Oklahoma City

One of our main reasons for stopping in Oklahoma City was to tour Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum in memory of the 168 women, men and children who lost their lives in the tragic bombing of the Murrah Building, the federal building in Oklahoma City, on April 19, 1995.  As part of the tour, you hear the recording of an Oklahoma Water Resouces Board Meeting taking place at 9:00 am across the street from the Murrah Building when two minutes into the recording you hear the bomb go off.  The feeling is so real you actually feel you are there when the bomb hits.  The memorial has a reflecting pool where the Murrah Building had stood and has 168 bronze and stone chairs arranged by the reflecting pool according to the floors of the Murrah Building with the names of the women, men or child killed in the bombing.  The 168 empty chairs are symbolic of the missing lives including smaller chairs for the 19 children lost.  The monumental twin gates frame the moment of destruction 9:02 am, with the East Gate representing 9:01 am as the innocence of the city before the attack and the West Gate representing 9:03 when lives were changed forever.