McGee Creek State Park, Oklahoma

 4/2/2023 to 4/5/2023

First state park outside of Texas. 
Hard carved plaque made and given to us by Karen, the ranger who escorted us to our site: 


    There are several differences between this Oklahoma state park and the Texas parks: We stopped by the office and the ranger had no way to know what site we were in. We had to look up our reservation to find it. They don’t give stickers to put on your RV window or car window. They don’t charge for day use. The ranger gave us directions to get to our site, but took pity on us and gave us an escort, which helped a lot. Apparently, it’s rare to have people come who haven’t been here before. The bathroom or “comfort station” is pretty far away from the campsites. I used to make fun of people who would drive to the bathroom, but not anymore. Also, the dumpsters are about 2 miles away, unlike within easy walking distance at all the Texas parks. Absolutely NO trash cans, not even in the bathroom. Surprisingly little litter – unless you count our hanging trash bag that split in the wind one night and trashed our site.

    All the sites at McGee Creek are beautiful – many right on the lake. All the sites seem new and well maintained. Lake is mainly used for fishing. There was a big fishing tournament the day before we got here. There are hiking trails in a nearby Recreation Area, but not convenient to get to. Here is a picture of our site when we first arrived. Very overcast at the time.


    The highlight of this short stay was a visit from Lee, Lisa, and Bella. They are in Lawton, Oklahoma, visiting friends this week. They made the 3+ hour drive and back to spend the day with us. We did some biking and walking, lots of talking, ate hamburgers, and played Oh Hell.









    On our last day we went to the Natural Scenic Recreation Area, which is about 30 minutes away. Good place to hike. The "overlooks" were not like overlooks in the North Carolina mountains. Here is the view from two of the overlooks.




    Our neighbor was very helpful. This picture shows him helping Scott put the kayak and paddleboards on the CRV. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memphis KOA Journey, Marion, Arkansas

Image
 10-24-2024 to 11-7-2024         We traded a beautiful, spacious state park stay for a cramped, parking lot stay at a KOA by a noisy interstate. Reason for this unlikely trade was learning that the state park has no internet and very limited cell service. So we chose the KOA because we wanted to watch the election returns and the World Series.              After we got in the mode of being Memphis site seerers, it turned out ok.  Our first sightseeing walk was the Big River Crossing, the longest (about a mile) public pedestrian and cyclist bridge across the Mississippi. Great views and nice grassy trail at the end.  Entrance View from the river crossing          We went to Tom Lee Park several times, either combined with sight seeing or as the primary destination. It is a long strip along the Mississippi River that's fun to walk. There's a statue of Tom Lee, who saved 32 people in 1...
Read more

Prophetstown State Park, near West Lafayette, Indiana

Image
8/24/2023 to 8/31/2023         The main reason for choosing Prophetstown State Park was its proximity to Purdue University, where Scott spent 5 years in a co-op program (combination work/study) ending with a degree in industrial engineering. We visited 525 Dodge Street, home of the Dodge Street Boys for 4 1/2 of those years. I saw the street where they played four square continuously with loud music and somewhat frequent police intervention. They only went to jail once, and that record was erased with the help of a good lawyer. I learned a lot about Scott's college years as we walked around campus. It was the time of the Vietnam War and lottery system for the draft. He spent a lot of time protesting.  I           Prophetstown is a unique park with a focus on history. There is a Farm at Prophetstown, a small-scale working farm depicting life in the 1920s. There are several Sears Robuck prefab houses on site, furnished from that ...
Read more

Our New Home for the Indefinite Future

Image
 Fredericksburg, VA / D.C. KOA         We arrived in Fredericksburg on Saturday, Dec 7th, after a brief stop in Wytheville, VA, where our RV held up in the 11 degree weather. We are here for two reasons. The most important is to be near Sam and Kara and the grandkids. The other reason is that we have decided not to travel in the RV on a regular basis anymore. It's just gotten too hard.           Maudie was our first visitor. She came on Sunday and helped us get set up. Not only did she wash the windows before we put up the magna shades, she washed the whole RV with the window washer brush. Inside we cleaned out drawers and washed floors. You name it, she did it for us. She also worked hard to vaccum up all the yellow lady bugs that came inside while we were at Natchez Trace. We took a little time in the afternoon to play Oh Hell and let Maudie rest before driving back to Alexandria. The drive took her a little less than an hour...
Read more