Good Morning Oklahoma! We all slept well in our downtown apartment, although when the dog groomer next door got going at 6:45am, we were a little grumpy… thankfully we were able to go back to sleep. After a lazy breakfast with our donuts and coffee from the grocery store yesterday, we headed out. We spent today on two ends of the vacation spectrum: Memorial/Museums and Waterparks.

Our apartment is only a 5-minute walk to the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. The Museum is in the footprint and beside the former Alfred Murrah Federal Building. As we approached, there are 2 standing walls on opposite ends of the plaza one labeled 9:01am and 9:03am, the moments surrounding when the bomb was detonated with a peaceful reflecting pool in between.

The lawn covers the exact footprint of the federal building and the chairs represent everyone killed in the explosion. The little chairs were the most heart wrenching because they represented a child killed in the explosion.

The museum itself is housed in the Journal Record Building, still showing damage from the blast.

The museum is extremely well done and starts with the mundane day that started like any other. One exhibit took you into the Water Resources Board who were recording their hearing on April 19, 1995. As the hearing goes on, there is a huge explosion and the chaos that ensuses is exactly what happened in real time to Oklahoma City.

Yesterday we had the boys do a little research on the bombing since it was long before they were born. And in a post-September 11th, it’s hard to remember how innocent we all were before the Oklahoma City bombing. We tried to explain how shocking this was – to have a bombing on US soil from a US citizen.

One of the exhibits we really liked was the community response. As rescuers needed something, like rain gear or size D batteries, local news would put out a request. Within 30 minutes so many of the items were received that that would need to be back on air and report that the need was meet.

We also loved the stories of the K-9 Search and Recue dogs, especially the story that when the news reported that the rescue dogs’ paws were getting cuts during rescues, people began delivering baby shoes for the dogs’ paws.

Mike and I both still remembered this photo from almost 30 years ago. The photo eventually would earn a Pulitzer Prize in Photography (and cause quite a debate because 2 photographers took the same photo). I remember thinking that photo summed up everything that day.

The view from the Musuem back onto the lawn was so serene, especially with the reflecting pool and Survivors Tree.

The Survivor Tree located right outside the museum. This Elm tree survived the bombing, and recovery/rescue efforts. It is interesting that there is also a similar Survivor Tree in New York from September 11th.

After the Memorial, we were all a little wiped, and decided to grab lunch at the apartment before headed to the other end of our vacation day – a Waterpark! Today, we are headed to Riversport OKC. Riversport OKC is a whitewater rafting park in the heart of Oklahoma City! We got there ready to ride around 1pm, and had reservation for 4pm whitewater rafting. We did one run of tubing and then Crack! ⚡️ lightning off in the distance. Due to park rules, we were land-locked for the next couple of hours until there were no lightning strikes with 10 miles of the park. They were prepared for this because they had a gaming room with Virtual Reality Rowing games, and entire computer gaming set-ups, as well as cornhole and plenty of chairs to just relax.

FINALLY, at 4pm we got the all clear and it became a mission to get our money’s worth in the next 2 hours. Over the next two hours, we did family tubing runs, whitewater rafted through the course, the giant slides and the basketball/trampoline court. I wouldn’t say we got our full money’s worth but we came close.

We were way too wiped to go home, shower get ready and go back out for dinner out so instead we went by a local Walmart for the ingredients for Chicken fettucine. 45 minutes later, we were showered, in PJs and ready to eat with some ice cream sandwiches for dessert 😁 After dinner, we finished another load of laundry and FINALLY finished a round of Garbage! ♠️♥️♣️♦️

We leave our little downtown apartment and head over to Hot Springs National Park and our 4th of July celebration! 🇺🇸♥️🎆