As I was driving south from Moore to Norman, I saw the entertainment center called HeyDay, and I had to stop and snap this picture.

Hey Day has become a tradition for me and my siblings. It's not the food that entices us in there, nor the arcade games, rope climbing, or miniature golf. No, after long periods of time being apart, what draws me and my family to this place is laser tag. Teams are formed, strategy is discussed and then, with music blasting, we step out into the black lights, and the swirling, fog-filled, 7,000 ft arena of darkened passageways, ramps, bridges and archways and hunt each other down. A perfect way to spend a Christmas holiday

And, just a little further down the road, is the city of Norman. It is the county seat and the third largest city in Oklahoma. In 2008, CNN/Money Magazine ranked it as the sixth best small city in the United States. It is a trendy, and most definitely, a college town, home to the University of Oklahoma, the largest university in the state, the biggest employer in Norman, and the prettiest university in the state. It has 3,000 acres of heavily landscaped gardens, walkways, courtyards and Gothic architecture. I tried to take a pictures to show some of the Gothic architecture. It kind of reminds me of castles all over the campus.

A couple of Norman's best cultural attractions are also located on the campus. The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art made national and international news in 2000 when it was given the Weitzenhoffer Collection, the largest collection of French Impressionist art ever given to an American University. The collection includes works by Mary Cassatt, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pissaro. Other collections include American, Native American, European and Asian art. I really liked the way they set up the artwork. The walls the art hangs on is an off-white color, for the most part, and doesn't distract from the actual painting, letting the art speak for itself.

The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, on campus as well, is one of the world's largest university-based natural history museums. According to its brochure, it has over 50,000 square feet of exhibits ranging from archaeology, paleontology, ethnology, herpetology, ornithology, and Native American studies. The museum features many complete collections of dinosaur fossils and is also noted for its Paleozoic collection, considered to be one of the largest and most important in existence. You'll be totally immersed in the state’s long history and the kids will have so much fun playing in the Discovery room they won't even realize it's educational. And, I don't want to spoil it, but, trust me, and ride the elevator with the glass wall.

Although the University of Oklahoma tends to dominate the town, there are other things to see and do in Norman. Just don't try and do them on a football game day. Traffic comes to a stand still on those days and every restaurant, bar, and hotel is packed as dedicated Sooner fans roll in to support their team. You've been warned.

But on non-game days, you might venture off campus and check out the historic district on Main Street. A picture of historic Main Street is below.

The Sooner Theater, built in 1929, was the first movie theater in the region to show "talking" pictures. It's still in business today, but now serves as a community performing arts center. On any given weekend, you might catch a play, a ballet, opera, concert or musical. My son took an acting class here, where the kids got to write the play and then perform in it. A picture of it is below.

Just a little further down Main Street is one of my favorite places to shop for food, called Native Roots. If you like to buy locally, this is the place to shop. You can buy Oklahoma raised meat, vegetables, fruits and cheeses. A lot of their items are organic, too, and that makes me happy. Once you bite into an in-season, locally grown, organic strawberry you'll never want one from a chain grocery store again.

One of the nice things about Norman, is that it's almost impossible to stay bored here. It hosts twenty-five festivals a year, so there's always something going on in town constantly. The Medieval Fair was just a few weeks ago and last weekend was a free music festival.

A little further down the road, is a smaller town, Noble, OK. I tried to take a picture of Main Street, below, but all I really got was my Jeep

Anyway, it is the third largest city in Cleveland County. Noble calls itself, the "Rose Rock Capital of the World". For those who haven't seen a rose rock, I've taken pictures of clusters of them. (See below) The concentration of barium sulfate in the soil is higher here than anywhere else, causing the formation of rose rocks. They also come in small single "flowers" as well as the clusters.

Joe Stine, a geologist, and his wife opened the Timberlake Rose Rock Museum in 1986. It houses the largest collection of these barite rose rocks. I should mention she graciously allowed me to take the pictures inside her museum of the rose clusters. The museum is free, but good luck, getting out of there without spending money in the gift shop! They have an assortment jewelry, knickknacks, paper weights, key chains and art made out of the rose rocks. If you want a gift that is truly made in Oklahoma, this is the place to go. Besides the rose rocks, they also sell fossils, polished rocks, and just about anything that has anything to do with stuff you dig out of the earth. Honestly, I was more fascinated with the gift shop than I was with the museum.

Noble sets aside the first Saturday each May to celebrate this unusual geological formation with an annual Rose Rock Festival, which just happens to be this next weekend. There will be a parade, a car show, a Rose Rock Poker run, the Rose Rock Queen and her court will be there, along with several music bands. There will also be a carnival with rides, arts and crafts vendors, and plenty of food.

And, speaking of food, I can't leave Noble without mentioning Kendall's restaurant. I lived in Noble for awhile and had driven by the restaurant many times, without ever stopping. I'm so glad I finally found it! The outside is pretty unassuming on Main Street, so I took a picture of it so you wont' miss it if you go.

The inside is bigger than it looks on the outside with a strong country vibe and lots of autographed pictures of celebrities on the walls. I only get the chicken fried steak when I go. The portions are huge, big enough for dinner that evening and lunch the next day. The green beans are well-seasoned and remind me of the way my Grannie used to make them. And did I mention, free cinnamon rolls after the meal? And it's all washed down with a perfect glass of ice tea.

Now when I made the comment in an earlier blog Kendall's had the best chicken fried steak I'd ever eaten, a friend of mine pointed out I had never tried the chicken fried steak at Broadway Joe's restaurant in Muldrow, OK. And, that's true, I haven't. So, I'll just say that up to this point, it's the best I've had. I'm looking forward to trying their chicken fried steak when I visit Sequoyah Co. and doing a comparison test.

And, we can't leave Cleveland County without mentioning its' own cryptozoological mystery. Rumor has it that a creature the size of a horse with long tentacles and leathery, reddish-brown skin is pulling unsuspecting swimmers to their doom at Lake Thunderbird, south of Norman. No physical evidence exists of this freshwater, monster octopus but there have been numerous sightings, many unexplained drownings, and the lake does have an unusually high mortality rate. Of course, no one can explain how an octopus got into a man-made lake built in the 1960s, but I'm sure someone has a theory somewhere.

And that wraps up Cleveland County.

One down, 76 more to go!