Warning- Vacation Pictures

You should see all the "thumbs up" he gets in this truck!

I know I told ya'll about my brother and sister-in-law coming to visit last week.  We had a wonderful time with plenty of BBQ and Beer. Not to mention music and laughter.  I haven't seen them since before they went to Japan about 5 years ago so we had lots to catch up on.  They are stationed in Kingsville, Tx now and she's due to retire from the Navy in about 3 years.  Anyway.... My brother had a conference he needed to attend in Oklahoma City over this past weekend.  My SIL asked me to come with them so we could hang out while he was tied up Friday- Sunday.  She didn't really want to sit in the hotel by herself all weekend and so we played tourist all weekend. 

Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill

I didn't think to toss my camera in my purse our first night in OKC so I can't show you the awesome food porn from Toby Keith's but I DID snag a picture of the place the next day.  I had me a good old fashioned chicken fried steak.... Oh so good.

I had no idea there are actually bears IN Oklahoma.

  SIL and I went to the OKC Zoo on Friday.  I was surprised at how nice a place it was.  The zoo is 109 years old (which is 9 years older than OKC)   
The pink flamingos were sooo pretty.   

This guy's face just makes me giggle.  It kind of looks like E.T. don't you think?

 
This mountain lion paced and paced then came right up to where I was standing and seemed to say hello. 

 I sure wouldn't want to happen across this guy out in the woods.  He's HUGE.

 Saturday we went to the Red Creek Festival.  It was held in the convention center which was great because it was air conditioned.  
It's a Native American Festival and they were having dancer contests. 

 I'm not familiar with what the dances actually are but it was awesome to watch them in their finery.  

Sorry about the pictures not being very good here.  I was just too far away I think.

This brave allowed me to take his picture.  I told him I'd make him an internet star for a day! LOL!

Check out the look on this Brave's face.... Scary!

We walked through the Botanical Gardens.  The pictures just don't do it justice. 

 This is a shot of the tropical gardens.  We decided that the cost to go check it out just wasn't worth it though.  Instead we toured the gardens and people watched.

You can't tell it in this picture but the dream catcher here is about 10 foot tall.

Saturday evening after my bro got out of his "class" we headed down to Bricktown for some dinner. 

   Again, no food porn but I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture before digging into some awesome Fuzzy's Taco's and a mega Margarita.  

There's a riverwalk that is really pretty to walk along.  Ducks and water taxi's play in the water.

                             This guy play's a mean bucket!!!

There was a group of young men breakdancing.  They had a pretty good crowd of onlookers.  

They have horse drawn carriages in Bricktown.  Here's a Cinderella Princess Carriage.

The Bricktown area is chock full of live music on Saturday nights and lot's of them play outdoors.  

My brother is a beer snob.  No, seriously... he is.  So what better place to down a couple than The Tap Werks.  It's an old brewery turned bar and grill with over 100 beers on tap.

   He talked me into trying a "Black and Tan".  Now I'd heard of this beer before but had never had one.  It's a "layered" drink made from half stout beer and half pale ale. 

 In this case Guiness Stout and Bass Pale Ale.   I've had several folks tell me how good they are.  THEY LIED!  That was one of the nastiest things I've ever tried to drink.   hehehehe

Sunday my sis n law and I went to the OKC Memorial where 168 people, including 19 children died that horrible day.

The Reflection Pool.  We didn't go to see it at night.  They say the chairs seem to float on the water's edge.

The chainlink fence that was put up when the explosion happened is still here. A memorial all it's own.

Across the street from where the Murray Building once stood is a catholic church.  They erected this memorial in honor of ALL the children who died that day.  Two pregnant women died in the blast as well.  There are 22 stones.  The statue of Jesus has his back turned away from the Murray Site.  

The inscription reads "Jesus wept".....
There is also a Memorial Museum.  We couldn't bring ourselves to go in.  The chilling and depressing effect of the Memorial site itself was almost too much to bear. I'm so glad we went but I'm really glad it was the last thing we did while we were in OKC.

All in all it was a wonderful get-away and I enjoyed every minute of it.  It's good to be home though.  The weeds seem to have missed my attention while I was gone.