We travelled from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City, aka OKC, visiting Wichita Wildlife Refuge (no, not the same Wichita as in the Glen Campbell song but close ) on the way. Unfortunately, the various trails were shut for hiking after 10am each day, as it was STILL really, really hot 🥵, but we did get to go to the top of the second highest mountain in Oklahoma (great views but not a great claim given the state is fundamentally flat 😄), and saw a herd of wild Bison 🙂.

Having checked in to another Airbnb, this time in an historic hotel that has been converted, we set about investigating OKC. We discovered that the city came into being based on a literal “land race” to get there and stake a claim when congress passed a bill legalising the process. In one day in 1889 the population went from virtually 0, it was just a train postal drop off for a nearby fort, to 10,000! It then took 3 months to build a large part of the new the city, the less than a year for it to evolve further. The pictures were astonishing to see. Obviously the whole thing was not so great for the local native American tribes who had lived on said land 😞.

Beyond how it came in to being, the defining thing for modern day OKC is the bombing in 1995. The site of the original federal building is now a memorial, which has been done really well. The building next door, which was badly damaged in the bombing, is the museum. As with other similar things we have seen, it has been done well and is very informative. It also requires some reflection. We learnt that Tim McVeigh, the bomber, had gone to Waco to protest the behaviour of the federal forces and was in fact on TV doing so. The OKC bombing was 2 years to the day from the Waco siege ending, with such loss of life. The actions of a cult leader AND of the American law enforcement agencies involved, led directly to the bombing and deaths of 168 people 2 years later!

Otherwise OKC has some nice/interesting things, like a simple working underground tunnel system (unlike Montreal and Toronto which are more famous for it), free Streetcars to get around downtown, and is clean and friendly, but it is just a normal working city.

We left OKC today, so we stopped singing songs from the musical and instead sang Tony Christie hits until we arrived in Amarillo 😄. A lot of the way we followed, or were on, Route 66, more of which we can do tomorrow. We visited Palo Duro canyon state park. This is the second largest canyon in the US…..and we could trek, at least for a couple of miles, as the heat has finally started to drop a little 🥳. Albuquerque here we come.