We stopped in Oklahoma City today. The city grew from a land rush in 1889 where people were allowed to stake their claim to a piece of land to live and farm on. The area surrounding the city is still mainly used for farming.

We visited the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It was inside a large air conditioned building, which we were pleased with because it was around 37 degrees celsius outside. There were numerous statues like the one above throughout the museum and to give a sense of scale it was at least as tall as a double decker bus.

There were many exhibitions showing how cowboys lived in the pioneering days of Oklahoma. We found out today that the chuck wagon above was not just the place where the food was cooked but where all of the important items of the cowboys were stored so it acted like a mobile office.

Oklahoma City is also unfortunately known for the tragic bombing in 1995, which killed 168 people and injured 700. The city has created this memorial to remember the victims.

Each chair above represents one person killed and the smaller chairs represent one child killed. 19 children were killed on this day while they were in a daycare centre. There was a visitor centre associated with the memorial, which told us about how this day unfolded and how the city rallied around to rescue and help the victims of the bombing.