We are on the road again, this time driving to the Southwest to see our Arizona friends. We packed up our trusty RAV 4, kissed Poppy the cat goodbye (while begging her forgiveness in advance) and left home around 10:00 AM on Wednesday morning, having packed up chips, boxes of wine, bottles of soda water, apples, tangerines, and eight home-made sandwiches. On this trip we are heading south in order to avoid any potential bad weather, down Highway 73-75 towards Nebraska City, then south into Kansas and onward towards Topeka, over to Wichita, dropping south to Tulsa and then to Oklahoma City.
We reached our first stop around 4:00, after fuel and a lunch break in the car; the Oklahoma City National Monument honoring those whose lives were lost in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which occurred in 1995.
The attack killed 167 people, injured 684 and destroyed more than a third of the building. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. It is one of the most moving memorials we have ever seen. The empty chairs covering the ground where the building was located are a silent tribute; the sculptural adult and child chairs vividly call to mind those who were working and their children in the attached child care center. There is a water feature that runs continuously between the standing sculptures of the 9:01 gate and the 9:03 gate.
The blast was detonated at 9:02 AM. The 9:01 gate signifies our nation’s innocence, the 9:03 gate signifies the start of our rebuilding. We arrived after the museum closed so were unable to tour the displays, but the memorial grounds themselves are a moving testimonial.
We continued westward on Wednesday, experiencing some of the most vivid sunsets, rivaling those of western Nebraska. We stopped at Clinton, Oklahoma and spent the night at a LaQuinta Inn. Thursday morning we arose, showered and enjoyed a “gourmet” breakfast of a waffle, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and mystery meat sausage. It filled the hole in our abdomen, if not titillating our taste buds.
We left Clinton around 9:30 driving west through the Oklahoma panhandle into Texas. Our impression of Northwest Texas is one of barren ground, continuous Christian billboards, enormous wind turbines arrayed across the landscape and a general barrenness. Many groups of the wind turbines were not operating even though the wind was quite brisk.
We tuned in classical music, set the cruise control to a safe 81 mph, and headed west towards our evening goal of Gallup, New Mexico. At the New Mexico border, we crossed into the Mountain Tme Zone, thereby picking up an hour but our bodies weren’t buying it. Driving through Albuquerque was an experience, a city a little larger in population than Omaha, but spread out over 190 square miles. Once past Albuquerque, the scenery became a bit more vivid, with the mesas and red rocks glowing in the afternoon sun. Just our side of Gallup, we crossed the continental divide at 7,200 feet elevation and began the downhill slide towards the Pacific basin.
We arrived at our LaQuinta in Gallup around 5:30, secured our room and dined in the room on wine and sandwiches. We watched the evening news, read for a while and fell into a light slumber around 8:30. Tomorrow to Phoenix.
