5/4&5/18 Oklahoma City

Seeing this storm shelter at our Camping Grounds was both alarming and comforting.  

The Survivor tree… An American Elm that is nearly a century old stands at the highest point of the memorial and is now encircled by a wall as a symbol of strength and resilience.  The message engraved is,                  

“To the courageous and caring who responded from near and far we                         offer our eternal gratitude.” 

The park is on the footprint of the building with nine rows of chairs to depict each floor of the building.  

All 168 lighted chairs are engraved with the name of the victim and their placement in the nine story building at the time of their death.   

The size of the chair shows whether the victim was a child or adult. 

The five chairs of the people that were outside the building at time of the blast are together on right side of the park.

Across the street from the gate this statue says it all: 

Jesus crying! 

The church on this space was badly damaged and one life was lost during the blast.  

Oklahoma’s lighter side:  

 We visited the cowboy museum, this is filled with the history of western movie making and the memorabilia from many well know cowboys and their partnering leading ladies.  

They have a replica city of an old western town built on the inside of this museum that make you feel a part of this period in time. 

It also has a large collection of art in many different forms paintings, sculptures and costumes.  

5/3/18 Amarillo Tx

Cadillac Ranch

We took a few minutes to stop along the Route and leave our mark on the already coated Cadillacs that were carefully planted in this farmers field.  Fun to see how the many coats of paint has changed yet preserved these beauties. 

5/2/18 Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico

Kay and I did some window shopping and Bert and John found "The La Placita" to hang out and wait for Us.   We later joined them for a drink and got a tour and the history of the building from the hostess that worked there. 

The original building was built in1706 as a home, restored in 1930 and refinished in 1955 to become the home of this Mexican restaurant with Air conditioning in all 6 dining rooms.   

It was originally a home and as the needs grew they made additional houses and attached them,one after another.  They are built of Adobe .  

This is a hair, gravel and mud spot of Adobe that has been damaged but left that way and

covered over with a rug.

This staircase was shipped from Paris to this home because the bride (pictured below) wanted a large stairway to feature her Wedding Gown.

She used it to make a GRAND entrance for her wedding that was said to have lasted 3 months.

Spoiled Daughter I would guess!!

  

 The trees are NOT cut in Albuquerque so when this addition was made, they built it around the tree sparing it from damage and changing the structure as it matured to this point over the years.
They have had to make room for the growth from time to time over many years.

5/1/18 Winslow, Arizona

Standing on the corner of Winslow Arizona such a fine sight to see.

Bert by the flatbed Ford.

This was a simple but cool stop...takes you back and makes you smile!!

5/1/18 Flagstaff and Winslow

We stopped and did some sights along the way to our next destination.  First stop was the Meteor Crater just off Interstate 30, East of Flagstaff. 

Some half a billion years ago a meteorite or dense cluster of meteorites estimated to have been about 150 feet across and weighting several hundred thousand tons, struck the rocky plains.  It is said to have been equivalent to a force greater than 20 million tons of TNT.

This crater in the earth is 700 feet deep and over 4000feet across.  During it’s formation over 175 million tons of limestone and sandstone were abruptly thrown out to form a continuous blanket of debris surrounding the crater for a distance of over one mile.  

Monday 4/30/18 South Rim of the Grand canyon.

Our morning started with a Sheriff and Bad Boys having a confirmation in the city square. Following that we boarded the Train for our 2.5 hour ride up to the South Rim.  We had scheduled a guided bus tour of the outreaching areas which was both informative and relaxing.   

On the way back as luck would have it the bad boys boarded our train and we were robbed.  

4/29/18 Willians, Arizona

In Williams we strolled down the Historic Route 66 Streets, stopped in some shops and experienced a bar for some local culture. 

Very funny signs in here!