Apologies for falling behind with my posts. Above are the photos from Friday, when I visited my aunt, uncle and cousins in Choctaw. Well, the photos aren’t of us in Choctaw (will send those directly to my family), but are of Oklahoma City. As soon as I rang her doorbell, my Aunt Judy had her keys in hand, ready to show me some of Oklahoma.
We went straight to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. It’s a simple, peaceful tribute in memory of the victims, survivors and rescue workers of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It is amazingly quiet and serene there, with a reflecting pool, gates marking the time, a survivor wall and an empty chair in memory of each person who died that horrid day, including my friends’ Jason and David’s uncle. There’s also a survivor tree – an Elm tree that survived the attack – and a fence where people leave tokens in memory of loved ones. Others planning similar memorials should look to this as an example of how it should be done.
From there we saw two places that showed the diversity of Oklahoma. One was the Centennial Land Run Monument. It commemorates the Great Land Rush of 1889 when 50,000 people tried to stake their claim for less than 12,000 homesteads in Indian territory during the first Oklahoma land run. Sculptor Paul Moore recreated bits of the event in bronze, bringing it to life – bigger than life, actually, as the massive structures are one and a half times life size. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies: Far and Away – remember the land run at the end? The monument won’t be completed until 2015, but it already evokes the same spirit and excitement (minus Nicole and Tom, of course).
The final stop was Bricktown, Oklahoma’s ‘entertainment destination and neighborhood, the vibrant home to many restaurants, nightclubs, sporting facilities, shops, attractions, condos and a spectacular canal.’ That’s straight from their web site and is all true. Loved walking along the canal, and definitely seems like a great place to hang out, night and day. Would be a blast to spend a few days there – catch a baseball or basketball game, enjoy a nice dinner, hang out at some of the clubs and even stay at one of the hotels on the water. Maybe next visit…
Amy's America 
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