OKLAHOMA CITY

I hit the heavy rain when I got to Oklahoma City.
The only state capitol building with an oil derrick on site.
Welcome to another depressing museum, the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.
The museum is located in a building that was next to where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood. Just a few letters from the sign on the building were recovered.
The building where the Oklahoma Water Resources Board was located was about a hundred or so yards up the street from the explosion. There is a room that you go through before most of the exhibits where the doors close and you have a seat. In the room is a meeting table with a recording device on it to simulate what would have been in the actual room on the morning of April 19, 1995. Then a recording plays of the beginning of that morning's mediation. Then you listen to the relatively mundane recording. And you wait and wait with excruciating tension as you know something bad is coming. With each second that passes you know it is more and more near. Then all of the sudden the huge explosion from across the street is heard. The last thing on the recording that plays before the exit doors open is attorney Cynthia Lou Klaver saying “Everybody get out… out!”
The clock stopped at 9:02.
The federal seal from the Murrah Building.
This is the sign Joe Chicoraske made to let people know that he was alive and trapped nine floors up.
I don't recall if these are parts of the rental truck that exploded or some other nearby vehicle.
This plate was on that Ryder truck.
There is a room with photos of those who lost their lives in the attack, along with some little thing they owned. The saddest ones are the photos on those narrow separating walls. Those were the children in the daycare center.
Timothy McVeigh's yellow 1977 Mercury Grand Marquis getaway car. He was pulled over less than eighty minutes following the explosion north of Perry, Oklahoma for driving a vehicle without a license plate. He also had weapons in the car.
I can't tell you how many dealer badges for Fort Lauderdale Lincoln Mercury I have seen in my life, but this is the last place I expected to see one.
This destruction is the result of the bombing and is typical of what occurred inside the Journal Record Building, the building where the museum is located. This particular spot is about 250 feet north and west of Ground Zero. At the time of the bombing, it was a men's restroom. The windows were blown in, walls crumbled and ceilings collapsed. 312 buildings across downtown Oklahoma City sustained damage. Fourteen were in such ruin that they had to be torn down.
The Survivor Tree. It was located in the parking lot across the street from the Murrah Building. While the blast tore off most of its branches, it survived and flourished, an apt symbol for the city following the tragedy.
According to the little sign next to the writing on the building that now houses the museum: A rescue worker originally painted the message on this wall during search and rescue efforts in April 1995. The building on which it is painted was a functioning office building when the bomb exploded across the street. Ceilings collapsed, walls fell in and class shards flew throughout the building. Hundreds of people were injured, many critically. Fortunately, no one was killed inside this building.
The reflecting pool runs along what once was Fifth Street next to the federal building.
The Field of Empty Chairs. There are 168 of them, representing those who lost their lives. Nineteen of them are small chairs for the children who were killed and three unborn children are listed on the chairs of their would-have-been mothers.
The Gates of Time flank each end of the Reflecting Pool, each with a time stamp. This one, 9:01, represents the last moment of peace.
9:03 marks the first moments of recovery.
Part of the foundation of the doomed building.
Looking back from the explosion site to the building where the museum is located.
The site where such horrors took place is peaceful now.
Well enough depressing stuff. After the visit I headed to the hotel.
A nice room.
Sometimes I am lucky to catch a soccer match on my travels. I didn't really anticipate doing so on this trip but before I left I saw that USL Championship club OKC Energy had a home match that Sunday at Taft Stadium, a WPA project built in 1934. This outer wall looks like it is all that is left of the original structure.
It is second-tier American soccer, so they don't exactly play in a palace. In fact, the stadium is owned by the Oklahoma City Public Schools.
Looking back toward downtown, there is the storm that I dealt with earlier in the day moving out of the area.
Okay. so my record for the home team when I attend matches was six wins, three draws and no losses coming into this game. OKC gave up a late equalizer, leading to a 2-2 draw. So my record is now 6-4-0. Disappointing, but I am still undefeated.
Fortunately I had my Google Maps open to guide my drive back to the hotel. There was a lot of dark red ahead of me but I was able to take an alternative route. I got on the highway entrance ramp right about where this wreck took place. So no major delay for me.

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