Lawton museum fun!

  Hey everybody! I hope you're having a good day. :) During my visit with Stephen we went to two museums, an artillery museum (I don't know the official name, unfortunately, I'm sure Stephen does) and the Museum of the Great Plains. The artillery museum was pretty cool, but I don't know much about the subject. I'm so glad Stephen was there to explain things to me, he's very into it and knows quite a bit about the subject. I'd say I learned. :) I learned the difference between a howitzer and an actual tank, which is something else to add to my random font of knowledge to bring up and be a know it all. :P Haha! :)  The artillery museum also hosts "Atomic Annie", the last remaining M65 atomic cannon, and the exact one that featured in the famous mushroom cloud photo. It was really cool to see in person. HUGE.

  It also had a memorial for brave soldiers that lost their lives in various wars. It was nice to read their stories, they truly are heros. Piggybacking off of something Stephen said to me that day: heroes' deaths are often celebrated, but people forget that they lived, and should be celebrating their lives and what they accomplished as well. We're not just commending them for dying, we're commending them for the actions, that were nothing short of heroic, that they took during their lifetime, which may or may not have cost them their life. They had a beautiful memorial there. Speaking of memorials, we also went to see Geronimo's grave. Very neat historical moment.


  It was so extremely hot that day, I used an umbrella to keep the sun off and it was still sweltering. I went against my normal nature and opted to wear flip-flops instead of being barefoot on the outdoor portion, simply because the pavement was SO unbearably hot! I can't imagine what it would feel like if it was black pavement instead of white. Also, my arm got sunburned only from my forearm down, which was out of the umbrella's shade to hold Stephen's hand. I found that strangely cute and amusing for some reason. :)

A particularly beautifully sculpted memorial statue that Stephen somehow convinced me to lick...don't ask.

Despite all the neat canons and things at the artillery museum (which technically had three parts, one outdoor, two indoor) the Museum of the Great Plains was my favourite. There was SO much to do and so many things to interact with. I love it when museums have tactile or otherwise interactive exhibits. I guess that's why I'm so fond of museums geared towards children.  :P Perhaps my favourite part was a huge general store that was accurate to life down to the tiniest details (even the drawers were full of things!), and it encouraged visitors to touch and play with everything.  Holy crap it was amazing to explore. Stephen and I tried on some fancy vintage hats and played checkers there...he won, unsurprisingly.  Haha!

  Besides the general store, the museum also had a printing press station where you could try out the press with a custom message, and a leather saddle shop where you could make a custom leather stamp using tools and a hammer.  Stephen and I made each other one, it was really sweet, and the stamp he made me is one of my favourite treasures. :) They didn't have a flower stamp, just small basic shapes, so took the time to combine the shapes and hammer them in to create a flower for me. My heart melted. What a great guy.

  They also had an outdoor section with a historically accurate reconstruction of a trading post, with ALL the bells and whistles. It was super cool.  When we went there, there was a tour guide giving a demonstration to some little girls about how to make fire with flint and steel. As he went to put it the blazing fire starter into the fireplace, he jokingly asked if anybody had any marshmallows. Well, it just so happens that I did; we had been to a Korean market a few days ago and bought individually wrapped marshmallows with chocolate inside, and they were in my skirt pocket.  He was truly surprised, and another tour guide said in all of 13 years working there, with the other man making that joke at each demonstration, nobody's ever actually had marshmallows before. Hahaha! I asked the children's mother if they were allowed to have a marshmallow, and she said that's fine, so I gave one to each of them. The timing couldn't have been better, it was hilarious. x)

 "So, anybody have any marshmallows?"

 " *raises hand slowly* ...I do."   

"..." 

  The nice tour guide also painted my face with red makeup that the local Native Americans used to use. Apparently the small packet cost two buffalo hides, rather pricey if you ask me. It was fun! :) After the other group of people left it was just him and us. He told us all about the history of the local areas, and answered all our questions. We had a couple great discussions! We got side tracked eventually and started talking about personal life stories, and he was very interested in the life of a mermaid. Since Oklahoma is a landlocked state, Stephen had to clarify that I was an import. Ugh, it took months to clear up the red tape. Here's me with the fun tour guide! I got to take the beads home, but not the skunk hat, alas ;)

Notice my face paint! :)

  One of the coolest things at the museum was what they called "Tornado Theater". It was a small theater designed to look like a cellar/tornado shelter, and it had lifelike lights, sounds, and effects that mimicked being in a tornado. They also had a story that was being narrated from a person's real experience, and a projector with captions, lasting a little less than 10 minutes, I think. It was honestly really terrifying but morbidly thrilling at the same time.

  There was a very realistic archaeology dig site display that you can actually explore and play on to pretend to be an archaeologist. ...Okay, like most of the museum, it was probably more intended for kids to play with but Stephen encouraged me play anyway, which I appreciated. It looked really fun. Give me my damn brush, you bet your butt I'm going to dust the sand off of something cool, I don't care if I'm an adult! Luckily, there were no kids on it when I was, so I had it all to myself, mwahahaha!

Stephen just chillin' while I have fun on the dig site after taking a pic

GIANT LiteBrite wall...yes please. 

 Here's a table where you can make your own bead design. Stephen made one of the actual patterns they challenged you to make...I was a rebel and made a Pokeball.

   Other awesome things at this museum included a sandbox with a topographical map projected onto it from above that updated as you sculpted with the sand, a life size buffalo laying on the ground you could open up and look at the parts inside, a backlit tracing table where you can mimic traditional Native American paintings to create a story, and much more. It was seriously awesome, I had a blast! :D



  Very fun days out with my beloved. Thank you for reading my experience, stay tuned for more adventures!


Love,
Queen Werandra