Road Trip Day 1

My friend Anna and I have been on a roadtrip timed with all the shitty weather going on. Reminder, I am from coastal California where the weather stays a comfortable 73 degrees year round. Through Flagstaff it snowed.. hard. The snow came towards our windshield and not straight down. It was very mesmerizing which probably wasn't great when trying to navigate icey roads. In New Mexico, we contended with snow, ice rain, and rain. Texas, where everything is big, had rain drops so big that it seemed as if the clouds were just puking. Ofcourse, we were under the impression that it was SPRING and so dressed for spring weather. Anna even wore crocs. The warmest thing either one of us had were UNLV sweatshirts. Not only were we not that warm, but since we walked around coordinated, we looked like a happy gay couple.

In Oklahoma we stopped at the Oklahoma Bombing Memorial, and it was quite moving. A fence outside the memorial had momentos that brought life to the names of the people who died.




Right outside archway to Memorial:

Once inside, the memorial consists of several components. Two archways display the time of the minute before the bomb, and the minute after. Inbetween the two sits a relecting lake.





To the side of the reflecting pool are chairs-- one representing each life lost with smaller chairs for the children in the daycare of the builidng.


The chairs are sorted by floor and arranged to match up to the footprint of the building. At night the glass part of the chairs light up to illuminate the name of each victim. The ranger explained that during the day the chairs should appear floating. They represent the whole of the lost, while at night seeing the individual names.



Part of the building still stands behind the chairs.

The tree in the background is over 60 years old, but survived the blast. Behind that is the museum. The windows that were blown out just got boarded up. Any that survived the blast were blacked out.

Across the street, a Jesus statue weeps.

After, for dinner, we went to Bricktown, a retail area with canals running through. We wanted to walk around, but the weather was still way too cold and dreary. Overall, we really enjoyed Oklahoma City. It was a pleasant surprised after driving through Tulsa.


After dinner we left Oklahoma for Texas where evidently they don't plow.