Tulsa has a thing for giants.
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Friday, June 12, 2026 🗺️ Rolling through Tulsa, OK Happy Friday, Reader! We rolled into Tulsa, and right away, I noticed this city is obsessed with giants. Seriously, they’re everywhere along Route 66 on 11th Street, just hanging out in parking lots like it’s totally normal. Jody kicked back with the bike while I wandered around admiring these massive characters. I snapped about a million photos and ended up with a sore neck from all the looking up. Worth it! But the giant I wanted to see most made me leave Route 66 to find him. The Golden Driller isn’t right on Route 66, but he’s just a short drive away at the Tulsa Expo Center. I remember him from my childhood excursions to the Tulsa State Fair so of course I had to check him out. After all, who would pass up seeing a 76-foot-tall statue when you’re looking for giants? The first Golden Driller appeared in 1953 at the International Petroleum Exposition, but that version was made of papier-mâché and didn’t last long. The statue you see now is made of steel and fiberglass and has stood there since 1966. He rests one hand on a real oil derrick, which was brought in from Seminole, to help support his massive 43,000 pound weight. His 76-foot height makes him the third largest statue in the country! I wandered right up to his feet, but there’s just no way to fit this guy in the frame up close. He’s massive! I had to back up all the way to the parking lot just to get him in the shot. I spent a good while just staring up at him. He’s got this chill, nothing-can-faze-me look, like he’s watched every oil boom and bust roll by and just shrugs it off. The other Tulsa giants are all about the quirky fun, but not the Driller. He’s the serious one in the bunch. The “Greetings From Route 66” mural packs half of Tulsa’s giants onto one wall for a postcard you can’t fit in your pocket. Stella stands guard in a red dress and cowboy boots, raygun raised and rope at the ready. She looks like she wandered in from a future nobody else got invited to. Mack grips his axe in front of his own mural, the friendly lumberjack who somehow ended up the most normal giant on the route. ​ Rosie throws her fist up beside the Dream sign in her red bandana, a roadside reminder that we can do it. Buck cradles a chrome rocket in both arms, a space cowboy in patched jeans staring you down like he dares you to ask why. One Thing to KnowPhotographing something this tall, your instinct is to tilt the camera up, but that throws the vertical lines into a backward lean and the figure looks like it’s falling away from you. Back up as far as the lot allows and keep your camera level, then crop in afterward. The giant stays upright and the proportions stay honest. In post-processing, geometrical adjustments can also help the vertical alignment. Next week there will be more to share from the small towns in Oklahoma as the route continues eastward. PS: Planning a summer camping trip? You might consider heading north and visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It was one of the biggest surprises for me in the National Park system. Read more about our trip in my blog post, Where the Wild Things Roam. ​
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