We’re back! We’ve moved the blog to WordPress, and we’re ready to get back to touring this great state! Kicking off our return to the web is this great article written by guest blogger Kristi, who recently visited Black Mesa in the Oklahoma panhandle.

The Black Mesa, I have come to discover, is one of the best places to go birding and very lovely.

I drove to the panhandle (my first time to see it!) over the weekend on May 13 and found the drive to be really pleasant with the overall lack of traffic. The vegetation is mostly yucca and cacti.
Once I entered Cimarron County, I began to see the beautiful ring-necked pheasants lining the wheat fields as I drove – birds I had always wished to view in the wild but never had until now! I was able to see at least four on my drive and even a couple females. They are secretive birds and if I stopped to get a photo, the bird would duck down and slip into the vegetation to hide.
There were also a number of pronghorn I was so grateful to have seen. Those right off the highway were scared, but in the park, I had to actually step on my brakes as one crossed the road! I got some good photos of that one.

Within the park there was also prairie dog towns and the elusive burrowing owls, which rely on prairie dogs to live since they use the rodents’ burrows to nest and hide in.

Once you get past Boise City, there is very little cell phone reception. So, plan ahead when you get to the Black Mesa area.
As I arrive, I check in to the Bed and Breakfast, which is a cattle ranch run by Monty and Vicki Roberts, and then join my birding group from the Oklahoma Ornithological Society.
In the couple of days that follow, we are able to see many different types of birds – especially those that are not really found in central Oklahoma. I also saw some I’d never spotted before, such as the curve-billed thrasher and a Western scrub jay.

Other notable species include: northern shoveler, wood duck, Western grebe, Mississippi kite, Western screech owl, black-chinned hummingbird, Western kingbird, indigo bunting, etc. All in all, an impressive 148 species.
The mesas were formed by lava that once covered the region and they are covered in a thick layer of black basalt that caps them.
I really appreciated the hospitality of Vicki and Monty. Vicki cooked us a luscious and free breakfast of homemade food that was to die for. Everything from scrambled eggs to blueberry pancakes was on the menu and they have two big dogs there to greet you with wagging tails when you go outside! Not to mention a few cats!
My bunk was nice and roomy and very clean. The view is also wonderful.
The Black Mesa is also known for its dinosaur tracks, which I did find, thanks to a map. They aren’t marked, so you need to keep an eye out! The weather was perfect and though the nights were chilly, I could not keep from standing outside in the later hours to gaze up at the sky. I had never seen so many stars before. Thanks to the higher elevation and absolutely no light pollution, the sky was uninhibited as it revealed its myriad of constellations.

I loved every bit of it because it was so nice and quiet and you felt like you descended into a timeless place. The days were warmer for us, but not hot – probably due to a cool front.
The town of Kenton is a good place to see birds, too, and other than residential homes and a few churches, there is not a whole lot there – but that, for me, added to its remote mystique.

Some homeowners had bird feeders to attract hummingbirds, which we did see, and there were swallows that enjoyed gobbling up insects that our cars stirred as we drove.
We also hiked along Camp Billy Joe, which is where we got lucky enough to see various sparrows and jays.
The trip ended wonderfully. I enjoyed a detour up through Kansas and found even more prairie dog towns just scattered throughout the landscape near the highway. I got many shots of the rodents and their burrows with one burrowing owl flying over my lonesome car – the whole experience giving me a glimpse into the not long-ago past of what Oklahoma was like before farms and cattle.
I encourage anyone to take trips to our state’s local parks, near or far.

We took the family to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum recently.

I had been to the Memorial several times, but not the museum. The admission price of $10 for adults and $6 for children always seemed a little high to me. For our family, that’s $32, and that’s just because the baby doesn’t need a ticket to get in.

But I had been to the outside area, several times, so I knew what to expect.

We came on a Saturday, which apparently means free parking downtown. The meters say it’s free on Sundays only, so we fed the meter before someone wandered by and mentioned in passing that it was free the whole weekend. We were out of change anyway, so we took a chance and didn’t get a ticket.

The Memorial is such a quiet, serene place. Everyone is so introspective. It means different things to everyone, but it all revolves around what happened on April 19, 1995.

The first thing we saw was the fence. The fence is part of the fence that was installed shortly after the bombing to protect the site. People from all over (myself included) left items on the fence in the aftermath, and although it was not originally part of the plan for the memorial, planners later decided to keep a portion of the fence. A booklet from the memorial refers to the fence as America’s sympathy card.

It was sprinkling outside, so we went directly to the museum, in hopes of the rain lessening when we were finished inside.

Photography is not allowed inside, and the Memorial Foundation has been gracious enough to allow us to reprint their photos. All inside photos ©2009 Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation.

When you enter the museum, you go directly to the third floor, where the exhibits begin. You start off seeing what was happening on April 19, 1995, in the hours before the explosion. Museum planners focus on how the day was like any other, and no one expected what was going to happen.

As you move through this floor, you’ll see pieces of art that were retrieved from the Murrah Building, newspapers from the morning of the bombing, information about terrorism across the country, and a section on Judge Alfred P. Murrah himself and the history of the building. The children were most interested in this area, since Murrah was from our town.

From there, you move into the moment of the blast. Museum visitors are escorted into a room that is designed as a recreation of a Water Resources Board conference room, where a recording is played of a meeting that started shortly before the bombing. Again, this reinforces how it was just an ordinary day until 9:02 a.m. A few minutes into the recording, the explosion is heard. A moment later, you are enveloped in silence. At the same time, pictures are flashed on the wall of the 168 people that were killed. It is a sobering moment.

The exit door opens, and you walk into a world of seeing chaos. News reports from the day roll by on television screens.

Here is also items from the bombing – personal items like phones, planners, briefcases and shoes. The children’s shoes are heartbreaking. A clock taken from the rubble, stopped at 9:02, helps to solidify the moment frozen in time.

After this comes survivor’s stories and the aftermath, news reports and official investigation.

The Gallery of Honor was where things started to fall apart for us. I had been worried about bringing three children to the museum, but the lady I spoke to before coming assured me it would be a good experience. The children weren’t scared or anything, so we had that going for us…but they were bored. The 9-year-old could handle it, but she said it was boring. The 6-year-old was getting wiggly by about this point. The 2-year-old started to fuss about being strapped in the stroller for so long. And Ben and I still wanted to look around. This did not make for a good museum experience.

We swept through the next areas, pausing for a portion of the 168 penny campaign that raised funds for the museum and the children’s area. The kids did a puzzle in the children’s area, but didn’t mess with the other items – rescue coats and hats for dress up, interactive computers with information about the memorial, and drawing areas to express their feelings…they mostly did the puzzle. I think a piece was missing, which bothered them.

The children’s area was actually a little dated, in my opinion, when you think about the fact that most of the people who actually would remember the bombing would be adults now. My children didn’t know about the bombing before we went. I gave them a little information before we got there, but I didn’t want to frighten them or anything. I was glad that going through the museum didn’t scare them or give them nightmares. I don’t think they saw it as something that could actually happen to them, and it didn’t touch them in any particular way. The children’s area was designed to help children cope with the bombing, but mine apparently didn’t need to cope with it.

I can also say that when you are trying to get out of the OKC Memorial Museum quickly because your baby is fussing and ruining the silence, it is hard to find the exits.

We did find them and went back down the elevator to the first floor. We went through the gift shop and stepped outside, where we were again greeted by drizzle. Although it was raining, there were still a few people outside.

I always wonder what brought them here today. Are they a friend or relative of one of the deceased, and this was a special day, like a birthday or anniversary? Maybe they were a survivor and needed to come that day. Maybe they are tourists from out of town and this was the only day they could come before heading back home. I wonder what the stories are for the people at the Memorial, and what they are thinking.

The east wall, representing the moment before the blast – 9:01 a.m.

The field of empty chairs.

The blacked out windows of the present museum building, representing the windows blown out the blast.

The survivor tree – this also has a section dedicated to it inside the museum.

The east wall, representing the moment before the blast – 9:03 a.m.

Okay. Here’s our take on it.

If you have not been to the Memorial, go now. It is worth a visit and is definitely something to see. It will stir up memories of that day and what you experienced. They turned something terrible into a place of beauty and serenity, and it is worth your time.

Take the kids to the Memorial if you like. You can give them a brief outline about what happened, and what everything means. It is park like, and they will enjoy seeing the different gardens, the chairs, the reflection pool and the Survivor Tree.

There is no charge to see the Memorial, and if you go on the weekend, parking is free too.

If you’ve never been to the museum, I recommend it highly…unless you are traveling with your children. Like I said, even the 9-year-old was very bored, but she was able to behave regardless. The younger two couldn’t do it. I know where they were coming from. It would have been boring to me as a kid. It was interesting to me because I could relate to it, and they couldn’t.

I think it might have been a better experience for the oldest if I had been before, and I had been able to focus on her entirely and follow her lead. But I wanted to see what was there too, so it wasn’t the right time for her to be there.

So, go, but don’t take the smaller kids. Teenagers could handle it, and might be more interested since they probably would have already learned about it in history class.

The Outdoor Symbolic Memorial is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Memorial Museum is open seven days a week. Monday through Saturday they are open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday they are open from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The museum is closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors 62+ and $6 for students ages 6 through college. No charge for children ages 5 and under.

There is a lot more information online at their website: Oklahoma City National Memorial

We hit the State Fair last night, Okie Tourist style, with stroller and bags and all the things it seems to take to make a family outing complete.

We tried to do it on the cheap, although we spent $21 on corndogs, lemonade and chicken-on-a-stick to feed our family of 5. Not bad. Of course, some of our people are still very small. Your family might require more than a $3 corn dog for dinner. Alternately, your family might be more vocal about their demands for a more filling meal. Ours are still pretty distractable.

We were at the fair for about five hours, and we probably didn’t do a third of all we would have liked to. We’re going back on Wednesday (our oldest two kids are performing at the bandshell) and so we have plans to hit a few more things then.

Here’s what we did, what we didn’t do, and what we’re planning to do.

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I have to get this out in the open first. This review may be slightly biased because I seriously love Frontier City.

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I have to admit – I was a little worried before our visit to White Water Bay this weekend.

I did my regular online search beforehand, and the reviews I saw didn’t shine a good light on the place. I read about broken rides, awful lines, smelly astroturf and rude staff.

But we gathered up the sunblock anyway, and went to see for ourselves. And we didn’t see any of those things. Not even one.

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It’s Christmas in August all this weekend as Disney’s Christmas Carol Train Tour makes a stop in downtown Oklahoma City.

So, the five of us, along with my mom, dragged out of bed this morning while it was still dark and left the house by 6 p.m. We were on a mission – a mission to get to the media’s sneak peek of the Christmas Carol Train Tour with time to spare. The event kicked off at 7:30 a.m., and I didn’t want to miss a moment.

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We celebrated a birthday on Sunday by meeting family for dinner. We didn’t want anyone to have to travel three hours for a birthday meal, so we picked a location that was centrally located to all three travel parties. The winner? Seiling, Oklahoma…population 875, according to Wikipedia.
Now I don’t know about you, but in my experience towns with only eight hundred and seventy-five people aren’t the best travel destination. But a visit to the Seiling Chamber of Commerce website proved there were four restaurants in town…a good start for any get together. Our selections were Heath’s Steakhouse, My Way Café, Subway, and Willy’s Café.

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So, I like traveling around Oklahoma. I like it so much that I thought I’d write about it.

A couple of months ago, my family went to Lake Optima, which, in my opinion, was an incredible adventure. Came back home and looked it up, but I couldn’t find much. That’s when I decided to get more information about interesting places in Oklahoma out to the public – including the places the normal travel guides don’t talk about.

I’m planning on going around to different areas all over the state and review them for you. Me (Regina, that is) and Ben (that’s the man of the place) and our three kids are already going places, so why not share what we find out? We’ll go to museums, lakes, events and other attractions, then let you know how it went. We’ll also fill you in on good letterboxes and geocaches in these areas, if you’re into that. We’ll tell you how it really is.

That’s Okie Tourist. Hope you enjoy it.