PamelaQuilts: Road Trip Quilt Along Day 10 - Oklahoma City. Arkansas Traveler Block

I'm working a bit ahead on my blocks because I knew we'd be going to go through multiple states on some days, and wanted to include a block for each state we were in - today's block is Arkansas Traveler, but we were just starting our stay in Oklahoma!

Today we wanted to drive into Oklahoma City to see the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This is a memorial commemorating the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. We weren't sure how long we would be there, so we parked on the street and walked over to the entrance.

The entrance to the site was easy to find, and when we walked in, we were sobered by the sight of all the chairs representing the people who died in the bombing. It was beautiful, but so somber.

We both have vivid memories of the news on this day, and hearing about the search for survivors. Our youngest daughter was the same age as one of the children, and I remember being so sad for her parents.

We proceeded into the museum and quickly realized we were going to need to put more money into the meter, but were told that there was a parking garage, so moved our truck there and came back so that we could take our time. It was quite an immersive experience and was very well done. We spent most of the afternoon there, learning about the incident. When we came out we spent a little more time just walking around and thinking about all that we learned.

We were glad that we spent the time here, it was a thoughtful afternoon and we learned a lot from it.

We were impressed at the resiliency and caring of the people that tried to help those that were trapped and injured in the explosion. The story of the capture of the perpetrator was very interesting, too. After visiting the memorial, we headed toward our hotel back in El Reno, stopping along the way at the Panda Express for dinner.