to take the letters (up to 7) which appear at the top of the screen and arrange them in such a way as to make words.  When you guess a word correctly, it appears in the grid portion of the screen.

We made our first stop at the McDonald's near Stroud.  We had breakfast there and was back on the bus by 9:00.  From there we headed toward OKC, swinging around the city on  I-44 which  takes you to Amarillo.  We exited on a road that leads to Tuttle.  Tuttle is about 30 miles southwest of OKC.  This was my first time to be in Tuttle.  Why take a trip to Tuttle?  Tuttle is the home of the Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Stores operation. 

I must say that Braum's milk tastes much better than other brands of milk.  Part of the reason must be because at Tuttle much of the water is extracted from the milk, making for a richer taste.  We went through the milk processing plant and the bakery.  The operation is largely automated.  While we were watching hamburger buns being packaged, there was a malfunction of some kind, which caused some buns to flip up into the air.  To get the operation running smoothly again, a worker had to trash about two dozen buns.

Braum's has some 10,000 cows.  Each has to be milked twice a day.  They also grow their own feed for the cows.  They sell their products in their own stores.  They make their own cones for the ice cream.  They control about every aspect of the operation.

Photography is not allowed in the plants which we visited, but I took pictures at the Mexican restaurant where we had lunch.  We ate lunch at Nachitos Mexican American Grill in Tuttle.  It has a colorful facade.  I will post some pictures later.  I will continue with the other two stops on the trip later.  They are the Tiger Safari, also in Tuttle, and the Pops restaurant in Arcadia.