LOTS TO SEE IN OKC

The State Capitol of OK was built in 1914 but didn’t get its dome until 2002 due to a lack of funds. All 77 OK counties donated materials for the building. There are 650 rooms and it sits on 11 acres. An oil well stands guard outside the south entrance. It’s named “Petunia #1” because the drilling began in a flower bed.

The dome’s stained glass skylight illuminates murals depicting Oklahoma history. We visited the Senate and House chambers on Monday. Both were in session and I was instructed to remove my hat per legislative rules. I told the attendant, “My mamma would agree with you.”

The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum lived up to its slogan, “The West Begins Here.” This is the finest depiction of how America’s West evolved.

The Museum is a treasure trove of Western Art, has a replica of a frontier town, a send up to the movie cowboys, a Native American Gallery and life-sized rodeo arena from the ’50s.

There are four gardens on the Museum’s grounds and a small herd of famous bulls and horses are interred here like: Poker Chip the rope horse, Hells Angels the bucking bronc and Baby Doll Combs the bulldogger. The greatest of them all is Tornado the bull. He threw 220 riders and Freckles Brown was the only cowboy to ever last eight seconds on the 1,500-pound monster.

A tour of OKC would not be complete without driving by the tiny Milk Bottle Grocery and the Golden Dome on old Route 66.

The “Father of Oklahoma City” Henry Overholser built the first mansion here in 1901. It is now surrounded by many opulent and much larger homes.

The Myriad Botanical Gardens is laid out in four quadrants covering 17 acres surrounding a lagoon and Conservatory in the middle of OKC. It’s free and offers a vast array of open lawns, plants, fountains, paths and even an amphitheater.

You’ll have to pay to enter the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory. Inside it’s packed with exotic plants viewed from a catwalk and winding pathways along a flowing creek fed by a waterfall.

We walked two blocks from Myriad Gardens to experience Albesila at Rex Fest. The luminarium is a sculpture observers walk inside to be overwhelmed by color.

The inflated maze is made from 27 egg-shaped domes that have been cut and glued together. The illumination is all sunlight and on this warm day it was a tad stuffy inside.

Sitting in a pod or lying back to absorb the colors was soothing, disorienting or disturbing depending upon the dominate hue and how the wind moved the walls.

We drove across the Oklahoma River to view the sun setting on OKC’s skyline from the Wheeler Ferris Wheel. The historic Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel was purchased on eBay and moved here in 2008. The winds were too high to ride the 100-foot wheel but the view of downtown from the river’s south bank was worth the trip.

The filet mignon we ate for dinner at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse was the best I’ve ever paid someone else to grill for me. Cattlemen’s Cafe opened in Stockyard City in 1910 and is Oklahoma City’s oldest restaurant. In 1945 owner Hank Frey lost the restaurant to Gene Wade in a dice game at the Biltmore Hotel on a “hard six” or double 3s roll. I ordered my steak with a Cattlemen’s Double Deuce Ale which is what our server called, “A proper sized man’s beverage.”

We ended our day on a somber note at the Oklahoma City National Memorial on the former site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that was bombed on April 19, 1995. 9:01 on the eastern gate represents the last moment of peace and 9:03 on the western gate is the first moments of recovery from the senseless blast.

The 168 empty chairs made of glass and bronze are lit at night. Runners from the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon left their numbers, medals and tokens of remembrance on chairs of lost friends and family.