As we left the party, we felt a relief of not being the center of attention anymore.  It was just us.

So I just finished three days of nonstop fun and a few days of hangovers.  I got to play some golf with my boys and hang out with all of my college friends.  To top everything off, I was in my good friend's wedding.  I love coming to OKC.  I need to get alot of rest today because I'm about to board my flight to Munich for Oktoberfest.  It's going to be a few more days of debauchery and I love it. 

I headed up to OKC today to take part in one of my good college friend's wedding.  I'm looking forward to getting really stupid with my old college friends for a few days and playing some golf.

Today is our 40th Wedding Anniversary.  How have the years flown by so quickly?  Why isn't my daughter still a little girl?  Actually, I like the age I am right now ... I'd like it even better if gravity hadn't gotten such a strong hold on my bod!!! 

We spent much of the day visiting two of Oklahoma City's finest attractions: the deeply touching Oklahoma City National Memorial and the Museum of Art.  We had also planned to visit the Myriad Gardens/Crystal Bridge, but Jag was feeling a headache coming on while at the art museum.  We had not eaten anything since breakfast - with diabetes he should eat somewhat often.

The National Memorial, on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, is really an extremely emotional experience.  I could not fight down the tears, especially when looking at the fence with all of the stuffed toys and photographs left by visitors to honor those who died at 9:02 AM on April 19th, 1995.  It is beautiful and very tasteful, but it should never have had to be built.  168 men, women and children lost their lives because some nut case hated his government.  The Memorial also lists the names of those who survived the bombing.  I had noticed some of the names were lighter in color; the ranger on duty told me they were names added after the original carvings had been put on display.  Several survivors were so traumatized they wanted to put the horror behind them.  They had a change of heart later on, thus the lighter color of the carving.  They have not been subjected to as much weathering as the originals.

From the National Memorial, we drove a short distance to the wonderful Oklahoma City Museum of Art.  They have an amazing collection of glass art by Dale Chihuly and a temporary exhibit of Roman art from the Louvre in Paris.  It was also Family Day, so the building was filled with children getting their faces painted, getting to wear costumes from Roman times (although I saw only one), wearing "laurel wreaths" on their heads and making an incredible amount of noise.  It was wonderful!  The Roman exhibit was fascinating.  Two of the sculptures, both of Caesar Augustus, were familiar to me from photographs I have seen.  The busts and full sized statures are incredibly life-like.  It is obvious that they are true portraits.  Unlike the static (but beautiful) art of ancient Egypt, that of Rome, like the art of Greece, is very true.  The hair styles of the women were amazingly detailed, with braids and curls piled high.  Sadly, we were not allowed to take any photographs.

The Chihuly exhibit was fabulous.  As one enters the Museum, there stands the tallest glass creation Chihuly has ever done: 55 feet high, over three stories.  Sunlight makes it glow and all the colors make for great fun.  We could photograph the amazing glass works of art.  One of the museum guards warned us that we were not allowed to use flash photography.  He overheard me ask Jag if we could change the setting on the digital camera so as to enable us to photograph in the dark hall.  The guard called his supervisor and was told that, as long as we did not use flash on the paintings, we were free to click away to our hearts content.  Whew!  This is the largest permanent Dale Chihuly exhibit in the United States.  I am so glad we came to this museum.

We returned to our motel to relax and (for me) get extremely vexed by the shenanigans of this computer.  It is so slow and it jumps all over the place.  You can be typing something and, all of a sudden, the letters are appearing where they should not be.  Grrr!

We went to a restaurant called Cimmaron Steak House for, what else?, steak.  The service was very good, the restaurant had a lot of character and the prices were reasonable.  The big problem we had was with the green beans.  They came right out of a can, then were drenched with salt.  Inedible.

All in all, we had a really marvelous 40th anniversary.  I never expected Jag to present me with a greeting card, but he did!  It was a complete surprise.  That is one of the most romantic things he has ever done. 

We leave for Little Rock, Arkansas, tomorrow.  That means an early start, which means early to bed.  Nighty night.

After a very nice breakfast at our extremely cheap motel, we took off for Oklahoma.  The road across the panhandle of Texas is flat and straight as an arrow.  It reminds me of the trip on I-5 through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys (yawn!).  One can get mesmerized by the straight lines dividing the lanes.  However, there were a couple of interesting roadside sites: an old, abandoned water tower, leaning dangerously; and a cross of gigantic proportions.  Nothing is petite in Texas.  We could not stop to take photos - too bad.

At a rest area near McLean, Texas, we were wowed by the large size of the beautiful Art Deco architecture of the main building.  That is my favorite style and this place is really wonderful.  There are mosaics in the bathrooms (same in men's and women's) and I have taken a couple of pix - they are too big to fit in one frame! The interior looks almost like a train station from that time period (1930's and 1940's).

We made a short stop at the Devil's Rope and Route 66 Museumi n McLean.  It is not just about barbed wire ("devil's rope"), but about Texas ranching in general.  It was bigger than expected, but no so large as to take hours to see all of the exhibits.  I spent a few minutes speaking to a nice young man who is traveling to Oklahoma to chase tornados.  I hope we don't have to worry about that!  I must admit, though, I'd like to see one - from a safe distance of course.  The fellow was happy to speak about his personal life, tragedies and triumphs.  He was very interested when I told him about how I traveled on Route 66 as a child and teenager.  The Route 66 section of this little museum is small, but enjoyable.

We next stopped at the Oklahoma Welcome Center, another very large rest area.  It seems to be very new and it is beautiful.  They have oak doors and window casings that are thick and heavy.  The people at the counter, volunteers who give advice about traveling in Oklahoma, were absolutely delightful.  Jag and I spoke to them at length about the best places to visit in Oklahoma City.  They were very enthusiastic and the gentleman, in particular, had the wacky Oklahoma humor I so enjoy.  I think the whole state is made up of men with the wit of Will Rogers, a native son.  I took a photo of "Sam and Mira" with these two terrific people.

Shortly after leaving the Oklahoma Welcome Center, we crossed the famed Red River.  It truly lives up to its name.  It is the color of blood.  The earth all around this area is the same startling color.  The river is obviously stained by silt from the nearby land.   I don't recall ever having seen Oklahoma in the sunshine: the colors of the land are beautiful with a huge blue sky, green fields and that bright red earth.

Funny sign just outside of the town of Clinton, OK: "Last gas for 200 miles (just kidding!)".

Our motel in OKC is very nice.  It is only $50 per night and they include a hot breakfast buffet.  The room is pretty.  Despite being near the airport, the sound of the jets does not seem noticeable.  The temperature outside is not too bad, but the humidity is appalling!  I am not used to it at all.  If it bothers me here, what will it be like when we get to the Deep South?  Oy!

After a very good breakfast this morning which included hot waffles, cereal, toast, fruit, and even breakfast burritos, at the hotel we got on the road for a long day.

Our first stop was at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Plaza and Memorial. We didn’t actually stop to walk through the memorial area, but did take a few photos as we slowly drove around the block.

From there we drove another mile or two to the State Capitol Building where we got pictures of it also.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum was our final stop in Oklahoma City. I knew about this one from a little research I had done about the Sculpture entitled "End of the Trail" which shows an Indians on horseback, too exhausted to continue on. The town where I live has a full sized bronze replica of the original piece that this museum gave us in payment for the original which was showing signs of decay after sitting in the outdoor weather of the San Joaquin Valley for several years. The brought it back here to Oklahoma City, restored it to original and have it on display as a main feature as you walk into the site. It is very impressive. Photos are only allowed in the outer corridors, so we only got a few, but they were of some nice pieces. Statues of Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, and even Abraham Lincoln were on display. The galleries had some wonderful art work and photographs. We could have spent much more time here.

How do you begin a review of The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum on Oklahoma City? Well I happened to hear about it because in the town where I now live, Visalia, California we have a statue of the “End of the Trail”, a very famous large statue. When I looked into it I found that the original was purchased from the folks here at the Museum and replaced ours with a copy in bronze. They took the original and restored it to its full glory and placed it in the entry area to their wonderful large museum. Naturally, I felt a need to come and see it myself. This huge museum features some superb collections from classic and contemporary western artists. The exhibit wing houses a turn-of-the-century town and interactive history galleries that focus on the American cowboy, rodeos, Native American culture, Victorian firearms, frontier military and western performers. Outside is a Children’s Cowboy Corral which includes an interactive area. This museum tells the story of how Cowboys and Indians moved, lived, interacted, and shows in fine art, firearms, and Native America objects the history of the west. Their awards Hall of Fame include: Western Performers from Film, Television and stage Great Westerners which includes over 200 men and women who have contributed to the Western heritage over their lifetimes. Rodeo inductees since 1955 Western Heritage Awards Chester A Reynolds Awards Ben Johnson Memorial Awards Tad Lucas Awards Pictures are only allowed in certain areas, along the corridors. Entry fee $10 for adults, $8.50 for Seniors, Students with ID $8.50, children 6-12 $4.50, and Rugrats (5 and under) free Take your time here. You will discover many things you didn’t know before.

The Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial was incredible. It was a very touching and emotional experience. I took my 14 year old sister who was only a year old when the bombing happened and what an experience for her! It went though from the minute right before the bombing to the minute right after. It had touching stories from survivors and even stories from the family members of the deceased. It went through and explained the trial and how law enforcement tried to find evidence. The outside grounds are free to walk around and to walk through the museum is around $10 per person.

What attracted us to Rococo was that it is not only a restaurant but also a wine bar. My husband and I are always up for a nice dinner with a glass of fine wine every now and then. Their food was delicious and the wine list was excellent. The best trick is to ask the waiter what wine he or she suggests. Dinner was accompanied by a live jazz band. For desert they served cannolis, one of our favorite desserts. We met the owner Bruce Rinehart, a native of Connecticut, this place is a must visit for Oklahoma City.

This was our first time ever at a fondue restaurant. I have to admit that I did NOT expect the food to be that great. I thought the idea of a fondue restaurant was nothing more than a tourist gimmick. The Melting Pot in Oklahoma City's Bricktown really exceeded my expectations. We sat at a seat right in front of a big picture window that allowed us to people watch every one that walked by. First we started off with a cheese fondue as an appetizer, it had a beer base and Wisconsin cheese, we had bread, carrots, and apples to dip in the cheese. The main course meal was steak, lobster tail, shrimp and chicken with a caribbean fondue broth, it was AMAZING! And for dessert we had the chocolate and peanut butter fondue that took my breath away. We had cheesecake, cherries, strawberries, rice krispy treats, and bananas to dip in the chocolate. I highly recommend this restaurant not only for it's food but also for it's great location in Bricktown.

The Haunted House is considered to be a "private" steakhouse. It was voted the most romantic restaurant in Oklahoma City. Our total dinning experience was about two hours, which made it nice to sit and relax and enjoy a few cocktails. The menu only has a few select choices, all are excellent and recommended. The salads are big and filling and so are the deserts. The average price runs about $19-$32 a plate. The reason I considered the price above average is because you can go to Applebee's and pay about $15-$20 for a plate. The food was excellent, the atmosphere was great, and the service was incredible. I recommend this restaurant to anyone. Please be patient when trying to find this restaurant, it is not available on a GPS. Even though it is hard to find it is worth getting lost for.

My sister, Shari's birthday is June 22nd, so we took our families to the OKC Zoo on the 21st. It was a gorgeous morning, but let me tell you... the first day of summer is a ridiculous day to go to the zoo. It was so flaming hot that I threatened to go home. A lot. The OKC Zoo may be missing a few things... a decent train, elephants, but the one place it has the Tulsa Zoo beat, is the misters. God Bless 'em. I love misters.

They had more than one train. The red antique looking train, that did a small loop in the front part of the zoo, the tram that goes around most of the zoo, but only runs every 30 minutes (We missed this twice and waited over an hour to get on it.), and the kiddie train that does a little circle and made me so nauseous I almost threw up after the kid let us ride around for the twelfth time.

Pathetically, we never got to the monkeys or the cats. All I wanted to see were the gorillas and lions, but with three families in tow, I was lucky I made it to the sea lion show. (That was kind of forced on them. I was so hot in the aquarium, that when I got to the top floor and saw it was about to start, I just sat down and waited for the fam to come find me.)

There were no elephants, and won't be until 2010. Leave it to me to go to the zoo that doesn't have them, but find out they're in the Tulsa Zoo for mating purposes.

We had taken coolers full of food and left them in the designated area. We headed for the spot that had covered park benches to eat. It was horrific under there! There was no breeze and it must have been 10-15 degrees hotter than it was standing out in the sun.

There was a radio station next to the eating area, and they weren't playing "kid friendly" music. Instead, they were blaring Snoop Dogg and other such inappropriate music.

The kids loved the play area. There were slides and swings and bridges. We rode the carousel and the kiddie train.

The misters were a life saver. Seriously... I don't sweat, so I get overheated easily. If they hadn't had the misters, I surely would have had a heat stroke.

The sea lion show was cheesy, but it's geared towards kids, so it's kind of understandable. And it did have a positive message about recycling.

On the 7.5 hour drive from Memphis to OKC, we passed through Arkansas. I wish I had something interesting to write, but nothing. We did pass by several signs for state parks, and had it not been 102 degrees or if we didn't need to be in OKC by a certain time, it would've been nice to stop and explore a park or two. Arkansas calls itself the Natural State, which really made no sense to us until we passed by several lakes in a strikingly green, hilly area. Next time we do a drive like this, we're lugging our kayaks so we can stop and explore lakes and rivers at our leisure.

Oklahoma has proved an interesting state so far. From time to time, I saw small oil rigs on the right side of the road. I've never seen an oil rig before and found it odd that they're actually really small and work on their own without human supervision. Do computers supervise the rigs with no one around? Else how do they know when the rig strikes oil?

We passed through several Indian reservations, which was unexpected as well. I've passed by reservations before in Arizona but never driven through them. I had no idea that interstates were even allowed to pass though them. Shows what I know! George got a little confused when we passed through a Seminole reservation, since he's from Florida and thought that Seminoles were the only Indian tribe to refuse to leave Florida for the midwest. Actually, I just looked up Seminole on wikipedia and found out they were forced West with the rest of the tribes but about 300 to 500 stayed in the Everglades to fight. Very interesting.

We stopped at one travel plaza/casino about an hour east of Oklahoma City. We had passed by a Seminole Nation cop who was peering into our car as he passed us and then waved. We thought that was kinda weird, but he seemed friendly enough with the wave. A few minutes later we say him kick up dirt as he sped into a U-turn to head down the other part of the interstate. So when I was in the convenience store at the travel plaza buying some water, I saw this policeman talking with the cashier. He made some gestures and then I heard him exclaim, "And these people are from Maryland!" That was so funny to be recognized as a minor celebrity. He waved at us again as we drove out of the parking lot.

The anthropologist in me really really wants to explore an Indian reservation. I was telling George that I'd love to work on one near San Diego, so we'll see how that goes. I would to learn tribe traditions and learn what they think is important to them. One time I stopped at a gas station in Arizona and was invited by the clerk to an Apache reservation for a party that night, but I was driving from the Grand Canyon to Phoenix, a young single girl and my instincts said that as fun as that sounds, it probably wasn't the best idea to accept. I think about that invitation from time and time and kinda wish I had felt safe enough to go, but otherwise, it's only served to pique my interest more in reservation life. Plus, I'm part Scagticoke Indian (Connecticut), so the interest seems natural no matter which way you look at it. At least to me it does. ;0)

Enough about that! George and I are waiting around for a couple we haven't met yet to pick us up at the hotel and take us out on the town tonight. So looking forward to that!!

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Kristin and Chris came to pick us up for dinner and a tour of OKC. I met Kristin on kaboodle.com, and we seemed to share a lot in common, so it was neat to get to know her in person. Kristin and Chris are very cool couple, and they warmly welcomed us to OKC. They took us to Abuelo's, a Tex Mex restaurant in Bricktown, which is a renovated warehouse section of the city. We spent a good couple of hours chatting away, eating tasty Tex Mex and drinking really yummy margaritas. This is embarrassing, but I had burnt my tongue a couple days earlier by chewing sticks of Big Red gum for several hours. So I had to stay away from the adobe sauce on my chicken and anything else even slightly spicy, which was really too bad considering how much I enjoy spicy food. I have now learned to stay away from Big Red--who knew it could burn your tongue?!

After our entertaining dinner, they took us on a driving tour of OKC. We stopped at the Federal Building Memorial, which was quite striking at night. What impacted me the most was going past the fence behind the memorial where people have stuck flowers and remembrances in the chain links. I think some of the items belonged to the victims, including a book bag. I saw one 8x10 portait of a young woman attached to the fence, too. Very very sad. George and I had an interesting conversation with Kristin and Chris about living in DC when the Pentagon was hit on 9/11, and it was really eye opening to get another perspective of a city in horror and shock and then mourning, especially as Kristin is from OKC and worked downtown at the time of the bombing. So sad that we've had to live through these events, but I guess that's just life.

They also took us to Braun's, a local chain of ice cream shops. I guess that's not even a detailed enough description, as the store included a market, which was unexpected. We sat at a booth and talked some more. We have so much in common, and it's a shame that we could only spend a few hours with them instead of several days. They continued to drive us around pointing out landmarks and describing the local color until we reached our hotel. It was just after midnight, and George and I were completely exhausted but really really glad we met them.

Bricktown is a section in Oklahoma City that is unique for a downtown area. Located near the Ford Center (OKC's sport venue), Bricktown is home to the Oklahoma City Redhawks baseball team (Texas Ranger AAA affiliate), Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar And Grill," a deluxe movie theater, several of the Oklahoma City's best night clubs and bars, and of course a canal that offers canal boat rides for a fee. The overall landscape is conducive for a fun night on the town for any age. Musicians can be found around the area at venues like the Bricktown Ballroom and during the Christmas season there are horse drawn carriage rides available for hire. There are restaurants to fit any budget, ranging from Sonic to Red Pin, a restaurant where elegance meets bowling (who would have thought?) Overall Bricktown is a rare treat in the middle of a city that is not afforded the usual variety of a larger urban center.

Forgive me if I am a bit biased about the Will Rogers world Airport.  I would probably like any place named for someone I greatly admire and quote often.

"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by" - Will Rogers

However my bias for Will Rogers is offset by my dislike for Oklahoma City so believe me when I tell you they have a really nice little airport.  It's well laid out, has a great food court and a really big bar.

I hope to wander through here again some day soon.