Photo Journal Day 5: Wednesday

Today we blew out of Texas and into Oklahoma through torrential rains. Because of the weather, we didn't stop to get photos of a whole lot of places, and we were pretty sure the day would be a complete wash. However, we did get in a few things, and ultimately, we were pleasantly surprised by our ultimate destination of Oklahoma City, OK.

Photo highlights are below:

Jess navigates us through the remaining portion of Texas.

Just before crossing the Oklahoma border, we stopped at the "Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere."

Additionally, there were several other depictions of Jesus carrying the cross. This is my attempt at getting an artsy photo despite the dreary skies.




This is the famous leaning water tower!

At one point, we attempted to find the ruins of Jericho, TX. This took us on a dirt road. We never really did find them (or if we did, they were very small) and ended up turning around.

This stretch of the road is still the original Portland Concrete!

(See what I mean about light on pictures today?)

This old Conoco gas station reminded me of one of the buildings depicted in the movie Cars.

(That movie inspired this trip!)

The elusive "Welcome to Oklahoma" sign. We were well into Oklahoma before we found one of these! This one was at a gas station.

On our way to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which is four blocks from our hotel.

The entrance arch into the memorial.

The illuminated chairs - one for every person who perished in the bombing.

The pictures don't quite do this memorial justice. It really is a solemn, yet beautiful memorial.

There are nine rows of chairs, one row for each floor of the building.

Two giant archways frame the memorial on each end. This represents the minute just prior to the bombing, when the city still had it's innocence.

At the other end, this represents the minute immediately following the blast, when the city was forever changed.

All things considered, I found Oklahoma City and the memorial to be the highlights of my day. Not only is the memorial very well done, but the city itself reminds me a lot of Indianapolis, in that it has a pretty decent nightlife, it's pretty close together, and there's even a canal running through it. It only serves as a reminder that we'll be back home soon.

Thanks for following us on this journey!