Oklahoma City – 2 Chicks, 50 States

Our visit to Oklahoma City began with musical style at the Community College Visual and Performing Arts Center. We saw Farewell Angelina perform and for two hours this powerhouse of four talented singers belted out original songs and countrified versions of chart toppers like I Gotta Feeling and Radioactive. A great start to our OKC visit!

The next day we woke up to miserable gray and wet skies and decided it was the perfect kind of day to spend in the warmth and dryness of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. But first we made a detour to Cattlemen’s Steakhouse for a spot of breakfast. Opened in 1910, the restaurant is as old as the neighbourhood itself which was the site of the Oklahoma National Stockyards Company, a public livestock market. Today the area is known as the Historic Stockyards City and Cattlemen’s Restaurant is still going strong. A hearty breakfast there proved to be the only meal we needed all day and we had fun eavesdropping on cowboys around us discussing business over steak and toast.

Lush leather booths at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse are surrounded by nods to the area’s rich cowboy history

Breakfast here was filling enough to also serve as lunch and dinner!

If anyone happens to be in Oklahoma City and you have even the remotest interest in the history of America’s West, you have to visit the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. For a mere $12.50 each, there seemed to be no end to this museum as we wandered around from gallery to gallery over four hours and not once ran out of things to keep us interested. This museum has everything to do with the West including exhibits covering paintings, Indian pottery, barrel racing and trick riding, the US military in the West and even barbed wire. Yep… there is an entire room dedicated to barbed wire with over 1300 different samples to look at. And who knew there was more than one type of cowboy?? From Western movies for Sammy to rodeos for me, there was so much to look at. This is one of the most interesting museums we have ever been to.

The End of the Trail: James Earle Fraser, 1894

Wyandot Remergence: Richard Zane Smith, 1990s

This trailer headdress features eagle feathers

Prosperity Junction, the museum’s turn-of-the-century cattle town

An entire section of the museum is dedicated to the rodeo

Before we left Oklahoma City, we stopped at the National Memorial to pay our respects to the victims and survivors of the bombing that took place at 9.02am on 19 April 1995 at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The memorial is located where the building stood and there is a museum which tells the stories of the terrible event that took place that day. The memorial is a beautiful space that allows for quiet contemplation in the center of the city.

The Reflecting Pool with the museum and the Survivor Tree at the top of the stairs in the background. The pool runs from east to west along what was once Fifth Street.

The Field of Empty Chairs contains 168 chairs, made from glass and bronze, representing the 168 people who lost their lives in the bombing. These include 19 smaller chairs which represent the 19 children who died.

The Survivor Tree: This American elm tree was damaged in the explosion but survived and today its seeds and subsequent saplings are replanted each year on the anniversary of the bombing.

The Gates of Time: The east and west sides of the memorial are flanked by bronze gates that note the times before (9.01am) and after (9.03am) the bombing took place. The 9.01 gate represents the last moments of peace and the 9.03 gate represents the first moments of recovery.

It’s been a pleasure Oklahoma but now its time to leave as we continue to drive south. Thank you for your hospitality and Texas… you’re next!