The skies were still grey this morning in Oklahoma City, but at least the rain had stopped. We left the hotel and drove a few blocks north to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post this memorial was built on the location of the Federal building that was destroyed by a couple of “domestic” terrorists on April 19 1995 at 9.02am. The bombing destroyed one-third of the building, killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius.
The memorial is beautiful, at each end of a reflecting pool stand two gates. The “9.01” gate represents the peace before the bombing and the “9.03” gate represent the new beginning afterwards. There is an immaculate lawn around the pool and on one side there are 168 bronze chair statues facing the pool. One for each of the victims. I was really quite upset to see several smaller chairs, representing the children who were killed. However, the memorial itself is peaceful and calm and, I would hope, a place of comfort for the survivors and the relatives on the victims.
That’s Neil crouching to take a photo at the corner of the 9.03 gate
Our next stop just north of the city was a total change of pace and our last “Route 66” location of the trip. Pop’s Soda Ranch is a diner/shop/gas station that stocks over 700 different types of soft drink ( or Soda, as they call it here) We were gobsmacked at the variety of different colas, root beers, lemonades etc and took quite some time deciding what to buy. Neil finally settled on “Rat Bastard” Root Beer ( !?!) and I chose “Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer”. We haven’t tried them yet, they’re cooling off in the hotel fridge, but we’ll let you know…
Huge Soda Pop Sculpture out the front
The rest of the morning we drove through rural farmland heading north on looooong , straight roads towards the state border. There were miles and miles of corn and alfalfa fields, interspersed here and there with small towns. We passed several large wind farms with their enormous turbines, an indicator of the winds that can sweep across the plains. Every town had a tall bulbous water tower ( with the town name painted on it) and a HUGE grain silo. Our route took us through the larger town of Enid, Oklahoma and , naturally, Neil had to take a photo of the town sign to send to his Mum. It looked quite a prosperous town with a thriving main street and some attractive old buildings.
Grain Silo
Thanks to some road blocks we had to cross the border into Kansas on a back road so we didn’t get to see the usual big state sign that they have at the state border of main roads and interstates. A little north of the border we drove for roughly 30 miles along the Gypsum Hills Scenic Byway. The flat mesas, deep canyons, sharp high hills, red soils and caprock formations were a pleasant change from the flat farmland country.
At one point we found ourselves stuck behing an unusual Long Load, a huge truck was hauling one blade from one of the huge wind turbines. My heart was in my mouth when Neil went to pass it… it was a looooong truck!
The windy theme continued when we sopped in the small town of Greensburg, Kansas. This was a prosperous little town that became famous in the late 1880s when the towns leaders decided to dig a REALLY BIG well, 109 feet (33 m) deep and 32 feet (9.8 m) in diameter. It remains to this day the largest hand-dug well in the world. The well was used as the town’s water supply until 1932. In 1939 it was opened as a tourist attraction allowing visitors to descend to the bottom of the well.
The town continued to thrive until May 2007 when an EF5 Tornado destroyed 95% of the town. Since then they’ve done an amazing job rebuilding the town and rebuilding the Well Museum, which now also acts as a museum about the tornado. We climbed down into the well and were pretty stunned at the photos of the destruction caused by the tornado. We are slap bang in the middle of ‘Tornado Alley” for the next several days and I REALLY don’t want to see one, thank you very much!
The Big Well Museum
Looking Down
and up!
A picture of the Greensburg Tornado ( not my pic, of course!)
What it did to the town ( also not my pic)
A little further down the road we stopped in the tiny town of Mullinsburg which is famous ( in Kansas, anyway!) for the “Kanza Art” of M.T. Liggett. It’s an incredible collection of junk metal folk art, windmills and signs that line several of the streets of the town. The things you find in small town America!
Late in the afternoon we finally arrived in Dodge City, where we’ve checked in for 2 nights. Neil had been playing every cowboy and western song that he could find for me on the way here! Plenty to see in town and around the area tomorrow.