THE BEST REVIEW OF OKLAHOMA CITYPERIOD!
by: daagui (Fri May 5 '00)
Pros: Housing is cheap, great economy, goodplace to raise a family, friendly people.Cons: You must have a car or rent one to see the sites here...
After reading several disappointing reviews on Oklahoma, Idecided to write my own. Throughout my travels I've learned agreat deal about what people think of Oklahoma. Some people,having never stepped foot in this beautiful state, automaticallythink that it's some backwoods hole filled with nothing but inbred,white trash. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Oklahoma City is 625 square miles with more than one millionresidents calling it home. Our winters are short, summers too longbut spring and fall are to die for. This is truly the windy city. Ican't imagine how much Oklahomans' spend on hair spray eachyear due to the tremendous winds we endure. Sadly, the twothings that really put us on the map were the bombing of theFederal Building back in 1995 and the May 3rd tornado in 1999.The May 3rd tornado was the strongest tornado ever recorded inhistory. I know this first hand. My home and my car were bothtrashed by this furious monster.
Oklahoma is a storm chasers dream. Every year, we average morethan 100 tornados per year. The National Weather Service islocated in Norman, Oklahoma. I am right in the center of TornadoAlley. Due to our tumultuous weather patterns, the University ofOklahoma has the finest Meteorology school hands down! Thisusually makes for a very interesting spring. April, May and Juneare the worst months in Oklahoma. I say this because of myundying fear of tornados. However, for storm chasers,professional and amateurs alike, spring is a time of constantexcitement.
By now you're probably asking yourself if there is more toOklahoma than tornados. Of coarse there is! Oklahoma City is thehome of the famous Cowboy Hall of Fame. This museum holds anabundance of history and artifacts from the good old days ofcowboys and Indians. If you like history or westerns, then youwill truly love the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
My favorite attraction is Brick Town. Brick Town is located indowntown Oklahoma City. Many of the city's finest restaurantsand attractions are located in Brick Town. You can catch a RedHawks baseball game or see the Blazer's hockey team in action. Iknow, I know, we haven't any professional teams yet. But we areworking on it. We have a River Walk that runs through Brick townwith water front restaurants, shops and bars. I guess you couldsay that we sort of copied San Antonio's River Walk. You can ridethe river boat or take advantage of the many walking and hikingtrails around the canal.
The Oklahoma City Zoo. One of the best zoo's in the country. Ifyou ever pass through Oklahoma City, you must check out ourzoo! Any Oklahoman will tell you this is a must see. Most of ourstate's tourists come to see the bombing memorial and theOklahoma City Zoo. Warning! Wear comfortable shoes and lightclothing. It gets extremely hot here and this is one huge zoo. Ican't even begin to tell you the variety of animals they have.There are over 2,000 exotic animals from all over the world. Myfavorite attractions at the zoo are Cat Forest / Lion Overlook,Great Escape which is a tropical setting for gorillas, Orangutans,and chimpanzees. Aquaticus, the snake house and the dolphinshows are also a must see. If you're really lucky, you might evenget to ride an Elephant for a small fee. If you're on a budget,pack lunches! The food is terribly expensive and they do allowyou to bring your own food. Don't forget to bring your own water!They charge an arm and a leg for it! Allow yourself a full day atthis zoo. If you don't then you will surely miss some wonderfulattractions.
The Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. April 19th, 2000 was thefive-year anniversary of this tragic event. It was also the day thenew memorial was unveiled. Although it was a sad day for somany Oklahomans' it was also a day of great pride. PresidentClinton cut the ribbon and so the new memorial is now open tothe public. I must say that this is a beautiful sight. There are twohuge walls at each end of the memorial site. One wall with thetime 9:01 stamped on it, the other with 9:03. This represents thetime before the bombing and the time after. Between the twowalls there is a reflecting pool. Lined up along the reflecting poolare 168 marble chairs with the victims names etched into them.Each chair that represents a person is also size appropriate foreach victim. The children have small chairs, while the adults havelarger chairs. At night the chairs light up the entire memorial.There is also a special memorial for the survivor's tree, the onetree that survived the blast. Each family member of the victimshas received a cutting from the survivor's tree. Before we hadthe memorial, we simply had a fence where people would leavewreaths, flowers, stuffed animal and pictures among many otherthings. We will soon have a museum dedicated to the kindness ofstrangers. This museum will hold all of the precious mementos leftby those who came to mourn our loss with us.
On a lighter note, we have two amusement parks. The first isWhite Water Bay. It's a basic water park like most. This can be asavior in the hot Oklahoma summers. It has a wave pool, which Ialmost drowned in when I was ten, and too many water slides tocount. There is also the Big Kahuna, the Lazy River and Kid'sCove for all the little ones. Again, the food is extremely expensiveso remember that if you're on a budget. The second is FrontierCity. Frontier City is owned by Six Flags so you can only imaginethe cost for a day of amusement park fun. It has four major rollercoasters, water rides like the log ride and slides, western shows,concerts, and most of the basic amusement park rides. One majorplus that Frontier City has over Six Flags is that you don't haveto wait two hours for a 15-second ride. Frontier City is verycomparable to Six Flags. Therefore, you couldn't pay me to waithours on end for just one ride. I would take Frontier City over SixFlags any day!
Ballet Oklahoma. Oklahoma's professional ballet company. Theyare a seasonal ballet company so depending on what time ofyear, you can catch some really great performances.
Enterprise Square. This is one of my all time favorite museums.This museum will educate you about the free enterprise system. Iknow what you're thinking. Boring! Not so. Believe it or not, it'sone of the most entertaining museums that Oklahoma City has tooffer. The kids will even love it. They have huge electronic andspecial effects along with audio and visual technology rarelyseen.
The Lazy E Arena. I must admit that I've never been so I had toactually research this one for you. The Lazy E Arena hosts morethan 25 western style events every year. Mostly ridingcompetitions and western shows. This is a huge tourist attractionfor Oklahoma City. I guess if your into watching people beingthrown off bulls and calf roping then this is the place to go.
The Omniplex. This is a museum with tons of hands-on exhibits.There are a variety of galleries, gardens, and educational classesfor your entertainment needs. Among many of the exhibits arethe aviation and space exhibits. There is the OmniDome Theater,a large format dome-screen theater that is 70-feet in diameterand 36,000 watt sound system. The Planetarium is a 40-footdome that features seasonal sky shows. The Air Space museumpreserves aviation history with a collection of vintage aircraft andfull-scale model space capsules/modules. You can fly in an F-16Combat Flight Simulator or a World War II Link Trainer. Thehands-on portion of the museum includes Geovator Time TravelAdventure, Virtual Reality, KIDSCAPE, Green Arcade and theCrystal Molecule. This is educational fun for the whole family.
Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra. A variety of shows thatfeature family concerts, pops and classics. From my ownexperience I advise anyone wishing to attend one of their fineperformances to order tickets ahead of time. It's much cheaperwhen you order in advance and you are guaranteed a seat.
Remington Park. This is our only racetrack and a very nice one Imight add. Races are held on both dirt courses and turf courses.You can place your bets on Thoroughbred or quarter horse races.Another warning. The parking lot is hell on earth! Be prepared towalk ten miles before arriving at the front gates. If you're bringingthe kids, don't forget the stroller! Prices for a day at RemingtonPark are very acceptable. Probably because they get all yourbetting money so they can lower the prices of food and drinks.
Oklahoma Shakespeare In The Park. An outdoor Amphitheaterfeaturing Shakespearian plays throughout the summer. You canpurchase tickets for an actual seat or bring out the lawn chairsand blankets for a picnic atmosphere. This is too much fun!Where else can you have a picnic and watch a play while gazingat the stars? There are many other play houses in Oklahoma City.Among many are The Jewel Box Theater, Prairie Dance Theater,and The Pollard Theater.
The Oklahoma City Art Museum. Housing a collection of more than3,000 works of art specializing in 19th to 20th century Americanart. This museum is located at the fair grounds.
Now these are just a few of the many attractions that OklahomaCity has to offer. Overall, I would have to say that this is a greatplace to live and raise a family. It's a magical place where menstill open doors for women. A place where God, friends and familyare above all. A place where people smile and greet each otheron a daily basis. I find that most people who refer to OklahomaCity as a hole are usually the kind of people that are boring tobegin with. You would have to drag me out of here kicking andscreaming before I would live anywhere else. Oklahoma is reallyO.K.!!!!!
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