Saturday - July 2 2022 - Oklahoma City OK to McAlester OK

We did not intend to spend the whole day in Oklahoma City but the museums sucked us in, in a good way. We were trying to decide between the Cowboy Museum or the First American Museum. The Cowboy Museum opened first (10:00) so we decided on it. Since they were opening so late, we decided to see downtown. No traffic, Saturday morning, and free easy parking. They have a nice walkable downtown park area with a splash park for the kids and a farmers market. Lots of dog walkers and lots of soaking wet kids, perfect for these 90+ degree days with 90+% humidity. Lots of vendors of mostly arts, crafts and a few veggie and fresh meat folks. Good chance to sample local beers (at 9am!?!?). It was a chance to get a good walk in as well since we have been in the car for three days. They also had these cool misters that created a huge fog bank you could walk through to cool off. Very clean and tidy. 

We then drove down to the Oklahoma City bombing site where they have a memorial. We didn't stop but wanted to at least see the memorial.. Sad..

OK, now to the Cowboy Museum. We got there 10 minutes after it opened and the parking lot was packed. We did get a spot way down back and a shuttle bus stopped to pick us up (we declined) and we asked what was going on. There was a "Red Earth Festival" at the museum this weekend where a huge gathering of Native Americans (First Americans as we later found out) were having dancing, crafts, art and exhibits. We lucked out and got a two for one deal. The place was busy but most were there for the Red Earth event so we got to do the Cowboy Museum exhibits with a manageable crowd and saw most of the Red Earth folks as well. We saw one of the dance performances but standing room only. 

The Cowboy Museum was huuuge! Somewhere between the tribal history, the ranch history, the hat, boot, and saddle history, the branding iron and barbed wire (1300 kinds!) collection, the Remington, Russell and Audubon pictures and sculptures, the movie stars and movie exhibits, and the farm equipment and firearm collections, we reached saturation. We staggered out of there and went to, you guessed it, another museum.

The First Americans Museum (FAM), is a brand new, beautiful museum (where do they get all the $$ to build these beautiful concrete and glass museums??). It is good sized but much smaller than the Cowboy Museum. We bought our tickets (senior rate!!) and immediately  went to the cafe and sat for a few minutes to decompress. Nice lunch and then into the museum. This museum tells the western history from the Native American point of view. They prefer to be called First Americans, hence the museum name. They were after all, here first. It is beautifully presented and very well done. Dozens of tribes were in North America for centuries, well balanced with resources, sustainable. The cultures of the new European and the First Americans were so mutually foreign, everything went crazy. The new diseases wiped out 90% of the First Americans (18 million to 300,000 in a few decades) and the difference in technologies (weapons) finished them off. Treaty after treaty was signed and broken until the remaining First Americans were assimilated and/or put on reservations. After decades of attempts to win back some autonomy, they have reached a balance between living in the modern world (I did not say better) and still keeping their traditions alive.

OK, we spent the whole day in Oklahoma City and there is even more to do here, but we gotta head east. Deb found a hotel a couple of hours east of us in McAlester OK. Dinner at a local diner (all day breakfast is the way to go) and then crash.