12 Apr 2019 - Oklahoma City National Memorial, Preparing to Leave OK City

12 Apr 2019

Today we drove downtown Oklahoma City to visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.  Luckily we found parking right across the street from the museum.

The museum from across the street

Kids around the world created these images that were converted into tiles.

We walked to the museum but not through it, unfortunately.  I just cannot do it at this point.  I was able to hobble to the memorial park and then I sat near the reflecting pool while Doreen walked around and looked at the area.

The reflecting pool.  The stone walk was created from stones from the original building.

This whole memorial area and museum is a tribute to the lives lost and impacted when on 19 Apr 1995 at 0902 hrs in an act of domestic terrorism, a huge fertilizer bomb in the back of a Ryder truck detonated.  It destroyed the major portion of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building,  killing 168 people, injuring over 680 others.  The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other building in a 16 block radius of the downtown area. 

The memorial consists of 168 chairs arranged in nine rows that reflect the floor where the victim was working or visiting.  Each chair is etched with the name of the person killed. 163 were killed inside the building and of the 163, 19 smaller chairs represent the children killed who were in the daycare portion of the building, and the other five chairs represent those killed outside the building.   

A peaceful and respectful memorial. 

The names are etched into the clear base of each chair, and they are base-illuminated at night

At the top of this doorway is inscribed 9:01, which represents the innocence before the attack.

At the opposite end and atop this doorway is inscribed 9:03 and marks when the healing began. 
The attack was at 9:02

This American Elm tree stands at the highest point of the memorial and is called the 'Survivor Tree', as it survived when everything around it was burning or destroyed.  It is a symbol of strength and resilience.

In front of the tree are steps where you can sit and reflect.

As stated before, we were not able to visit the museum.  I would like to come back here next time and do so.

We headed back to the RV park and stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings for a late lunch.  Neither of us had been to B-Dubs for a long time.  It was very good.  We fueled the truck and returned to the RV to watch the Chicago Cubs vs the Los Angeles Angels baseball game.  We also made preparations to depart early in the morning due to impending weather.

Next report, Lawrence KS.