Category Archives: Hiking

Camping, Hiking, My Family, Parks

Pine Cove Recreation Area ~SE Oklahoma

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This camping spot was very quiet and peaceful.

Which is really nice unless you are a family of seven with really loud kids and a dog…

I still really liked it though.

Beautiful

I loved the pine forest in the middle of the sites.

There was no hiking that I knew of but the walk around the campgrounds was beautiful.

The playground near our site was really nice! The only downside to this campground was the flooding that was going on and the location (it was in the middle of nowhere). We checked out a swimming spot I found on google the next day and it was flooded also so looked totally different than the pics. The kids still had fun even if they had to stay close to the shore. Afterwards we went to the Red Slough Wildlife Refuge to hunt for an alligator 😉 We did not see any but we did see a snake or two and this fawn.On Saturday we went to Beavers Bend State Park and it was kind of the start of a not great rest of the trip.

It happens, they can’t all be amazing.

Ha
This spot was pretty cool though.

There were just SO many people all over the park!And in trying to avoid the crowds I picked a difficult hike which had lots of climbing without the amazing views that make it worth it.It was one of those push yourself and be happy when you make it back to your car and can be done hiking type hikes…This was a beautiful campground though that I would not mind staying at again.

Just need to remember to never go to Beavers Bend on the weekend again.

Camping, Hiking, Parks

Canton Lake for my oldest birthday! ~Canton, Ok

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About to get in the car for 3hrs to go to Canton Lake in Oklahoma Just your typical cucumber snack. Beautiful site! Playmobiles for the win!Last night as a thirteen year old! My favorite Oklahoma beach so far. It does not get very deep so I just sat on the beach watching kids for hours this trip. So relaxing. Fourteen!We went to see the prairie dog town at the Canadian Campground.

We also got to visit one of my favorite spots in Oklahoma! Gloss Mountain! He decided to walk into my shot in a dramatic way…

We decided to go to Roman Nose State Park to hike the Spring Trail while close. The water is ice cold.

Hot dogs and S’more’s.This pup seems to be okay with the rv life 😉 The beach was super crowded on Saturday. We went again Sunday morning before we headed home though and had the beach to ourselves.

We had to stop at this giant Bumblebee on the way home!

We had such a great time in western Oklahoma!

Camping, Hiking, Parks, Wildlife Preserve/Reserve

Salt Plains State Park ~Jet, OK

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We had a great three day weekend at the Salt Plains State Park and nearby Wildlife Refuge for our 16th wedding anniversary. We stayed at the Sandy Cove campground this time and it ended up being a great site.

The campground is right next to the swimming beach which worked out great with the 100 degree temps.

If you are going to visit, there were a LOT of ants and no soap in the bathrooms. Also, the bathrooms had those half doors that are basically useless so keep that in mind.

My kids basically wanted to just live at the beach. It has a nice sandy beach but is very shallow for a very long time (I never found any water above my waist), it also turns to mud as you get further out. The sandy beach and shallow water would be great for little ones though! We mostly stayed at the state park so we could go crystal digging at the nearby Salt Plains Wildlife Refuge! My kids loved it so much the last time we went that I knew it would be a hit. It is such a breathtaking place to visit in Oklahoma.

Definitely worth a visit, even if you don’t want to dig.

If you do want to go digging, you will need sun protection, a shovel, and a bucket. Also clothes you don’t mind getting salty and muddy would be good!

As with most trips we had a few fails.

Trying to hike in the mid-day crazy heat (my idea), oops.

The water tank started leaking in the rv so we could not use the water in there, thankfully we have plenty of kids that can haul water 😉

And I had brought beach towels so we could clean up the mess.

Even the hot temps were okay.

We just tried to go out and do things in the morning (except for my attempt at hiking) and evening.

The beach in the evening was so relaxing and beautiful. I still went out at night after kids went to bed to take a picture and listen to the quiet.

One night, I thought I was going to take picture of the sunset and ended up stumbling upon this guy.

He finally got annoyed that I kept taking his picture and slithered off into the woods.

It was fun to watch him weave all around the picnic tables though.One morning we got going early (well as early as you can with 5 kids) to hike at the wildlife refuge.

It was a beautiful hike.The kids loved all the bullfrogs they saw on the hike, they were huge! We have hiked here before but this morning hike was my favorite. The kids played tablets in the heat of the day.

It ended up being a great trip and we really enjoyed this campground location!

Have you been to the Salt Plains in Oklahoma?

Check out our video on youtube of our time in the Salt Plains!