Oklahoma City

We spent today in downtown Oklahoma City exploring the Oklahoma Land Run Monument and the Naional Memorial and Museum.  

Above and below are pictures of the skyline of Oklahoma City.  Altehough we drove in the area called "Capitol Hill" we never saw the capitol building.

 

Our first stop was the Centennial Land Run Monument which commemorates the opening of the Unassigned Land in Oklahoma Territory with the Land Run of  1889.  It contains 45 bronze figures of the run participants, frozen in motion as they race to claim new homesteads.  It is the world's largest bronze sculpture.  The land run started at high noon on April 22,  1889.  An estimated 50,000 people were lined up at the start seeking to gain a piece of the available two million acres.  The land run started by the firing of a cannon.

This contains imprints of the horses in the land run.  At the end of the day both Oklahoma City and Guthrie had become cities of around 10,000.  By the second week, new settlers had opened schools.  Withone one month Oklahoma City had five banks and six newspapers.

We were able to walk around the monument on concrete sidewalks and intermingled with small ponds of water.  These ducks enjoyed the ponds.

Notice anything strange about this picture of me?  Yup, I slipped on the mud on the sideewalk and fell.  While we were there, it was misting and had rained harder earlier causing mud to wash across the sidewalks in some areas.  I avoided some but not all.  Thankfully, I wasn't hurt (only sore and covered with mud on my hip and left arm).  It did mean that we had to return to the motel so I could shower and change clothes.  It seems that I always find a way to fall on every trip!

This is the Scissortail Bridge Pedestrian Bridge which spans I-240 in Oklahoma City.  I had wanted to walk across this bridge but couldn't find the starting point of the bridge.  It looked interesting.

This memorial honors the victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who here affected by the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.

There are two monumental gates imprinted with 9:01 and 9:03 and the space beween them mark the bombing at 9:02. These monumental twin gates frame the moment of destruction (9:02 am ) and mark the formal entrtances to the memorial.  The 9:01 gate represents the innocence before the attack.  The 9:03 gate symb0lizes the moment healing began.   Between these two gates is the field of 168 chairs representing those who died.  

Nineteen shorter chairs represent the children who were killed and there are five chairs by themselves which represent five people who died and were not in the building.

This is engraved on the first panel  of both panels outside the field of chairs.  It says, "Welcome here to remember those who were killed, those who survive, and those changed forever.  May all who leave here know the impact of violence.  May this memorial offer comfort, strength peace, hope, and serenity."

This picture and below are the only remaining walls of the Federal Building.

The pool occupies what was once N.W. Fifth Street.  

The first fence was installed to protect the site.  Almost immediately people began to leave tokens of love and hope on the fence.  Tens of thousands of those items have been collected and preserved in an archives.  People today still leave tokens of remembrance and hope.

This is the Survivor Tree.  On April 19, 1995 it withstood the full force of the attack; yet it still stands today as a living symbol of resilience.  On the day of the bombing, it was in the middle of a parking lot.  All the cars in that lot were destroyed.  Only this tree remained.

We spend about an hour walking around the Memorial outside the Museum.  We had tickets for a noon entry.  The Museum is a must-see.  It fills in the blank spaces concerning that day, the rescue and the recovery in a high tech way.  It is done in a very solumn, dignified, and moving way.  There were many times I had tears in my eyes.  This picture shows the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building and where it is located in the city.  It is the rectangular cube building at the bottom center of the picture.

The tour begins with visitors sitting in a room which recreates a room in the Water Department Building at the time of the bomb.  You sit and listen to a recording of a very boring meeting when all of a sudden, the explosion is a part of the recording.  I think everyone jumped.

This is a recreation of the sign identifying the Federal Building.  The only letters which survived are to A, F, E, D, M, R. and A.

A clock found in the rubble showing the exact time of the bombing.

This is the car Timothy McVeigh was driving when he was stopped by an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper shortly after the bombing.   Reason for stop:  no back license plate.  The stop occurred 77 minutes after the bombing.  At that time, they did not know he was involved in the bombing but he was arrested for the traffic violation and for carrying a weapon.  Parts of the rented truck contained serial numbers which led to the name of the person who rented the truck used in the bombing.  Thanks to that traffic stop, McVeigh was already in jail.

This statue of Jesus crying sits on the corner across the street from the Memorial.

We spend almost three hours at the Memorial and Museum.  We are so glad we visited it.  We heard so many personal stories that gave us additional meaning for that day.  This memorial is similar to the Flight 93 Memorial in that people walked it with reverence and quiet.  We all understood who happened on this spot and prayed it would never happen again.

Because it was nearly 3:00 p.m. when we left the memorial, we decided we would be through sightseeing.  We hadn't eaten lunch so we were hungry.  There was a Red Lobster near our motel so we stopped there for supper.  I have to admit that I did something at the restaurant that I have never done...I did not leave a 10 percent tip.  When you receive your check, ten percent is not even an option now.  They suggest, 18, 20, and 22 percent.  We were very displeased with the young lady who served us that we decided she did not warrent even a ten percent tip.  She left us out to dry with no service, she brought our salads without dressing (she didn't even ask what dressing we wanted); we had to ask for additional biscuits; she never refilled our drink glasses; and I had to ask for a take-home box.  The whole time we were there, it was like we were invisible.  I rounded up the bill to the nearest $10 which meant she got $7.00 for a tip.  Maybe, I was being harsh but in my mind, tips are given for good service and the size of the tip reflects how good the service is.  We got no service.  Maybe I was just tired, I don't know.  Anyway, that's my story!

Tomorrow we pack up and head for Illinois.  

Goodbye Kansas. Hello Oklahoma

 Enjoyed a beautiful sunrise while eating breakfast.  

We left Hiawatha, Kansas; drove to St. Joseph, Missouri;  drove I-29 south to Kansas City where we crossed back into Kansas on I-35; we drove in Kansas most of the morning.  During the day we crossed the Missouri River (twice), the Kansas River, and the Arkansas River.  We had times when the traffic was very heavy and times when Carol could put the  cruise-control on.  Gas prices never went over $3.00.  The lowest we saw was $2.55 in Oklahoma.

We came across this accident involving a semi.  It has run off the road, through a tree line and into a ditch.  We don't know if the driver was hurt but we think he probably fell asleep and woke up in the ditch.

This sign caught our attention.  We aren't sure how it is pronounced but it could be pronounced like our name Mulvany.

We had never driven north to south through Kansas but the scenery was nice. It started off rolling hills with lots of trees and then became flat, green, and mostly tree free.  It was still pretty to us.

We crossed into Oklahoma around 1:00 p.m.  Our surroundings didn't change much.  It did begin to mist a little so that we had to use to whipers occasionally.  The closer we got to Oklahoma City the heavier the traffic became.  That surprised us because it was the middle of a Saturday afternoon.  I guess a lot of people had a lot of places to go.  We are staying in the southern part of the city.  Tomorrow we will drive into the city.  Hope the traffic is less.  We found a Chinese Buffet for supper and are now back at the motel relaxing.  We are happy to be on the first floor with a door into the hallway and outside.  We are parked right outside our door.  That will make packing up easier when we leave Monday morning.