Eastbound and Down...

The RV repair place was Dean’s RV Superstore in Tulsa, OK. They were of outstanding assistance to us and got us in a day earlier than our appointment. The staff was friendly and courteous and I would recommend Dean’s to anyone needing repairs or parts. They even allowed us to set up on their front lot and spend the night there, no fee and with electric hook-up.

But let the fun continue. We wanted to spend a few days at Lake Tenkiller State Park outside of Gore, OK. We got there and met the Oklahoma RV Club, a small RV group that were already there. Very friendly folks, they came to our door and invited us over for BBQ and social time. Lake Tenkiller is a very nice, CLEAR water lake which touts fishing and SCUBA diving. We spoke with a SCUBA instructor who was diving there and he said they had a roped off area for SCUBA only, and they had submerged a small airplane, a helicopter, and a bus for diving.

Tenkiller Lake, the SCUBA area

There were a couple of short paved trails in the park, the Nature Center was interesting with a few of the local snakes on display, such as timber rattlesnake, diamondback rattlesnake, copperhead, bull snake, rat snake and a caged dove that kept “laughing” at us.

This guy did not like me taking his picture...

One drawback to this park was there was no beach/designated swim area that we found. It was more geared for boating. And, as usual for us, we got some nasty rain/thunder/lightning storms pretty much the bulk of our few days stay there.

The members of the Oklahoma RV Club told us about another state park that we should try to see, the Natural Falls State Park, just 6 miles west of Siloam Springs, Arkansas but still in Oklahoma.  We headed there for our next adventure. It was a nice, small park in heavily wooded area just off Hwy. 412. We walked the short trails around the park and found the walk to the falls very scenic.  The falls are about 70’ high and I’m told they filmed parts of “Where the Red Fern Grows” in this park. The one drawback to these trails was the amount of ticks we picked up (9 to be precise).

Bring lots of repellant with you for these walks. We happened to be here during Mother’s Day weekend and there were lots of families here. Surprisingly, the park remained very quiet in the nighttime and early morning times despite the number of small kids here.

Our home at Natural Falls State Park, OK

The Natural Falls, the smaller one on the right appears to be fully spring fed.

The Falls, from the top.

Well, it is time to depart the great state of Oklahoma and head into Branson, Missouri for family visits. Until next time... 

Oklahoma!

So, since our live version of “The Extreme Weather Show” never ends, on we go from Santa Fe, New Mexico. We took a leisurely drive into Amarillo, Texas and found the Amarillo Ranch RV Park. It was a nice park, has an indoor pool and spa, and very large pull through sites. We got there with temps in the 90’s, but the following day the winds picked up and the temps cooled way down.  The forecast for the 3rd day called for freezing, so we decided that was enough for Amarillo. Upon packing up to leave, the icy winds raged and kicked up a huge dust storm as we headed out E/B Hwy. 40. It took about 2 hours driving to get us out of the dust and winds.  We continued on into Hinton, OK, where we found the Red Rock Canyon State Park. This was a pretty cool park hidden among some spectacular canyons of red rock right in the middle of the immense flatness that is central Oklahoma. We pulled in with nice, sunny weather and found the park nearly empty.  Found us a spot at the very back of the park, next to bathrooms and showers, then watched as the weather turned progressively worse as the night unfolded. Again, icy, RAGING winds tried to blow our trailer off the face of the Earth, and icy rain dumped on us in the night and into the next morning.

Home in Red Rock Canyon. Lots of socializing here...NOT!

Fishin' pond under the cliffs.

They encourage rappelling at Red Rock Canyon State Park. Here is one typical rappelling face.

The drive into the canyon...

The weather the next day was TERRIBLE still! The forecast called for snow, but all we got was 60 MPH winds and temps in the 30’s, with occasional rain flurries. So much for trying to hike around the park. 

A couple days of that and off we went to Lake Thunderbird State Park in Norman (OKC) Oklahoma. This park is split on opposite sides of the Lake and we randomly picked the Indian Point side.  They had some lakeview full hookups, a bit pricy at $28/day ($27 with Good Sam discount). The lake was nasty looking reddish/brown water (the dirt around it was of the bright red variety). One of the locals camping near us said they referred to it as Lake Dirty Bird.

Lakeview at Lake "Dirty Bird", as the locals refer to it...

Lake Thunderbird

We went into OKC and visited the Oklahoma City Memorial Museum and Park, a very somber experience. Then we went downtown and walked around the area called “Bricktown”. 

This is the Survivors Tree at the Oklahoma City Museum and Memorial. This tree stood in the middle of the parking lot across the street from the front of what was the Murrah building. The explosion demolished most if not all of the cars parked in that lot, but this tree withstood the power of the blast.

The weather stayed pretty blah and cold while we were at Lake Thunderbird. We did manage to take a short drive to the other side of the lake and check out the Clear Bay camping areas. If I had my “druthers” I would have probably preferred to stay there.  The RV sites looked like they had water and electric, most if not all were large concrete pads and spacious sites, and they went for $25/night (or probably $24 with Good Sam). There was a dump station at the front area of the driveway.  Clear Bay had a lakeside cafe, horse stables with horse riding opportunities, a nature center, and boat launch.

Terrible weather that we were still in, we headed into Tulsa where we had to have some minor repairs done to the trailer and a Keystone authorized repair place there was the only one I could find along our path that had an appointment available within a reasonable time frame.  More on that next time...