15 Years Later.....

Today is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. The memorial in Oklahoma City was one of the things we visited on our way to South Dakota the first year we went on the road. It is an amazing exhibit to see the artifacts, reconstruction of the event and the investigation afterwards. They did a great job creating a tribute to the 168 lives lost that day and it is so moving to see the personal items that are on exhibit....shoes, eyeglasses with a broken lens, stuffed animals from the day care center, etc that were in the building.
When you see the giant walls, at each end of the reflecting pool, with the times 9:01 and 9:03 on them, it is very poignant. At 9:01 the morning of the bombing, all was normal. People were starting their work days.....children were playing in the child care center and all seemed normal. At 9:02 the lives of 168 people came to an end and their families lives were changed forever. A minute later...at 9:03 it was all over.

The memorial is one of those things you see that stays with you forever. Downtown Oklahoma City is a beautiful city and very easy to get around in, even with a large rig like ours. We parked right at the curb (took up a few parking places) but it was very easy to get in and out of the city. When this event occurred, it was the first terrorist plot that had occurred on American soil that had taken so many lives and had been carried out by an American. Linda and I still have the bumper sticker of the "survivor tree" and our ticket stubs up on the wall in our rig. It was a very moving experience to go through this exhibit. So today, pause for 1 minute and honor the 168 lives that were lost not so long ago. Normal people doing normal activities who paid with their lives.....And remember that each minute of life is precious !