When you drive north on I35 through Oklahoma towards Oklahoma City -

the land is VERY flat, and you can see for miles. There are only a few, very very small towns, and all you see for miles are ranches for about 100 miles before and after you get to Oklahoma City. Because of this landscape, you can see the buildings of Oklahoma City from a long ways off. It really gives you the feeling that you are really out in the wilderness, and that the city is just the center of a community that reaches far from the actual defined city limits.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum is located at the site of the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, that took place on April 19, 1995. The National Memorial is outdoors, and is a beautiful park-like setting. The Museum is not actually part of the NPS. There is a $15 entrance fee, which is well worth the cost.

The park has two large features on either end - they look like big walls. One is marked 9:01 - the minute BEFORE the bombing, representing the last minute of Oklahoma City's innocence, and the other wall is marked 9:03, representing the minute Oklahoma City began to heal. In between, there is a large reflecting pool, and a chair representing each of the 168 people that died that day. One other major feature of the area is an Oak tree that was there during the bombing, and lived.

The museum is set up to take you through multi-media exhibits that lead you through the day of April 19, 1995, and through the trial of the people that did this. It is very powerful. They have a tape recording of a mundane water department hearing that started at 9:00 that day. They set up the reason for the meeting, then lead you into a mock up of the meeting room, and they play the audio. At 9:02, all hell breaks loose, and you get led into other exhibits discussing the aftermath. It was very well done.

The location of Oklahoma City, in the middle of this state that is so rural, really makes you think that if this terrible event can happen here, it can happen anywhere. The website for the memorial is here: https://www.nps.gov/okci/index.htm

#Oklahoma