Wednesday 4-4

O ur day started with a familiar visit to the Blue Bird donut motorhome. We all went around to the back of the donut motorhome where we enjoyed our sumptuous continental breakfast. As we were getting ready to move on, I handed my camera to a man to take a picture of all four of us.

A place to start our day — The Blue Bird Donut Coach

A time to read our complimentry newspapers

Kay and Tina left Kevin and me reading our complimentary newspapers as they went off to a craft class. After finishing with our newspapers, I thought this would be a good time to go see an interesting attraction, a very old motorhome. As it turned out, the ancient motorcoach was in excellent condition.

An old motorhome in excellent condition

The antique RV was built on a 1917 Packard chassis with a twin six engine. I found out that "Twin Six" was a phrase used before the term "V12" had been dreamed up. The numbers for this old rig almost sound familiar for a current day small motorhome. The length is 24 feet long with the engine having a displacement of 424 cubic inches. There was one feature that looked somewhat hazardous, a gasoline cook stove.

A 424 cubic inch Twin Six engine

From the old motorhome Kevin and I went over to the Monaco display area. I had an appointment to drive another Monaco motorcoach. Kevin would go along for the ride with Sara taking us to the demo rig storage area. Again Sara drove out the Oklahoma State Trooper driver training track. The motorhome on this day was six feet longer than the one Kay and I drove earlier in the week.

Just as with the shorter motorhome, Sara put the longer rig through its paces. At one point she said she was going to demonstrate how well the brakes worked. She warned Kevin and me to hold on. Kevin was sitting far enough back that he didn’t hear Sara’s warning. She hit the brakes and Kevin came flying forward to be stopped by the dash. Sara was right, the brakes worked very well.

Another chance to take the wheel of a type A motorcoach — Photo by Kevin

I took my turn at the wheel taking the RV through the obstacle course. Since this was my second time to drive the course, it went faster than the first time. So, Kevin sat down in the driver’s seat to put the motorhome through its paces. After completing his circuit around the training track, there was still time left for more driving. Sara asked if we would like to take the motorhome out on the freeway.

Kevin puts the motorhome through its paces

So, with Kevin at the wheel, we found our way to westbound I-40. After riding for a few miles Kevin got off of the freeway so we could trade places. Once in the driver’s seat, I headed toward I-40 where I entered the highway driving east back toward the fairgrounds.

As we approached the demo parking area, Sara told me to go ahead and take it in. This was the closest conditions I had ever tried driving a motorcoach this big. I nervously backed the rig into the parking place only to find that I had parked in the middle of two spaces. It will take a little more practice before I will be able to park in a really close space.

Sarah with me in the Monaco display area — Photo by Kevin

We finished our test drive at about the same time that Kay and Tina were finished with their craft class. It was now time for lunch, so I told Kevin and Tina about the onion burgers. We all headed on over to partake of the Oklahoma specialty for our midday meal. After lunch we caught a tram back to the campground.

Our bus went down a street that had been turned from asphalt pavement to gravel by the very large buses. I mentioned this to the driver and he said that they were driving with the tag axles in the up position. This was done because there were several very tight turns in the parking lots that would have been very difficult to negotiate with the tag axle down. With the tag axles up, the weight of the big buses appeared to be too much for the fairgrounds roads. I noticed some smaller buses making the rounds, but they were brought in too late for the torn up roads.

We had to get back to our respective motorhomes to wait for the service representatives to show up to take care of problems we had with our refrigerators. While we were waiting, Tucker showed up for a short visit. He wanted to check out our motorhome just in case we decided to trade it in on a new Monaco motorhome. Shortly after Tucker left, the service reps arrived.

Of the two service calls, Kevin and Tina had the earlier appointment. This gave me an opportunity to observe the service technicians in action. It didn’t take them long to find that only one out of two wires that power the refrigerator heating element was connected. This would cause the refrigerator to never cool down properly. With the proper connection of the wire we would find out later that Kevin and Tina were getting ice cubes like never before.

The service techs came over to our motorhome to look at our refrigerator. They quickly found that the sparky wire that ignites the flame was too far from the flame opening. After the sparky spacing was adjusted we had no more trouble. The National RV service rep visited Kevin and Tina to perform several fixes to their motorhome including the replacement of the AM/FM dash radio. All of this great service was complimentary.

Now we could take off again on a new adventure. Tina wanted to take a trolley to a place called "Bricktown" in downtown Oklahoma City. When we boarded the trolley we found that we had boarded on the wrong side of the street for where we wanted to go. The trolley we were on was going the opposite direction away from Bricktown. We decided to stay and ended up taking an unexpected 45 minute ride.

Our trolley made a loop and came back through the campgrounds, this time we were headed the right way. Now we were headed toward Bricktown. The trolley driver’s area had a familiar look to it. It appears as if the trolleys are a form of bus that might be built on a Chevrolet class A motorhome chassis or something similar. The body is made to look like an old fashioned trolley or cable car. This form of public conveyance rode like a truck.

The National Memorial in Oklahoma City

We finally arrived in Bricktown in the late afternoon. We transferred to another trolley that would take us to the new National Memorial. It opened a couple of weeks before we arrived in Oklahoma. The memorial is on the site of the bombed Alfred P Murrah building. The trolley let us off at one end of the memorial near one of the "Portals of time."

Looking down the relecting pool toward a portal in time

The street where the bomb went off has been replaced with a block long reflecting pool. At either end of the pool are squared arch ways which have a minute in time on them. One has the time 9:01 while the other has 9:03 on it. The bomb detonated at 9:02. These two portals of time bracket the minute of the bomb blast. In place of the Alfred P Murrah building is a field of empty chairs; a chair for each person killed. The small chairs represented the children who died. The chairs are arranged in nine rows representing the floor of the building where the person was located when the building was destroyed.

Empty chairs —- one for each person killed

The 9:03 portal in time

Near the 9:03 portal of time is a chain-link fence covered with flowers, toys, personal articles and photographs of some of the victims. The fence forms a sort of impromptu memorial within the National Memorial. Across the reflecting pool from the field of chairs is the National Memorial building. It was too late in the day for us to go inside. Behind the field of chairs is a raised area that overlooks the whole monument area.

An impromptu memorial within the National Memorial

When I found my way to the observation area I was surprised to find that the area actually is the original entrance walkway to the Alfred P Murrah building. The walkways are lined with benches and pass among small flower gardens. If a person were to approach the area form this direction, there is no sign of what happened here. When I saw this area I realized that the bomb that destroyed the building was set off on the back side of the building.

It was getting late, so we found a trolley to take us back to Bricktown. Our interesting conveyance followed a route through the concrete canyons formed by tall, mostly empty buildings in downtown Oklahoma City. Most people had left the city center after there day of toil. When we finally reached Bricktown again, we looked for a place to eat our evening meal.

Our restaurant of choice in Bricktown - Chelino’s

There were several restaurants, within a short walking distance, to choose from. It was decided that we would try Chelino’s Mexican restaurant. This turned out to be a good decision as the food was very good. Better yet, this place made good margaritas.

I wanted to try a margarita as I do now and then when I visit a Mexican eatery. Sometimes when I get a margarita, Kay will share it with me. On this trip Kay wanted to have a margarita as well. With this, Kevin and Tina suggested that we buy a pitcher of margaritas for the table. It turned out that we were able to have two ’ritas for each of us. This was a good buy compared to the total cost of four individual drinks.

A cold margarita will taste good after a day in the sun

Our meal was very good and it was fun to be sharing the experience with friends. One of the topics of discussion was about what we saw at the National Memorial. After our leisurely meal it was time to get back to the fairgrounds. When we emerged from the restaurant the sun had descended below the horizon leaving only the light of dusk in the sky.

The trolley stop was across the street from where we ate our dinner. While crossing the street I noticed that most of the bricks that paved the crosswalk had brick brand names embossed in the surface. I’m guessing, but I thought that the bricks may have been salvaged from buildings torn down to make room for parking lots.

Salvaged bricks pave the streets in Bricktown

We all took a seat on benches at the trolley stop to wait for our ride. It seemed like a long time before a trolley finally stopped to let us board. During our wait we saw several people heading toward the downtown arena to attend a hockey game. When our trolley arrived, I was really ready to get back to the fairgrounds. The ride back seemed to be shorter than when we came to town.

By the time we reached the fairgrounds it was dark and the nighttime entertainment had already begun. The trolley dropped us off right next to the State Fair Arena. Being so close, we went in to find a seat to watch the remainder of the show. The featured entertainer on this night was Mel Tillis. He was out on the stage, which meant we had missed all the speeches that traditionally are made before the entertainment. On the downside, we didn’t have a very good choice of seats. We found four seats together off to one side of the stage.

Mel Tillis and friends

One problem with my seat was the fact that there was a big panel between me and the stage. As a result I could only see the band most of the time without seeing Mel Tillis. I also found that the place where I was located seemed to receive no ventilation with the air temperature getting very warm. I finally moved to a seat directly across from the side of the stage where I could see better and there was a cool flow of air over the area.

When the show was over the usual crowd of people made their way enmasse to the nearest tram stop. We had to wait for about three trams to come and go before we advanced enough in line to board a vehicle that would take us back to our camping area. When we found our way back to our respective motorhomes, we were all worn out from a very full and busy day. It was time to turn in for the night.