Girl Trip 2022

Denisa and her Mother and two sisters started going on girl trips more than thirty years ago. That means our mother was our age when we started these adventures. Even though we missed some years when our children were young, we now go on a "girl trip" every year. The rest of the girls had to wait until Denisa returned from our travels in New England to plan a trip for November. While we have traveled all over the United States on these trips, we are doing a "stay-cation" close to Oklahoma City since Debra needs to stay available for her husband's medical needs. So we started with an evening performance of the musical, "Brigadoon" at a local university. That's when we took the picture below as we waited for the show to begin.

While Mark and Denisa visit state capitols all over the country, we realized that we hadn't seen the Oklahoma capitol in many years. So that was another stop on this year's girl trip.

Oklahoma became the 46th state in 1907. So it was a relatively new state when Betty was born in 1930. She's standing by the state seal in the capitol rotunda before our tour began.

We had a very knowledgeable tour guide, who escorted us first to the House Chambers.

We looked up to admire the fine stain glass windows overhead.

Even though this room has gone through several updates, we thought it was interesting that the old-school wall fans were still in place.

Some of the artwork at the capitol gives insight into the state's history. The battleship Oklahoma was in Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack in 1941. A memorial in Hawaii honors the 429 Sailors and Marines that died on the U.S.S. Oklahoma.

We're guessing that this might be the only state that includes a huge painting of a tornado in a prominent spot in the capitol. Some massive tornadoes have brought tragedy to this state, but we're glad to say that all these life-long residents on the girl trip have never been directly affected by one.

While most of the art work is permanent, we also like the temporary pieces that celebrate the magical sunsets and sunrises in Oklahoma. After traveling all over the country, it is our opinion that Oklahoma has some of the best sunsets anywhere. We've traveled in states covered with forests for most of the summer, and we've missed seeing the sunset. But the flat prairie lands of western Oklahoma have wide open spaces that allow you to see all of the sky and its Oklahoma splendor.

Denisa liked it that the pink-cloud sunsets were even celebrated in the rotunda. About half-way up the dome, the sky is incorporated in a slice of the many layers of color that lead to the top.

We continued our tour into the Senate chambers, where the desks are further apart.

But they also have a lovely stain glass ceiling overhead.

As we left the visitors' entrance to the capitol, we noticed the 77 Oklahoma counties are carved into the marble floor of the foyer. For the picture, Denisa's Mother and sisters stood in the counties where they now live.

Everything looks sparkly and nice inside the capitol, and we're glad that we waited until now for our tour. The refurbishing just finished up in 2022.

On another day, we had an appointment at Bella Forte Glass Studio.

The artist that lives and works here is Chris McGahan, and he had some of his signature pieces on display in the entry way.  He calls this "Redento Raffinato," which means "redeemed elegance" in Italian. Made from discarded glass and trimmings that were destined to be thrown away, the artist re-melts and remakes them into their most popular pieces. Chris has a great testimony of how Jesus can do the same for broken people.

We got a tour of Chris's workshop, which included a large piece that is waiting to be hung at the Oklahoma City airport. This oversized metal dream-catcher will hang from the ceiling upside down.

From the metal cups will hang glass "feathers" that Chris has made using his redento raffinato technique.

He got several feathers out and held them in place so we could get a first peek at this over-sized piece of art. We look forward to seeing it at the airport soon. In fact, he got a phone call during our session from the insurance company that has agreed to insure it. Who knew it was so difficult to find a company to insure a huge glass piece hanging over thousands of heads every day.

Then we started the real reason for our visit. We're making glass Christmas ornaments! Chris gathered a piece of molten glass, and then we began the process of adding shards of glass to color it. We learned that it was difficult to walk across a room while spinning a heavy metal rod to keep the glass from dripping off the end! Then there's a special way to dip it in the colored fragments while turning and raising that glass blob.

The next step is melting that new glass in the furnace that is glowing red hot at over 2,000 degrees. You must keep rotating it while standing behind the heat shield.

Then it's back across the room to get more color fragments--remembering to spin as you go. Whew! There's a lot to think about!

Once it's melted again, the hard part begins. We had no idea how hard you must blow to force air into that blob of glass at the end of the tube. While kneeling and blowing, Chris is rolling the metal rod to keep the glass centered. 

So we were having to chase that rod from side to side while blowing as hard as we possibly could! If you think that looks like a pained look on Denisa's face, it's because she is working so hard!

As hard as you have to blow, when Chris yells "Stop!" you have to stop immediately.

If you don't, the glass ball will pop like bubble gum, and become scrap glass that will have to be redeemed again. Debra had to start all over on her ornament.

So when it was Connie's turn, she was a little frightened for this whole experience.

She picked a blue color, so it's easier to see the fragments of glass she is collecting. You have to keep remembering to rotate all the time!

All hot glass is red, even if you're blowing a blue Christmas ball. Chris didn't tell us until the end, but it is easier to blow blue glass, so Connie lucked into an easier task of blowing.

Chris added a bit of glass on top, and then curved it into a hanger as the finishing touch.

Then he showed us how a master craftsman can blow a pattern into the glass, shape it while it is hot, and finish it with a metal glaze. Let's just say that we are now even more amazed at that beautiful Christmas ornament.

Our plain round balls had to be tempered over-night in a special oven, and they were ready to be picked up the next day. Bella Forte was a fun stop with a souvenir from this year's girl trip.

Because we stayed in the Oklahoma City area, we also got to make stops to visit relatives. Denisa's Mother got to see her last remaining first cousin who is at a senior living center.

We also drove out to Debra's daughter's new property, where they are transforming shipping containers into a little house.

Our other project was to get pictures of all of Mother's great grandchildren to use for her Christmas card. We managed to meet up with most of Mother's grandchildren, and all 13 of her greats.

Since we were staying close to home, we also had time to make greeting cards during the evening. So we all came away with more souvenirs from this trip.

Another highlight of the trip has to be the food we ate. We seemed to have an international theme, eating Asian, Czechoslovakian, Middle Eastern, and a little American too. We didn't drive far this year, but we packed in lots of fun and love into Girl Trip 2022.