Oklahoma City

Oklahoma City has pulled itself out of the doldrums it was in after the oil and gas crash of the 1980’s and has significant growth in business and leisure. It has started a new entertainment district know as Bricktown with shops restaurants, nightclubs and condo living. It seems to be trying to emulate a similar area in San Antonio, including the canal and boat rides. While it is still in the development stages, it seems to be off to a good start.

The City has also seen its share of recent tragedy from home grown terrorism. On April 19, 1995 a truck loaded with explosives parked in front of the federal Building and detonated, and destroyed the building and damaging some surrounding structures. 168 people lost their lives in that attack.

On the site of the attack a national monument and museum has been erected to remember those who lost their lives that day, including a number of children from the day care in the building. There are a 168 chairs arranged in rows reflecting the floor that person was on when the blast came. It is an impressive and sobering memorial.

On our last day, we visited Anadarko, Indian City USA to visit the museum and display of Indian villages of the west on display. It is a 45 minute guided tour of the villages with a bit of history of each tribe and what their lives were like.

We were here in 1981 during the annual Indian POW WOW in Anadarko. The old down town was busy and striving. Since then a large national chain mega store has moved in and the old town looks to be hurting.