May 9, 2010: National Cowboy Museum and Oklahoma City Memorial

I wanted to visit Texas one more time before leaving. It's a six hour drive between Wichita and Dallas. But, as Oklahoma is between Kansas and Texas, I decided it would be easier to cut the trip in half.


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I visited the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City. I had been there once before in 2006. This was my first destination in Oklahoma when I started "venturing out" on my own. When I arrived there, the cashier at the admissions desk tried to find anything she could to get me a discount. That was very nice. She asked if I was in the military. Then she asked if I was currently a college student. She finally exhausted her list as I certainly didn't look under 12 or over 65.

While the museum was interesting, unfortunately having already seen it once before put a bit of a damper on it. Also, as I had seen a number of museums further west with a similar focus, that too made it drag a bit. The museum has exhibits with western art, guns, cowboy outfits/equipment, Native American clothing/artifacts, US military (the portion in the forts and active in the nineteenth century western territories), etc. There is also a "western town" in a section of the building which people can walk through. The "town" includes various storefront businesses, a schoolhouse, a church, a stable, a saloon, etc.

After it became dark, I visited the Oklahoma City Memorial. I had seen the memorial last year during the day time. A park ranger encouraged me to visit it at night if I was ever in the area again at night. The memorial has a chair set up for each person killed in the tragedy. At night they are lit up.

Even with the GPS, it was a little difficult to find the memorial at night. The memorial takes up an entire city block, but driving around it, it took a while for me to recognize it. It felt a bit eerie to be going to a place alone at night where so many people were killed. But, I will say the lighting was beautiful. I got a few decent pictures even with the relatively low light. The two large walls marking the times 9:01 and 9:03 (before and after the blast) were also lighted up. While I was only there for a short time, I'm glad I had a chance to see it. It looks very different at night than during the day.