The Last Dam and A Jewish Museum

 Location: Afton Landing Campground (Corps of Engineers); Wagoner, Oklahoma (about 40 minutes southeast of Tulsa)

Another great COE campground. This one is an exorbitant (sarcasm) $9.00 per night with the America the Beautiful pass. It's a small campground along the banks of an oxbow of the Verdigris River. The Verdigris is a major tributary to the Arkansas River. As you're heading upriver, the Verdigris splits off of the Arkansas around Muskogee. The Corp of Engineers decided to continue navigation up the Verdigris instead of the Arkansas because the Arkansas was prone to the creation of  lots of sand bars. About 10 miles north of my current campground lock and dam #18 which is the last lock and dam on the Arkansas/Verdigris navigation system. I stopped here so I could visit it since I got as close as I could to see the first lock and dam earlier this year down where the Arkansas/White River joins the Mississippi River. This visit sort of closes a circle. I didn't explore every lock and dam along the river but was able to visit more than half. See, sometimes I wander aimlessly, but not always. 

I was rewarded with this sunrise on the morning I left the last campground at Cowlington Point. It was a nice one and it was while looking out my back window.

The roads and weather was nice on this moving day

My campsite here at Afton Landing

The view out my back window. I'm glad that tree is gone.

I can't remember the last time I saw such a nice Weeping Willow

This is lock and dam #18. Looking upstream. The end of the line is about an hour away at the Port of Catoosa on the northeast side of Tulsa.

Looking downstream at the lock. The dark color on the gates gives an idea of the drop/rise height of the lock.

They have a small self directed visitors center with an enclosed viewing platform. This poster shows and overview of the entire system. I'm glad I explored most of it.

This shows the efficiency and dramatic difference between barge traffic, train and 18-wheelers. 

The second thing I came to see was in Tulsa, which seemed to me to be a weird town to drive around in. Traffic wasn't terrible but it took a long time to get anywhere. I'll definitely put it on my bad vibe list of city and places. Anyway, I was able to find something that sounded interesting. It was the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art. Beside art exhibits, there is also a Holocaust Remembrance Center which was the primary reason for me visiting. I've studied a lot about World War II and the Holocaust but I wanted to see how it was presented at this museum. They did a very good job. They present the information in a clear format without beating you over the head with it. If you can't understand or pick up on the evil that was done during the Holocaust, then the onus is on you. 

One of the first indications of the evil that would eventually infect the 80,000,000 Germans was the event called "The Night of Broken Glass". About 6 months after Hitler annexed Austria but before his invasion of Poland, he let loose his storm troopers, Hitler Youth and ordinary German civilians on the Jews of Germany. During November 9th and 10th of 1938, 1000 synagogues, 7,500 Jewish businesses and 1000's of private homes were destroyed by mobs of people throughout the entire country. 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. While all of this was being done, the German authorities and police stood by and did nothing. All of this was well documented for the entire world to see and very little was done to condemn it. FDR withdrew our Ambassador, but very little else. Shameful.

The view of the Lobby of the museum from the second floor. The stained glass was very nice.

This exhibit represents "The Night of Broken Glass"

This shows the Nazi's were elected overwhelmingly by the German people. 

Just so we remember; the German people overwhelmingly elected the Nazi's and put them in dictatorial positions. As a result, between 1933 and 1945, the German people sanctioned the murder of 6 million Jews, 3.3 million Soviet POW's, 1.8 million Non-Jewish Poles, 400,000 Romani's (Gypsies), 310,000 Serbs and 300,000 people with any type of disability. Most of the disabled were willingly killed by their own doctors. 

This is a time in world history that needs to be remembered so it is never repeated.

True words

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be leaving Oklahoma as I enter the northwest corner of Arkansas for another COE campground. The weather is still cooperating with temperatures in the upper 80's to low 90's. While warm, the humidity is generally below 50% which makes it comfortable. I'm sad to say I didn't have the chance to see any descent sunrises or sunsets while here, perhaps I'll be luckier at the next campground.  

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road.