October 31, 2006

October 31, 2006

It is very chilly this morning. The cold front hit early, and the intense wind is driving the chill factor below zero. I think the bad weather is following us everywhere we go.

We drop the RV off at a local Wal-Mart parking lot and take the car into Oklahoma City to visit the National Cowboy Museum. The museum is very large, and we spend a couple hours walking thru it, but both Aimee and I don’t find it all that interesting. The museum does have some western art galleries that I do find nice. I have always liked Frederick Remington’s western sculptures and I also wouldn’t mind having a few of the western paintings in our future house.

On the way back to pick up the RV, we take a detour thru the downtown area and the site of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building that was blown up in 1995 by a truck bomb. The building remnant was razed and replaced with Oklahoma City National Memorial. The memorial is nicely designed. It is interesting to see the site map now vs. before. They have replaced an adjoining road with a shallow reflecting pool. The small building footprint is now a garden with a chair for every victim. The chairs are situated approximately where they were killed with each row representing a floor. Nineteen of the chairs are child-size. And all this carnage was perpetrated by an American.

From OK City we head west again. A half hour along we finally find the flat Kansas-like prairie I was expecting. Once across the border into the Texas Panhandle, the terrain is flat as a pancake. We stop at a rest area in Texas to stretch our legs. The rest stop has an interesting mini-museum on the Panhandle’s history. In particular we learn that this area is one of the windiest in the country (I can vouch for that) and already has a number of windfarms generating electricity. Déjà vu! I guess I wasn’t the first with this suggestion. Just before 6pm, we stop at a campground in Amarillo, TX.