Monday 25th August.

Best sleep I’ve had so far; a full nine hours solid. Dick and Susie called for us at 8:00 am…away by 8:15, heading for the memorial at what was the Murrah building in OK city, the site of what has become known as the Oklahoma Bombing.
(The perpetrator Timothy McVeigh, was actually apprehended in Perry, not far from where we’re staying right now, by the local cop Charley Hanger.)
It’s a pretty emotional place.
There are rows and rows of named chairs, bigger ones for the adults, smaller ones for the children, each with a perpetual light underneath it…I’ve forgotten how many, but it’s close to the two hundred mark…and to see so many brings home that each one was an individual with loved ones, hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and the innocent kids with their whole lives in front of them…gut wrenching.
For what reason?
Why?
One perverted bastard’s hate.
And it’s still happening…Palestine, ISIS, Ukraine…although the tosser IRA have quietened down in recent years.
We were told that there was to be a ‘show’ in the museum itself in five minutes, but, quite frankly; I couldn’t have faced it.
I’m not an emotional bloke; but I walked away from there with a lump in my throat.
The pure malevolence of some people defies belief.

Anyway…next stop was Pops in Arcadia…a bit of an eye-opener for us parochial Kiwis…700 different flavours of pop (soft drink,) in stock; I’ve never seen so many different varieties and flavours in one place before in my life…and I had to order a glass of milk with my meal. (Okay; so I like milk! And there’s no added sugar.)
A good hamburger meal too; although a bit large for me…I had to remove the top bun and biff it away.

Next stop was the Round Barn, built initially in 1898, and totally refurbished some twenty years ago.
I noticed that all the diagonal cross-bracing was from bottom left to top right, and none from bottom right to top left, and passed a comment to the fella who was guiding us through.
He laughed, and said, “You’re not the first to point that out; we’ve had architects come through here and tell us this place shouldn’t be standing; but it is, and has done so for nearly 120 years!”
Good point.
Later, wandering though the outside exhibits, I noticed an old horse-drawn sickle-bar mower labelled as a ‘cycle’ bar mower.
Should I point out the mistake?
Nah…it’s not for me to say.

On to the Oklahoma Railway Museum, it looked extremely promising from outside the fence…but it’s closed on Mondays.
sigh.

Carry on to Oklahoma 45 Infantry Division Museum…that too is closed on Mondays.
Another small sigh; but at least we could wander around the static outdoor display of machinery and aircraft, (which was quite interesting in itself,) so the visit wasn’t an entire waste of time.
Back to the motel, where Dick and Susie left us, so we headed into Perry ( first stop was a liquor shop, half a gallon of Bacardi gold rum for US$33) to take Crunchie bars to Marilee Machias et al, only to find she had left work at 4:00, half an hour ago.
Bugger!
So we gave them to a staff member to leave on her desk for her to find in the morning, wandered across to a junk shop the other side of the square, (Rick has broken his favourite coffee cup that he’s had for twenty years and is looking to replace it; it has to be big, and have ‘character’,) only to be recognised virtually as soon as I walked in the door.
Crikey! I’m not that bad am I?
So we finished up giving them a Crunchie bar each too. The expressions as they sampled them were priceless…”Mmm, that’s nice!”
Okay…head for the Smelser ranch at Billings for tea, got out there and Dick promptly took us to the Indian reservation for ciggies…three cartons of Marlboro 100’s for US $154..one carton in NZ will cost NZ $140…so that should see me through the next day or three.
Back to Dick and Susie’s for barbequed pork ribs, sweet corn on the cob, and jacket roast spuds.
Bloody gorgeous.
Back to the motel.

Tuesday 26th August.

I thought I’d had this jet-lag body-clock thing beat after last night; but nah. Into bed about 9:30 – 10:00…only to be still awake at 4:00 am. And awake again at 7:00 when the alarm went off...