Oklahoma City & Washita Battlefield

We continued west on Monday morning, stopping in Oklahoma City to visit the National Memorial there. In the winter, eastern Oklahoma is marked by brown scrubby trees on rolling hills of brown grass, with occasional spots of bare red soil. The Oklahoma City memorial is different than a most National Park sites, as the memorial itself is owned by the park service, but the visitor center and museum are run by a private foundation.

We walked around the memorial and talked to the Rangers onsite. The Junior Ranger program was pretty easy. We were at the memorial for about an hour, then we continued west. While it had been a little cold in Hot Springs, we really noticed it in Oklahoma City. 

We left Oklahoma City and continued to western Oklahoma, stopping to see the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site. It's a pretty small site, commemorating something that wasn't much of a battle. In 1864, the 7th calvary, under the leadership of George Custer, wiped out a Cheyenne village. It was notable mainly because it was the first time US troops had attacked the Cheyenne during the winter. The tragedy of the incident was the chief who was killed was a moderate trying to work out the difference between the Cheyenne and the US.

A visitor center for the site is under construction, so we stopped at the headquarters for the site, which is located in the town of Cheyenne. They had a short movie about the battle that they played on a big screen tv, but there was only room for four chairs around it, and there were no exhibits. The kids completed the Jr Ranger program, and then we drove out to the battlefield site and briefly looked around. After that we drove to Pampa, Texas, where we stayed the night.