On to Oklahoma City!

We didn't start moving too early this morning as our trip to Oklahoma City wouldn't take all day. We stopped for fuel and lunch and still arrived around 3 PM. Pulling into the Twin Fountains RV Park, this all felt so familiar. It should...we spent a month here one day! The last time we were here, the engine blew on our truck, grandson Sean and I flew home, leaving the dogs and Rick here alone to arrange for truck repair. The concrete here at the RV Park still shows the stain where the oil drained out of our truck! During that 'adventure', we both became familiar with the cool things to do in OK City. Who knew??

The temperature rose all day and was about 80 this afternoon. We hung out at the RV Park, then went to dinner near the Stockyards at the infamous Cattlemen's restaurant. MMM... Steak! We waited 30 minutes to get in and meanwhile shopped in the nearby western store: any kind of boots, cowboy hats, shirts, etc. that you might want. Ted wore his cowboy boots so he was the only one of us that fit in. Lots of Real Cowboys wearing crisply starched shirts and Wranglers, (expensive)boots and dinner-plate belt buckles. Cattlemen's isn't a flashy restaurant, just a great steak and taters. Oh, and homemade rolls. Ted's strict meat-free diet got traded-in tonight for a small steak. Though we all enjoyed ours, I'm sure his steak was especially memorable.

After dinner we walked around downtown OK City, the Bricktown area. They are in the process of revializing the downtown with a fairly new canal (a la San Antonio), Minor League Baseball stadium, and Oklahoma Thunder (formerly Seattle Supersonics) NBA arena. We saw several prom-goers on their way to dinner. We decided to skip the canal boat ride and horse drawn carriage and headed to the National Memorial at the Murrah Federal Building.

Rick and I previously visited the Memorial at night. The lights of the Memorial make it at once moving and eerie. We arrived this time just at dusk. Entering the gates is a somber experience and seeing the field of empty chair monuments reinforces the great loss. Most disturbing are the small chairs, signifying the children killed. Words cannot effectively express what we all were feeling. I guess that's why we quietly walked around the reflecting pool to the survivor tree, trying to imagine how this happened. I won't try to describe it with words but hope you will visit their website as a reminder of the upcoming anniversary: http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/