Oklahoma City

Location: Purcell, OK

Our original plan was to stay in Oklahoma 2 nights, but after talking it over, we decided to stay an extra night. We agreed that we could use a down day to organize a few things (yes, we've organized and re-organized several times already and I'm sure this won't be the last), plan the next leg of our trip, and simply relax. Our campground is in a city park, overlooking a lake and is very quiet. It seemed like the perfect place to just wittle away the day. And if that wasn't enough incentive, when we paid our site fees (at the golf course across the street), the gentleman told us that if we wanted to stay an extra night that would be ok and even future-dated our receipt. So we get 3 nights for the price of 2! We're learning quickly (I hope)...we've slowed down and are taking time to relax!

Now to backtrack slightly. Yesterday, we drove into downtown Oklahoma City to visit the national memorial. This is the site where on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building, killing 168 people. There is an outdoor memorial and an indoor museum. We had Hunter with us, so we only did the outside part.

The center of the memorial contains a reflecting pool and is framed on either end by walls signifying the minute before (9:01) and the minute after (9:03) the explosion.

Next to the reflecting pool is a field of empty chairs. Each chair symbolizes one of the victims, with the smaller chairs representing the 19 children killed. The base of each chair is engraved with the name of a victim. The chairs are arranged in 9 rows to represent the 9 floors of the building. On the other side of the reflecting pool is the survivor tree. This is a 90+ year old elm which withstood the blast and now symbolizes resiliency.On the outside of the memorial, the fence which was installed immediately after the bombing still stands. Almost immediately, people left momentos and 15 years later, they continue to do so.

It is certainly a somber place to visit, but I'm glad we did. So many innocent lives lost for no reason.

Upon leaving the memorial, we drove around the city a bit and then headed back 'home'. We were expecting visitors. Terry and Jo Miller live just west of the city and offered to come down our way to meet us. Terry is a frequent poster on the RV-Dreams forum ("Terry and Jo") and he's always one of the first to respond to my truck and trailer questions. He has done a lot of research on many aspects of this transition and is more than happy to share his knowledge. He and Jo are not yet fulltiming, but have just purchased their rig and will be living in it until they retire in a few years. It was great to meet another member of the RV-Dreams family and we hope to run into them again down the road.

Today we did exactly what we planned to do. We took Hunter for a 3-mile walk around the lake and then hung around home to prepare for our departure tomorrow. I think Tracy even managed to grab a short nap. Now this is the life we expected! :)

Tomorrow we will head south to Texas. We will break up our travel days into 2 roughly 200-mile days, ultimately arriving in Livingston on Sunday. We will be staying in Livingston for about a week, while we establish residency. We are also hoping for time to visit Krystal's (Tracy's daughter-in-law) mom who doesn't live too far away as well as meet up with another RV-Dreams couple whom we met at the Rally last year.

That's it for now. Have a good one!