November 14, 2009

The Perfect Day

Trey had an extra day off yesterday in honor of Veteran's Day. Have I mentioned I LOVE our 3-days??? I dooo! We did the old people's version of sleeping in. You know.. got up at the normal time because it's impossible to actually sleep in and lounged around for hours drinking coffee and bumming.

We finally got off of our rears around noon and headed out for OKC. Can I just say that I adore the fact that this city is an hour away from us! Unlike last time, I made sure to wear comfy shoes :)
We went straight to the Oklahoma City Memorial. I don't really know how to put into words how this place made me feel. It was very overwhelming. I don't remember much about this day (other than I was in Disney World at the time) so I learned a lot. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even know why the bombing took place or how McVeigh did it. I did take a few pictures outside, which I will post later, but they didn't allow cameras inside.
I was fighting back the tears from the moment it started. You walk out of that elevator and feel like you are there. There are pictures everywhere of what was going on that morning, I know what the weather was like and what the forecast was for the rest of the day, the background noises playing of what you may have heard as you walked into work that day... it put you right there at the scene. From there we walked through a few different exhibits into a room where we heard a recording of a meeting that was going on when the bomb went off. They had to record all these meetings and that tape was recovered. You hear them talking, hear the bomb go off, hear all the confusion and chaos that follows. It was awful. It broke my heart to think about what this city and everyone else who was affected went through... all because of two men. It made me think a lot about 9/11 and the Ft. Hood incident. It just pisses me off that people can be so selfish and careless. How can you NOT be concerned about taking even ONE person's life away from them... never mind hundreds or thousands. How does that NOT affect you? What is the difference between their hearts and minds and ours that doesn't give them that compassion?

From there we made the short drive to Bricktown, which I am in love with. We parked the car, walked around a bit, then stopped in this little bar (with all intentions of having 1 drink) called Tapwerks. It wasn't our fault that we stayed way longer than intended... over 100 beers on tap.. come on. AND they had sanitizer for the toilets!!! My kind of bar :) Our plan was to go to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar for dinner then head home. Imagine my surprise when hubs suggests we get a hotel room right in the heart of Bricktown so we could drink as much as we wanted have a little more fun without having to worry about driving home! Something I would normally think to do, of course. Him? Let's just say he's normally not the spontaneous one of the bunch. To that I smiled ear to ear and ordered another blueberry flavored wheat beer.

Toby Keith's place was pretty cool. I was floored because they offer active duty soldiers a free meal. A big, fat cheeseburger and fries which Trey was going to order anyways. I stayed true to form and got a little emotional over that. It's hard enough to even get a military discount anywhere... here he got a free meal! You can only get it once, but still...

So we had a great night - and it's only still Saturday :)
My Gamecocks are on.. sporting their camo. Highly unlikely we'll beat Florida, but you know I'm hopeful! For the first 3 minutes at least...

8 comments:

Julie Danielle said...

Sounds like a fun trip! And way too cool he got a free meal.

I think people who do things like the the bombing just dont' have souls. I don't think a normal person could handle that. Normal people just don't do stuff like that.

Steph said...

Yay for 3 day weekends!

Sounds like you had a great time! Hope the rest of your weekend is good too!

Anonymous said...

I love three days too! Such a blessing. I am glad you both had a nice time together. Sounds like fun!! Thank you so much for your sweet compliment about my family. That really touched my heart. I just love them to pieces and feel so grateful for the life we have. We are not perfect, but try to make everyday special because were together and make the most out of the little moments we share. I so enjoy your blog!

Hugs, Ginger

Crazy Shenanigans-JMO said...

Glad you had such a great time!!!

My Army Brats and Me said...

We love those 3days too! Sounds like you had a blast.

Kate said...

The Memorial sounds fascinating, devastating, and emotional. Thanks for posting about it - If we ever make it into the area, I've made a mental note to stop there.

Oh and I love last minute decisions to get a hotel room on a whim so you can enjoy a few (well lets be honest, several) drinks together! Sounds like fun!!

Anonymous said...

I gave your blog an award, so go over to my blog and check it out! Congrats!

Shayla said...

ive been to that memorial as well! I started crying when I saw a baby bib that said "I love my daddy" and had a picture of the baby and the dad- the father was killed in the bombing :( and that was just on the fence surrounding the place- im such a cry baby!!!

that is so neat that yall got to take a fun 3day trip and have a great time with it! I AM SUPER thrilled that he got a free active duty meal- stuff like that gets me too!!!