Oklahoma: National Cowboy & Western Museum, Oklahoma City Memorial & Museum

From Austin we decided to go to Oklahoma City, OK, it was about a % hour drive. We were about 40 miles from Oklahoma City when we got our first TORNADO warning. We were lucky enough to be listening to the local radio (by this part of the trip we were pretty tired of the ipod) when the weather center broke in through with the warning. We had been watching the lightning storm while we were driving but hadn’t hit any rain yet and to be honest hadn’t even thought about tornados. Well the man on the radio starts naming off the counties the warnings are in and which way the storm is heading, so I scrabble to find the county names on the map and figure out where the heck the storm is compared to where we were headed. Just as I am finding the counties on the map he saws the name of the highway we are on the the mile marker number, which was oh only 10 miles north of us and we were going to be driving right through it. Luckily the storm was heading southeast and we were heading northwest, so we missed it. But I can tell you this I had never been so scared of weather in my life up until this point (it would get worse later…) We made it safely through the night and headed to an RV park just north of Oklahoma City to hook up and get cleaned up. The next day we hit up to really great museums in OK City. The first one was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. This museum was awesome! We got to enjoy some amazing local art and contemporary art from over the years. There were these five huge murals in one of their exhibit halls. You would not believe their size, I had Joe stand in front of one while I took a picture so you could get a sense of their grandeur. There were also some amazing statues , one named “The End of the Trail” was just breathtaking. It was of a Native American Indian warrior sitting on his horse in kind of a bent over position. It was beautiful, so critics thought it put Native Americans in a bad light because you could say that the warrior looks like he is defeated, but from my perspective it was moving and I did not get a sense of defeat. What was amazing was the story of how the statue came together and how it ended up in the museum. When Joe first saw the statue in a photograph in one of our travel books he said that it looked familiar and when we got to read the story of how the statue came to be it made sense why he recognized it. The statue was actually on display in Visalia, CA (which is the town right next to where Joe grew up) for many years. We went through a few painting and sculpture galleries and then got to the history section of the museum. Here we learned about Cowboys and Indians. They had an entire section devoted to Western Films and also a section devoted to the Rodeo. I did not think that I was going to enjoy the museum as much as Joe would, but I really did. We were very lucky to be able to take as many photos as we did.
After the National Cowboy museum we went to the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum, which was dedicated after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The experience put you through all the emotions associated with death. It was weird to feel all these things and know no one who was actually killed or hurt by the bombing. The memorial was very moving, even just by it’s size. The memorial covered not only the area where the federal building once stood, but a parking lot that was across the street as well. We saw just a glimpse of the memorial as we headed into the building where the museum was held. (since I am so behind on these blogs I cannot remember which building it was that the museum was in, but it was basically two buildings away from the federal building, on the same side the bomb went off) Let me give you a little background on the bombing, in case you do not know or do not remember what happened. (this might sound a little cheesy, but bare with me) It started like any other day on April 19th,1995, people got ready for work, dropped their kids off at school and daycare, and headed into the office to start their work day. The Federal building housed many different government agencies, from the CIA, FBI, to social services, and housing development. They even had a children’s daycare for the children of the people who worked there. At 9:02 am the bomb went off, after investigations, they figured out that a Ryder moving truck was parked directly in front of the building and this was what housed the bomb. They bomb blew off about 1/3 of the building, and they shocks were felt up to 2 miles away. Many people were instantly killed, but most were not. After they came to and began to figure out what had just happened to them, they got their bearings together and tried to figure out what to do next. Some were able to escape from the back side of the building, some were stranded on the 6th & 7th floors. In the hours that came after the bombing, the humanity that was shown was astonishing. All emergency agencies (EMS, Fire, Police, Red Cross, etc) came as soon as they heard. The first action was to rescue all the people they could, an hour and a half after the bomb went off there was a bomb scare and all people had to evacuate. Once they were allowed back in the rescuing continued. Local nurses and doctors came in by the hundreds to help, they set up mini clinics to asses injuries and send the worst hurt people straight to the hospitals. Emergency agencies from other states came in to help, the story of the humanity and the community coming together put hope back in your heart that people could learn to live together in this world. The museum took you through the timeline of what I just described to you. They actually have the bombing on audio tape. In a building right next to the federal building they were having a local hearing about water rights and they taped the hearing which in turn got the bombing on tape. They sat you in a room and you got to listen to it go off, shocks you right to the core. After you listen to the bombing you go through a series of rooms that have the events played out in order. They have some of the rubble, personal items from the children and workers they found on display. The timeline and the stories were very moving, to read about how people acted and reacted restored a sense of community in you. It brought one sad thought to mind, why does an incredible tragedy have to occur for people to come together with such force?
After the timeline it goes into the investigation. They actually had pieces of the Ryder truck that they found on display, with maps of where they found them. They found the axle of the truck, 3 blocks away! Gives you a little perspective of the destruction the bomb caused. Investigators were very lucky when it came to catching Timothy McVeigh, he had been pulled over by local police only 2 hours away from OK City. He was arrested for illegal gun possession and taken to the local jail. Once investigators had followed the leads and gotten to Timothy McVeigh all they had to do was go get him from the local police…
The entire story and investigation was very thought provoking, it was good we went through the museum and then went out and walked around the memorial, you got to then collect your thoughts and come back to the reality of your day, not April 19th 1995.
The memorial as I said before was very moving just in it’s size. They took the lot where the federal building was and the adjacent parking lot and dedicated it all to this memorial. On both ends of the memorial stood these huge square arched entry ways, they had 9:01, 9:02, and 9:03 written on them. These stand for the time when OK City was innocent and unknowing (9:01), the time the bomb went off (9:02), and the time that they would be changed forever (9:03). Between the two entry ways was a large long reflecting pool and then on one side was a grassy area with empty chairs. The chairs stood for all those that were lost in the bombing. On the opposite side of the reflecting pool was a huge tree, the Survivor tree. The story about this tree is awesome. It was in the parking lot across the street from the federal building, not only did it survive the blast, but only had a few branches burned. It is in the exact place it was that day. After the bombing they nursed it back to good health and harvested some of the seedlings, after 9/11 one of the seedlings was given to the city of New York. The entire experience was so moving, Joe and I were very quiet for the rest of the day.
From here we headed to Tulsa, OK, and into another storm.