Our day started with breakfast at our hotel followed by a stop at the local Starbucks. A little taste of home.
Next we set the GPS for north Fort Worth and the US Bureau of Engraving to see how the US prints it's paper money
. US paper money is only printed in Washington DC and Fort Worth. The process is very technical and includes multiple checks and re-checks along the way. The presses that they use are specially made and are over 40 feet long. The Bureau is open 5 days a week, 8 hours per day and they print $24 million dollars every hour. Yes - every hour they are working they produce $24 million dollars. That is a mix of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollar denominations. They were currently printing the new $100 bills. From the Bureau the bills are shipped to Federal Reserve banks all across the US where they are distributed to banks for circulation. I have no pictures of the tour because no cameras or cell phones are allowed anywhere on the tour.
After the money tour we headed south, about 6 miles to the Fort Worth Stock Yards. We arrived just in time for the 11:30 "cattle drive" down the streets of the Stock Yards. The cattle are beautiful Texas long horns that a few cowboys drive through the streets for the tourists
. It reenacts the real cattle drives that brought cattle in from the ranches to the Fort Worth Stock Yards to be sold. The stock yards area is a fun tourist cowboy area with restaurants, shops, and museums. We found a western restaurant for lunch, browsed a couple shops and then heard the tornado sirens begin to wail just to the south of us.
We loaded into our tornado evasion vehicle and raced the storms and warnings north. As we drove past Texas Motor Speedway we heard the radio reports of tornadoes touching down around Dallas and Fort Worth. In fact a tornado touched down in Arlington, on the street where we had visited Starbucks this morning. We continued driving north towards Oklahoma and continued hearing of tornadoes not far behind us. Eventually we drove clear of the storms, although we had some very heavy rains and lighting striking all around us a couple points during our drive.
We made a pit stop (Starbucks) in Moore, Oklahoma
. Back on the road we headed for the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum. This was a very somber and eye opening visit. The reflection pond, chairs, and memorial monuments are beautiful and create an excellent memorial to the victims. The museum takes you through that fateful April 19, 1995. You see the normal events of any other day that turned into a day unlike any other. Many personal stories are displayed, models and pictures of the building before and after show the incredible damage. They have a an audio recording from a government hearing that started at 9 AM and captured the blast and sound of the 9 floors collapsing on each other at 9:02. It is very well done and really puts you right in the blast zone on that fateful day. Bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2001 and Terry Nichols is serving life in prison. They were anti-government wackos who sought revenge for the governments mishandling of the Waco Texas stand off with the Branch Davidian Cult.
Time for a good dinner. We found a great restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City before heading to the suburbs and our hotel for the evening. Tomorrow we will check out a couple more sights in Oklahoma City before heading east to Joplin, Missouri.
Fleeing the Texas Tornadoes...
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States
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2025-02-12
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Mom
2012-04-04
Glad that you are safe. Not a bad day here today. You have planned a very educational trip and have made a lot of memories.