OKC

Oklahoma City.  What a pleasant town.  It's not too big, and not too small, but just right.  We parked the truck and took advantage of the city's "Downtown Discovery".  It's a free bus that takes you around the central core.  We chose to ride it because it takes you to the Oklahoma Memorial, which is located a ways north of the downtown area.

Overall, I have to say this is the most well-done memorial we've ever been to.

 

Outside, representing each end/side of the building that was bombed, is a "wall" with the time on it.  One end says 9:01 (representing the start of any day like any other day) and the other says 9:03 (representing the beginning of healing).  The blast happened at 9:02 a.m, April 19, 1995.  There's a reflecting pool in the middle.



On the side lawn there are "chairs" for each person who died in the blast.



And if you think that was a somber place, if you could walk through the museum without shedding tears, then you would be almost heartless.  It's incredibly moving.

This is a wall of paintings by children put on tiles outside the front entrance of the museum.  The one here kind of says it all.



Anyone who comes here must see this museum.

Kiddy-corner to the museum is this statue that says "and Jesus wept".



Whew.  We couldn't believe we spent 2 emotional hours there.

We walked back to the downtown area to find a place to grab some lunch.  An area that's really being developed is called Bricktown.

It's quite a nice area.  They've got a canal here and they're just restoring and building around the canal.  It's going to be gorgeous in the future.  There are only some restaurants set up here.  Room for many more.

While sitting there having a pizza and a beer, we noticed the Chickasaw Dodgers AAA baseball park was right behind the building.  So we took a walk around there.  Did you know, Micky Mantle was born in Oklahoma, Johnny Bench was born in Oklahoma City, and Warren Spahn wasn't born here, but he lived most of his life here claiming Oklahoma was the best place to live (Gerry almost wet his pants, as Spahn pitched for the Braves most, if not all, of his career).  So there are dedications to these 3 guys on 3 of the corners of the ball park.  And 2 of the streets are named after Bench and Mantle that go around the ball park.

Then we turned around and noticed Joe Carter Ave.  We thought, huh?  Sure enough.  He was born here in Oklahoma City too!  Well, wadda know.  No corner dedicated to him, although they're doing something on the 4th corner.



We found our truck, and took a drive to the State Capitol Building.  We just took a look.  Didn't stop to go inside, or anything.  Very impressive.

After we got back to our RV park, Gerard was chatting with a couple of guys.  One guy he talked with comes here regularly and told him that 2 years ago, a tornado tore this park apart!!!  Yikes!  No high winds expected while we're here, but we are in tornado country, for sure.

As if Oklahoma isn't bad enough for tornadoes, we're headed to Kansas next.  We'll be looking for Dorothy and Toto.