The good, the bad and the ugly in Oklahoma

May 19 – We were up at 7 and on the road by just after 8, so that’s a good start for us.  We just had smoothies with our Magic Bullet.  We had some touring planned for the day so wanted to get an early start.  Our first break was the Oklahoma Welcome Center.  As Bill got out of the truck he saw our window at the computer desk was flopping.  It’s an escape window and the latch must have gotten bumped by the printer and opened it and the wind pulled the latch out of the hole.  No damage!  I got to have a delicious coffee with almond toffee creamer there.  They gave huge servings.  Bill had to settle once again for a Snapple.

After the bombing

Bronze memorial chairs

On our excursion through Oklahoma we passed through the home towns of Garth Brooks, Toby Keith and Will Rogers.  Our plan was to eat in the RV once we parked in Oklahoma City at the National Memorial and Museum, but I really had to find a bathroom from drinking that coffee, so we stopped just before Oklahoma City and fueled up and got a Subway sub for Bill and a salad for me.  We parked across the street at the big casino and ate, then headed on to Oklahoma City.  We called for parking information for the RV and were directed to a specific lot.  Well, we got right to it and the opening was so narrow, well, I pushed the ticket button and started in and Bill said I was going to hit the RV on his side, so he got out and told me to back it up on the road, and I did.  I was kinda pleased that I did it on the first try and he just hopped in and we circled the block and went to the first lot we passed that you didn’t have to go through an armed gate.  We just had to stick money in the slot along the sidewalk.  We put one side of slides out and turned the vent fan on and put Molly and Xena in the RV.  It was not hot out and we only allotted 2 hours for our visit.  The memorial is tothe victims of the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh.  It was truly one of the most emotional places I have ever been.  It ranked right up there with Dachau and the Holocaust Museum.  It just broke my heart to read the stories.  One woman was there with her mother and two children to sign up for her youngest son’s social security number.  Her mother and children died and she had tohave her lower leg amputated by an orthopedic surgeon on the site in order to get her out.  The lives of these people, like those who survived 9-11, will never be the same.  The museum was so well laid out, with many personal items found in the rubble and even sections of beams and walls from the building. 

Reflection Pool

The outside memorial is beautiful and so serene.  It’s called The Gates of Time and it’s a reflection pool and on one side there are bronze chairs in rows, signifying by the row what floor of the building that person was on when they died.  Then spaced down a bit from them are other chairs for those who died that were not inside the building but on the sidewalks and even one nurse who was helping and fell and hit her head and died 4 days later.  It was just a very sad place to see, but will leave a lasting impression.

My inside repair job

We only had 80 miles to go to our RV stop, Hargus RV in Clinton, OK, so we expected to get there by 4:30.  NOT!  We were only about 15 miles away and a guy passed us and honked and motioned us off the road.  That is not a good sign.  Bill got out and our bedroom window had literally blown out.  We were in shock.  From those darn bumps on the interstate, the same thing happened to this window.  Only it had gotten really windy out and I guess the direction of it was stronger.  The screen was laying on the bed and the wood blinds kinda dangling but still attached.  The frame of the window had no glass and was half curled up and scraping the side of the RV in the wind.  We had no way to cut the frame off, so we bent it around and into the bedroom and secured it under the bike (so it was handy after all).  We taped a plastic bag on the outside of the window.  I was laying on the bed and dresser hanging out the window trying to tape the top and sides in the wind.  Not an easy task and definitely not a fun one.  We couldn’t put the slides out since we were barely off the interstate.  I just drove slower than normal to our exit and as soon as we stopped, Bill got out he said it didn’t hold at all.  Once we got parked in our space, he took the ladder down and our neighbor, such a friendly and helpful man, loaned us more tape, his drill, and a piece of wood.  Bill unscrewed the part that was still attached and we slid the screen into 2 bags and taped all around it and snapped it back in from the inside.  Then the piece of wood was just long enough and had holes already drilled so we put it across the window from the inside to secure the screen.  Monday we will call Forest River and see if they will ship us a new window to CO.  If not we will stop in Albuquerque at Camping World and have them order one I guess.  By now I’ve lost count of all out bad luck.  But it doesn’t end with the window!  Hargus RV is OK.  Not big and the sites are gravel and somewhat level.  We were surprised they had cable TV but didn't bother to hook it up for the night and knowing we might get a storm.  When you get out on those plains, there isn't always a lot of choice.  They didn't have a bath house so we used our shower, which is a bit of a pain as I keep my herb garden in there.

It was after 7 by the time we finished up, so Bill ate his leftovers and I had a big salad with the last of the rotisserie chicken.  The neighbor said the weather radio said strong winds and rain were north of us and might be headed our direction.  Well, the wind wasn’t so bad but the hail lasted 30 minutes.  It was the size of large marbles and you can’t imagine being in a wooden box and pounded and pounded by what sounded like big rocks.  It was all over the ground.  I tried putting a pillow over my head, but that didn’t stop the noise.   We decided it might tear up our slide toppers so we brought in all the slides and just lay on the bed til it finally stopped.  We tried to look at the truck with a flashlight.  In the dark it doesn’t look like it did any damage, but we will see in the light of day tomorrow.  I will have to get on the roof to see how it looks.  Egads, will things ever just run smoothly?   It continued to rain almost another hour and has just stopped.  We had no leaks or cracks in our ceiling vents or the skylight, so that was good.  And, we are thankful that we are safe and our pets are safe.  So it couldn’t be that bad!