June 1, 2012

The weather was cool when we woke up this morning.  I fixed biscuits and sausage and we sat outside with our coffee.  After taking showers, we hooked up and left.  While we were camping at Bardwell Lake two different hosts asked us if we were here trying out our new Casita in case anything was wrong as we were close enough to go back to Casita if there was.  We told them ours was a 2006 model and we were just camping.  On the road into the park was a farmer’s field of sunflowers.  They were really large and heavy with seeds.

After entering into Oklahoma we stopped at the information center and McDonald’s.  We arrived at camp about 4 pm.  This is Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge just outside Lawton, Oklahoma next to Fort. Sill. They had 5 electric sites available. Doris campground has 23 electric sites and 47 non electric sites.  The sites don’t have water but there is a central water spigot in each loop.  We had put water in our tank at Lake Bardwell this morning.  This is a first come first served campground – they don’t take reservations. There is also a dump station.   We do have satellite TV but there is no cell service.  We used the On Star telephone in the Silverado to call my brother to tell him where we were.  Before supper we went for a walk through the campground.  There was a pretty lake with a bridge over it.  We also saw a summer tanager and a tarantula on the way back to the trailer.

 

June 2, 2012

It sprinkled a little last night and was cloudy when we woke up this morning.  The temperature was 60.  The clouds began to clear around 9 am and we decided to drive through the refuge and take a few hikes and look at the scenery.  There are lots of pretty lakes in the refuge. We saw buffalo along with longhorn cattle and quite a few different  wild flowers in bloom.  The information said there were elk but we didn’t see any.

We took three hikes and stopped for a picnic lunch.  There was a prairie dog town that we stopped at also.  We saw on the map a place named Holy City so we drove there to see what it was.  This is where the longest running Passion Play has been performed since 1929.  They only have performances twice a year now, on the weekend before Easter and Easter weekend.  There is a really pretty chapel on the grounds and they were getting ready for a wedding today.  While there I saw a postcard of Meers, Oklahoma and wondered where the town was.  On the way to drive up Scott Mountain we passed a highway sign pointing to Meers four miles down the road.  We stopped there to see if we could get a beer.  The restaurant had a line of about 20 people waiting to get in at 3 pm.  Jim and I were invited by a man and his son who were in line behind us to sit with them.  We shared a really great hamburger and a Meers Gold beer.  The man ordered peach cobbler and homemade ice cream and it was large enough to share with us.  We left and drove to the top of Scott Mountain which had a great view of the surrounding area.

 

June 3, 2012

During the night I woke up and there was a lot of lightening outside.  I woke Jim and he went outside and got our chairs so they wouldn’t get wet.  Just as he finished, it started to rain. He plugged in the weather radio and we listened to it.  We went back to bed and a few minutes later the weather radio alarm went off.  There was a line of thunderstorms from Cache to Oklahoma City producing hail and 60 mile per hour winds. Thank goodness we didn’t get any of the high winds.

We hooked up and struck out for Oklahoma City.  Our friends Kim and Steve moved there from Sugar Land.  We stopped in Medicine Park at the McDonald’s so Jim could research places to stay near them and update the blog for the past two days.  We found a site just outside Edmond on a really pretty lake, unhooked and then drove to Kim and Steve’s.  They gave us a tour of their house when we arrived. They bought a beautiful house in a very nice gated community.

Steve drove us to McNellies Pub and then showed us around town.  We all stopped and found a geocache and then went by the memorial to the Oklahoma City bombing.  Then we drove through Steve’s work complex at Chesapeake Energy.  They wanted to try a Belgian pub and we had very large order of French fires.  Then we went back to their house and Steve and Kim grilled steaks and corn on the cob.  Afterward we watched Ice Road Truckers.  We had dessert to serve but everyone was too full, so we saved that for tomorrow.

 

June 4, 2012

It was cool this morning and we sat outside to drink our coffee by the lake.  I worked the Sunday crossword puzzle.  Three ducks slept overnight at our camp and walked around like they had rented it. We stayed around camp most of the morning and then went to Lowes and then back to Kim and Steve’s house. They took us to Belle Isle Brewpub and then to the Republic Gastropub near where Steve works.  I called Coop Brewery to ask if they had a tour.  They said that Oklahoma law doesn’t allow them to serve their beer on premises but we could come in and they would give us a tour.  They will be moving to a bigger location and one of  the owners of a Houston microbrewery will be coming to help them with the details.

Kim wanted us to go to the Royal Bavaria in Moore, Oklahoma so we drove there.  This was a German restaurant with a brewpub.  They had really good, fresh baked pretzels.  We went to a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives place for dinner.  It is another German restaurant.  The schnitzel and bratwurst were really good.  Steve drove us back by his workplace to show us the garden that the employees planted.  This garden is nearly a whole block and is planted in raised beds.

We found six geocaches today.  Steve is a natural at finding them.  Some of them were hidden very ingeniously.  One was in a very small container as you can tell by the one in Steve’s hand. One was behind a gas pipeline warning sign and one was under the bottom skirt of a light pole.  Jim crawled into roses bushes on another one.  The one that was behind an electric junction box used magnets to hold an electric plate in place and it looked like it was park of the box.  I think we are beginning to get an idea of how the caches are hidden which will make finding them easier for us. Back at Steve and Kim’s we had dessert and watched the new episode of Diner, Drive-Ins and Dives.

  

June 5, 2012

It was another pretty morning at camp.  Jim sat outside awhile with his coffee.  I fixed leftover steak from Kim and Steve’s with eggs this morning for breakfast.  We hung around camp and didn’t leave until around 10:30.  After hooking up we drove into Edmond to the post office so I could mail some letters.  We got on the tollway and drove to Kirbyville and got a campsite on Hepburn Lake, a Corps of Engineers park.  We got a premium campsite for $1.00 more than a regular and it is at a shady spot by the lake with a terrace for the picnic table.

We didn’t do anything at all this afternoon.  We sat outside and read our books and watched the boats and jet skis go by.  We listened to the birds and the sound of children playing in the lake. Very relaxing!  Jim got the binoculars out and we watched the transit of Venus projected onto a piece of white paper. When the sun started to set we walked to the lake edge and took pictures.  We didn’t go into the Casita until 9 pm.

June 6, 2012

Jim went outside around midnight and took a picture of the moon and it’s reflection on the lake.  This morning he got up and took a picture of the sun rising and it’s reflection on the lake.  We left camp and drove to Tulsa.  We stopped at Kellyville to buy a few items at the Dollar General store.  When we got back in the Silverado the air conditioner wasn’t blowing cold air.  When we got an RV site and unhooked in Tulsa, we were going to take the Silverado to the Chevrolet dealer two miles down the road.  We got in the Silverado and the air conditioner was blowing cold air.  So we went to the Chevrolet dealer anyway.  The man said he couldn’t tell what was wrong unless the air conditioner wasn’t working.  We drove it the rest of the day and it seems to be ok.

Jim and I went into downtown Tulsa and had a beer at McNellie’s pub.  We went back to the Casita and waited for Jim’s friend to get off work.  Gale and Kathy took us to Ti Amo, an Italian restaurant.  It was really good.  After we ate they drove us through Oral Roberts University campus.  At the entrance is a very large sculpture of praying hands.  We went back to their house and had a nice visit.  After we got back to the RV park we did two loads of laundry.

 

June 7, 2012

We left Tulsa and drove to Fort Scott, Kansas.  This is where Fort Scott National Historic Site is located.  The fort was established in 1842 to separate the eastern side of the country which was settled by the Europeans and the western side which was supposed to be reserved for the Indians.  In the 1840’s when settlers flocked to California the line was dissolved and the fort was shut down.  In 1854 congress opened the Kansas and Nebraska territories for settlement and declared that the residents of those territories could decide by vote whether their states would be free or slave territory.  Abolitionists, proslavery supporters and free staters got into conflicts and the fort reopened to quell the violence.  This era was known as “Bleeding Kansas”.  The civil war brought the army back to Fort Scott and there was a large hospital there for wounded men.  In 1873 the army left for the last time and the fort was sold to the townspeople for homes.  In 1978 it became a National Historic Site.

We tried to stay at the Fort  Scott city park but a group had reserved all spots and were coming in today.  There is a Corps of Engineers park near Burlington and we decided to try to go there.  As we were entering Burlington, we noticed a camping sign.  They had a city park with RV spots.  Some had electric and water in a parking lot but we got electric only next the Neosho River.  We are the only ones here and it was $6.00 a night.  After unhooking Jim grilled some tri-tip steaks I had marinating all day and I fixed baked potatoes and a salad.  Then we went into town to look around. This is a charming little slow paced town.  We found an American Legion post and had a beer and then went to look for a geocache.  This cache was at the other city park by a spillway. It also had camping and was more suited for larger RVs.

We have been following Route 66 for a few days.  There are a lot of lightning bugs up this way.  Very pretty to see.