Moon Shots and Magic, Day One

Just a travel day, really.

I decided not to take a chance on the Metro Green Line and ordered a shuttle. Which arrived shortly after 2 AM, after failing to follow the specific directions I put on the website. Hello? There's no parking on the north side of this street. Hello? Turn on C-------- St and then come up the alley. No, don't drive past the alley. Um, it's a dead end; you'll have to go out the same way you came in.

The flight was scheduled to take off a few minutes after 6. So we all (there were 4 of us in the shuttle van, besides the driver) arrived at the airport at 3 AM. Then the driver dropped my laptop as he was attempting to hand it over to me. Nothing's open at the Southwest Terminal. TSA agents start wandering by about 4 AM. Southwest agents finally start showing up about 5 AM. Then I somehow managed to miss taking the fingernail clippers out of my pocket, so I ended up with getting a government-sanctioned grope.

By the time we got through the Rethuglican "how can you call yourself a proponent of smaller government and then create another governmental agency?" nonsense there was no time to do more than grab a couple of croissants and a cup of Starbucks' crappy coffee before time to board.

Lousy weather, the attendant turbulence, then a late arrival in Denver because we were routed in from a different direction. With only about 30 minutes between scheduled arrival and scheduled departure and the late arrival, I had just enough time to hunt down a schedule monitor, find my flight on the list, and scurry over to the gate. Where, of course, my boarding group was nearly done and they were getting ready to call the next group.

M (the MH of last year's OKC/DFW trip) was trying to text me when we spotted each other. We had three seats to ourselves, since the flight was only about half full. And she, bless her, had picked up a turkey sandwich, a chocolate chip cookie, two bags of chips, and a couple of bottles of water. So once we'd settled in our seats and they'd taken the plane over to the de-icer (yes, it was raining in Denver and cold enough for ice to form!), and we were finally in the air, we had lunch.

More turbulence on the Denver-to-Orlando leg, with the worst of it coming as we were on final into Orlando--one of those heart-stopping altitude drops.

CR (the C of last year's OKC/DFW trip) was waiting for us at the food court, so the three of us headed down to baggage claim, got M's and my luggage (C had already collected hers, since she arrived about half an hour ahead of us), then went over to pick up our rental car. Then off to the hotel, where we checked in, dumped the luggage in our rooms, and then went to dinner at The Golden Corral. Which, by the way, isn't as good as the one in Greeley was back in the mid-'80s.

Back to our rooms, where we chatted a bit, then crashed.

Charity Baseball, Bombing Sites, and the Grassy Knoll, Part C

Finally: the last chapter.

On Saturday, MH, C, and I went back downtown to visit the OKC Museum of Art, which featured a visiting exhibit on Hollywood costumes and a resident exhibit of Chihuly’s blown glass, most of which closely resembles various seaweeds. The costuming exhibit included costumes from Gone With The Wind (I still say Carol Burnett did it better with the drapery dress), Sundance’s corduroy jacket from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Heston’s toga from Ben Hur, and a couple of the kids’ uniforms from The Sound of Music.

J and MC called to tell us to go ahead and get something to eat and they’d meet us at the Will Call window at the ballpark. So we got on the trolley at the MOA (after enduring a test of the tornado siren) and headed over to Bricktown and wandered over to Spaghetti Warehouse, which really occupies the ground floor of a former warehouse. They have an excellent sourdough roll there.
Then it was time to wander back over to the ballpark for the charity baseball game between Mark Harmon’s celebrities (Frank Marshall of Indiana Jones producer fame) and athletes (former Angel Wally Joyner and Cy Young Award winner Rick Sutcliffe, along with a bunch of football players including a longtime friend and classmate of Harmon’s from UCLA) against a team featuring local doctors and other medical professionals whose organizations benefit from the bowling event and the ball game. The batboy was a young cancer survivor. I didn’t try to get in the line for autographs and photos, but thanks to J we had prime seating for getting pictures of Harmon—who batted three times but never did get a chance to take the field to play in the game—while he signed autographs.
The Bombers (Harmon’s team) took an early lead, but the OSSA Outlaws staged a mighty comeback to win with a walkoff double that drove home both the tying and go-ahead runs. Yes, I actually did watch the ballgame! And it’s a beautiful little ballpark. J says the design is basically the same as the Big Club’s ballpark in Arlington, but on a somewhat smaller scale.
Very homey basebally little field, and it even has a playground out in right centerfield. Then it was back to the Spaghetti Warehouse for J and MC to have dinner, along with a couple of other NCISers we picked up at the ball park, one of whom we knew from last year’s FanFest.
C, MH, and I just had dessert while the others had their suppers. S was suffering from the effects of flights gone bananas—she’d made a last-minute decision to attend and had flown from Tampa to Houston, where they circled for half an hour then backtracked to New Orleans where they sat on the tarmac for a couple of hours to take on more fuel, then headed back to Houston, where they had to sit and wait for the connector to OKC. She finally arrived with just enough time to spare before game time to freshen up a bit in their hotel room before heading out to the ballpark.

In a couple of hours J will be picking us up and we’ll head for Dallas, where MH, C, and I will be playing tourist on Monday before we all head for home on Tuesday.
Had I known about the bison parade in OKC, I'd have searched out the bison. As it was, I only saw three and only photographed two.
Once we got to the Dallas Fort Worth area, J promptly took us on a driving tour of Fort Worth, which I’d dearly love to see again on an early Sunday morning by bicycle. And, of course, there’s the Trinity River MUP (Multi-Use Path—bike trail, footpath, etc), which I’d also love to ride!!
There are some really beautiful buildings in Fort Worth! Our roamings also included a trip to the Texas Rangers’ home field, which is easily as beautiful as the AAA club’s home on OKC. Beautiful brick classic baseball stadium, and I’d love to see a game there.
The Cowboys’ stadium is unspeakably ugly and should be razed, particularly given that the city has done so much to keep the area around the Rangers’ ballpark in the same theme. The other stadium, in the same area, is a jarring eyesore. It might be comfortable for watching football, but then the Disney Concert Hall in LA is acoustically exquisite. It, too, is an unspeakably ugly eyesore.

On Monday we all got together again, along with J’s friend who is a student of the JFK assassination and who gave us a guided tour of the area where the assassination occurred, including the parking lot above The Grassy Knoll and the train switching house where two rail employees witnessed the whole thing, and the rail bridge over the street where the shooting occurred
(photo above shows Dealey Plaza from the rail bridge; the school book depository is just out of view on the left; the motorcade would be traveling toward the viewer)
(perfect position for a spotter to see all the way across Dealey Plaza and up the street the motorcade came down).
(photo above shows the grassy knoll; the motorcade turned left at this intersection and headed away from the viewer's position)
Then we toured the Sixth Floor Museum, which tends to stick to the Warren Commission’s version of the story, which apparently does NOT include interviews with all the witnesses.
(School book depository from the rear, showing the gift shop and entry compex and the elevator to the museum; the Grassy Knoll is just beyond the trees on the right, and the sniper's nest is cattycorner across the building)
Lunch was at a delightfully off-the-wall place called Dick’s Last Resort,
and we actually went there between the tour of Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum, since the SFM doesn’t open until noon on Mondays and we were finished with the Dealey Plaza tour around 11. After the visit to the Sixth Floor Museum we headed back to our hotel, where we parted company with our tour guide and the rest of us—J, MH, MC, C, and I—headed into the bar area off the lobby to rehydrate and gab until time for dinner.

After dinner we returned to the hotel and said our goodbyes to MC and J and went up to pack. Couldn’t get online again because we couldn’t justify paying for an extra day of internet access since we wouldn’t be using it for more than a handful of hours and none of us was up to wandering back downstairs for the free access in the lobby area. We did go back downstairs to use the internet access there to do our online check-ins and print our boarding passes. I didn’t sleep worth a damn Monday night. MH, C, and I have also decided that if we come back next year, we’ll add a couple of days to our trip so that we have more time to see the museums and historical sites in OKC and nearby. None of us expected that there’d be so much to see. And we learned that the three of us are museum junkies. And a couple of days more on the Dallas end of the trip, too, for seeing more of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I know I could spend hours and hours on a bicycle in both OKC and DFW. We’re also considering other trips during the year, particularly if FanFest does not continue after this year. Already on our list: Boston, NY, Chicago, Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Denver.

Sucky part: I have two dear friends in the Dallas area and failed to take time with them into account when I planned this venture.

I also can't thank J enough for arranging the tour with her friend, and can't thank the friend enough for the gift of his time and studies.

Charity Baseball, Bombing Sites, and the Grassy Knoll, Part the Second

A couple more pictures from the memorial:
The Survivor Tree had been in a backyard before the residence was torn down to build the Murrah building. Arborists struggled to save it after the blast.
The Survivors Wall: one of the last remaining walls of the Murrah building, with the names in granite salvaged from the building (the walkway here is also salvaged from the building).
The building ID, from the side opposite the blast. The plaza here, including a less-than-relaxing water feature, remains essentially the same as it had been before the blast.
Okay, I admit it: I simply forgot to include those in the previous post.

Shopping done, we headed over to a Sonic for a restorative bite (we’d had nothing since breakfast), then caught the bus and the hotel’s airport shuttle (it was very kind of them to provide us with transportation to and from the bus stop!!!) back to the hotel where we freshened up a bit while waiting for J and MC to arrive through the torrential downpours and the road construction from Dallas (although we still haven’t had more than ugly skies and a bit of drizzle here in OKC since the downpours during the night Thursday). Got to the bowling alley in Edmond and a prime parking space, and fortified our kids’ menu Sonic selections with the free offerings from various local restaurants. Possibly the worst “Indian tacos” I’ve ever had, but the pineapple from the fruit trays was at the height of perfection—not too tangy, not too sweet.
I have some better pictures of Harmon from the game. The guitar and the lounge chair are auction items; the guitar was from JAG cast members.

Got through the crowd to Mark Harmon to have him sign my “Chimera” tee-shirt. This is one of the official cast-and-crew commemorative tee-shirts celebrating NCIS’ 100th episode, which I won in a raffle at FanFest a couple of years ago. I’ve slowly but surely been collecting cast (including guest cast, even though they mayn’t have been in that episode and in one case the character's been dead since the third season) and crew and staff and consultant autographs ever since. He commented to me that it was an official tee-shirt and asked where I got it (and if you didn’t catch that part, go back to the second sentence of this paragraph!). Harmon’s is the only Main Cast autograph I have so far. The others are Doug Reilly (who designed the tee-shirt, among other things including Abby’s Caf-Pow cups), Chas F Johnson (producer), Avery Drewe (producer, and a truly outstanding and entertaining production facility tourguide), Muse Watson (Gibbs’ mentor Mike Franks), Rudolf Martin (Ziva’s half-brother and Mossad double agent Ari), and consultant Craig Harvey of the LA County Coroner’s Office. Here's the part where Harmon signed, just above Rudolf Martin's signature (he also renamed the ship "Ari," as you can see on the bow).
And the outside of the card I made to thank Harmon for signing the shirt. It went into the mail Monday.

Charity Baseball and Bombing Sites and The Grassy Knoll, Part 1

Three of us arrived Thursday afternoon and evening and got settled into our rooms, thanks to C, who works for the hotel’s parent company and has made us all “sisters of different mothers.” Didn’t do much Thursday evening except catch up on chatter and rest after the travels (C from Kansas City; MH from Denver; Yours Truly from Anaheim). Friday saw us transported via hotel shuttle van to a bus stop which took us to the transit center in “Dowtown” OKC.

From there we walked up to the site of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building. Our journey took us right by this piece on the grounds of the Old St Joseph Catholic Church.
This was placed on the site of the destroyed rectory. We mostly skipped the outdoor part of the memorial because of the rain and headed straight into the building which houses the museum. Enlightening and moving. This glass piece is in the museum gift shop; no photography, with or without flash, is allowed inside the museum.
Then we headed back outside and roamed around the site of the Murrah building itself. These "bookends" are on the sites of the crosswalks across 5th St, one labeled 9:01 and the other labeled 9:03. The blast was at 9:02.
The reflecting pool occupies what once was 5th St in front of the Murrah building. This blast-damaged fire escape was across the street from the Murrah building, in the building which now houses the museum (to the left and out of frame in this photo). Below is a view of the memorial chairs, one for each person killed in the bombing, one row for each floor of the building, viewed from the 9:01 bookend, in the rain as we crossed the site to the museum entrance.

After that we headed back to the transit center to catch another bus so we could do a bit of shopping, since we’d all arrived wearing/transporting spring/summer clothes and had decided we needed umbrellas and long-sleeved shirts or lightweight jackets. I got to visit a Hobby Lobby—only the second time I’ve ever been in one—and couldn’t find a thing to interest me! Only visited the papercrafting (scrapbooking, which I don’t do but do use papers and tools, and stamping) and not the stitching. And didn’t find a thing that wanted to come home with me. Okay, I didn’t look that closely at the papers, since that would be harder to transport without proper packaging. And while we ended up not needing the umbrellas, the long-sleeved shirts/lightweight jackets came in handy. Even when I got home!