Oklahoma City: A Pleasant Surprise

On Wednesday morning, we drove from Amarillo to Oklahoma City. We drove through crazy rain and lightning (good job, Jordan!). The only thing I was looking forward to about Oklahoma City was seeing our friends, the Jordans. But I found that I really enjoyed the area. After meeting up with Adaryll, Jen, Elias and Elena, our first stop was the Oklahoma City National Memorial. Hands down, this is the most amazing memorial ever. It is beautifully designed and not only honors those who were killed in 1995, but also survivors and rescue workers. More on that later...

Jordan, Elias, Meg, Elena, Steph

It started sprinkling again while we were at the memorial, and soon it was pretty much pouring down rain. (Oops. Flip flops were not a good choice.) We ended up waiting under a shelter for a trolley and after what seemed like forever, it finally came to pick us up. We headed to Bricktown, a fun area that includes a canal, baseball stadium, restaurants, shops, etc. (much like Indy). We had dinner at Coach's, a restaurant that overlooks the ballpark. 

Adaryll, Elias, Meg, Jess, Jordan, Mark, Steph, Elena, Jen

After dinner we had a good catch-up chat with Adaryll, then went back to Bricktown for a drink at Toby Keith's bar. I really kind of fell in love with Bricktown. Out of all the cities we've visited, this is probably the only one in which I could see myself living. (Don't worry, I'm not packing my bags anytime soon, although I did decide I could work at the Sonic headquarters and live in a great little condo above a Starbucks on the canal.)

I wanted to see the memorial at night, when it's lit up, so Jordan, Mark and I walked back to it after Toby Keith's. I am definitely glad we went back. The memorial has a chair for each person who was killed that day, and at night, the chairs light up. You can see the name of the person the chair represents. There are larger chairs for adults, and smaller ones for the children who were killed. The chairs are arranged in nine rows, representing the nine floors of the building, and each person's chair is in the row corresponding to the floor in which they were on when the bomb went off. In front of the chairs is a reflecting pool, so when you walk to the other side you see the reflection of the lit chairs. I don't think my explanation is coming anywhere near to doing it justice, but I really was just in awe of the whole thing. If you're ever in the area, be sure to visit!

Thanks, Oklahoma. I didn't realize you had so much to offer.