Day One

This trip started off with the premise that we hadn't seen much of Oklahoma. We've been along the east side of the state on our way to and from Dallas where we have family but have never explored much of the rest of the state. So we set off south without any real definitive plans but a list of places we would like to see if in "the vicinity." 

Our first stop was at the National Memorial, site of the infamous bombing of the Murray Federal Building. In the photo above, the street was turned into a reflecting pool and the chairs in the grassy area to the right are memorials to the victims set in the remains of the building's footprint. 

It was a very touching memorial, especially when one gazes upon the small chairs representing the children that died in the blast. Many had change laid upon them and a quick tabulation of the amounts, told me many were to symbolize how many years had passed since their deaths, i.e. many had 26 cents to denote the 26 years since the bombing.

The chairs were arranged in rows to denote the floor the person worked on and in groups to denote offices. One solitary row of five, denoted the people who died outside of the building in the blast, something I had never heard or really thought about.

The remains of the Murray building's foundation were still around parts of the memorial.

Across the street was a large American Elm tree, heavily damaged in the blast but was able to survive. It is now denoted as the Survivor Tree.

Graffiti left by a rescue squad in that aftermath of the explosion that is still visible today.

We arrived at the Memorial to late too get tickets to enter into the museum but I wasn't too broken up about that. I still have the memory of that day and subsequent days of rescue and shared them with my kids who took the initiative later to read up on the subject. 

Due to Covid restrictions, we had to purchase tickets to this next place and then wait an hour before we were allowed to enter this funky artist shop. We walked across the street to eat at a burger joint, (more on that in a future post) and then were allowed in after masking up and sanitizing.

I'm not sure how to describe this place. It essentially is an art piece you can walk into and experience, touch and interact with. It was made by a group of artists and divided off into areas though the boundaries were really blurred. We essentially just wandered here and there enjoying the experience and letting the kids roam.

There were no signs or explanations of what you were looking at so one had to just use your imagination.

Sometimes I had to take a step back to even really understand what I was looking at and even then, I wasn't sure what it meant such as this flower growing up through the laces of a giant boot.

Blurry picture of a room with popcorn all over the wall.

Towards the end of the experience, there was a room comprised mostly of paper fish that visitors had colored and added to the display to make you feel like you were among a populated reef.

Including a shark on patrol above.

 Finally I thought I would leave you with some graffiti my youngest left on the paper covered tables where we colored our fish to add to the display. Seems she was excited for an upcoming stop we had promised her.