Day 5- Oklahoma City: We decided to head home by way of Oklahoma (we went through Arkansas on our way TO Missouri). We left Springfield, MO late that Sunday morning and made our way to Oklahoma City.
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| We rotated drivers throughout the trip. On the way to Oklahoma City I was the backseat passenger (which meant I got to stretch out and read a book. Oh, and take a selfie.). :) |
Our main stop in Oklahoma was to visit the
Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. This museum takes you through the story of April 19, 1995, the day that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed and 168 people lost their lives. I was a junior in high school that day and can remember some guy walking in late to second period and announcing that a federal building had been bombed in Oklahoma. My high school had TVs in all the classrooms so my teacher turned it on and we watched the story unfold on the news. I don't think we watched it in every class, but some teachers had the TVs on all day.
This museum is great. I'll be honest- it's hard to go through, especially if you can clearly remember that day (even if you don't remember that day, it's still sad). I'll be honest- I cried through some of it. But I wasn't alone. Pretty much everyone wiped their eyes a few times while walking around.
I didn't take that many pictures (too wrapped up in the emotions of it all), but I did get a few.
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| There is one chair for every person killed in the bombing. The smaller chairs represent the 19 children killed. |
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| This is the little girl seen in that famous picture of the firefighter carrying a small child from the building. |
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| The steps that once led up to the federal building are still there. I took a moment to think about the victims and the fact they probably walked up those very stairs that morning, unaware it would be the last time. |
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| This grassy area was once the playground for the daycare. |
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| Debris taken from the building before it was demolished. The clock in the back is frozen on the time that the bomb went off. |
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| Some displays only have a light on for about 15 seconds and then it goes off for about 30 seconds (something to do with preserving the artifacts). This display was dark when I walked up to it and a man was standing next to me. When the light came on and we saw the little shoe of one of the children killed, the man and I looked at each other and we both had tears in our eyes. |
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| A sign one of the survivors held up to the window as he waited to be rescued. |
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| The vehicle Timothy McVeigh was driving when he was stopped and eventually arrested |
After an emotional two hours, we decided to make one more stop in OKC before heading to Texas. The first day of our road trip we stopped at the Arkansas state capitol and on the last day we stopped at the Oklahoma state capitol. That brought our state capitol total to four.
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| Why yes, I WAS wearing a Texas shirt in front of the Oklahoma capitol. |
We finally got back to Dallas about 10:30 that night. I was sad the trip was over but SO HAPPY to finally sleep in my own bed. I'm the person who loves a good trip, but is so ready to get home when it's over.
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| Happy to be home! |
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| Our mini road trip took us a total of 1,655 miles! |
That's it! After five weeks, I FINALLY got a recap of a simple five-day road trip posted. Lol. I hope that it won't take me as long to give my Chicago recap. I fly out next week! If you follow me on
Twitter or
Instagram, I'll be posting there during my trip! Yes, that's a shameless plug to follow me on social media. Lol. I can be found at both sites under the handle Averyfan. :)
If you missed any of the AMERT2016 recap, click below for the other posts.
XOXO!
I cannot imagine the emotions of seeing all that stuff. Wow. So sad. I was a freshman in high school when the happened & I don't remember watching it in class but I do remember talking about it.
ReplyDeleteYou know what, I was not following you on Instagram! :o I am now though.
Have a good weekend! :)