Category Archives: Camping

Labor Day Vacation 2017 ~ Day 1 ~ Arcadia Lake

The first stop of our 4 night camping trip was Arcadia Lake in OKC.

We knew it would be busy so we hoped getting there on a Thursday would help.

We snagged the last spot with electric because I called earlier in the day and prepaid!

They filled up fast!

Which of course made me really nervous about finding a spot in our final destination, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.

All the camping spots we stayed in were first come first serve, no reservations.

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Our first spot was right next to the playground.

It was a pretty place but really close to a big city and the sites are close.

I was glad we were not staying more than one night.

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They thought the pictures of their beads sticking out were funny and kept wanting to do it.

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I found these boots because of  youtuber’s that travels fulltime in an airstream with their daughter.

They a really sturdy and easy to clean!

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This was our first time using the camper!

We wanted something that made camping in the Oklahoma heat easier, fits all our kids, but was not huge.

It worked out great for us!

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Beautiful view early the next morning before we left to head south.

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My cute tag along.

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She decided she wanted to go back with the others and started slowly walking back to the campsite to see if I would follow.

3yr olds are a riot.

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We mostly just slept in the trailer.

Eating and playing outside.

That helped keep everyone(mostly me) sane(ish).

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I was so stressed leaving this site!

I had no clue if we would be able to find a place to stay that night!

I am so glad we took the chance though!

A weekend at the Lake and a 25K.

It all started with a race my husband did last month.

It is called the Snake Run and my oldest said he did not want to run it this year.

It is a 3hr race that you try to get as many miles as you can in that time.

As soon as the race was getting ready to start my son changed his mind of course and wanted to run.

Too late.

We told him he could run the Lake McMurtry Trail Run if he wanted to though.

This was going to be a bit different though since Nick was running the 25K.

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He still said he wanted to do it so we headed over to Lake McMurtry on friday night to camp the night before the race.

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At first I thought camping was a bad idea.

We were only camping one night and that is a lot of work for that short of time.

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But if we had not camped, I would have missed this sunset on the lake.

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This sunset was worth all of the packing, prep, and dealing with wasps in the camper.

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Saturday morning dawned bright(maybe not so bright) and early with the Early 50K start at 7am.

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Then came the regular 50K start.

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25K start!

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They are off!

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Half way!

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My youngest and Maddie hanging out during the race.

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Final steps!

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They did it!

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Getting their medals for finishing.

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Before and after!

I asked my son if it was long and he said, “yes, and tiring.”

I also asked if he would like to do it again and he promptly told me “no” but a few minutes later said “maybe”.

HA!

I probably would have said no after running all of those miles as well!

This is a great event!

The volunteers and workers do such an amazing job putting on these runs.

Thank you for making trail running exciting for my eight year old!

For more information on the actual run check out Ken’s blog, here.

Hot Springs National Park ~Hot Springs, AR

I was a little uncertain of this park when I realized how close to Hot Springs it was.

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It ended up having a really nice campground with nice trails though and you really could not tell that you were close to the city.

Backpacker.com recommends the Sunset Trail loop but it was too long for our one night stay.

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We started on the Dead Chief Trail and took a few others to make a loop.

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We got to listen to a nice waterfall all night from our campsite.

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It really is a beautiful setting for a campground.

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I would recommend staying here if you like to be close to town while camping or if you were just using it as a stop while traveling(like we did).

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I did not want to leave until the sunrise was done.

It was so beautiful!

Do you like to camp far away from everything or close to town?