Category Archives: National Forest

My Family, National Forest

Talimena Scenic Drive

12/02/2016 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

All I wanted for my birthday was mountains(or as close as you can get to them in Oklahoma) and a fall family picture.

My husband drove me all of the way to Ouachita Mountains and back in one day.

Long drive but I was happy to be there.

I would move there in a heartbeat.

It is always a good idea to make sure you don’t forget the tripod if one of your goals on a trip is a family pic.

I ended up balancing my camera on my camera bag and even on the hood of our vehicle.

Oops.

We went on lots of short hikes which is a little bit different than what we used to do but such is life with a toddler.

Maybe next time we can stay the night and get some more hiking in.

And yes, I did think it was odd that I wanted to stay in a vehicle with 5 kids all day for my birthday.

HA!

Camping, Hiking, National Forest

Boardstand Trailhead, Ouachita National Forest ~Day 5

11/24/2014 Danielle Huddleston 1 Comment

We really like loops but since the Boardstand Trail & Old Military Trail loop is over 23 miles I knew that would not work.

We went ahead and went, thinking we would do an out and back.

When we got there we saw a road that kept going past the trailhead and decided to see where it went.

It ended up following the Old Military road trail with several intersections with the trail!

You can check out what we did on Endomondo.

Check out the trail map, here.

We just started on the trail at one of the intersections with the road, hiked on the trail for a while, and came back on the road.

Making our own loop.

The road was almost like a wide trail anyway.

Beauty Berries everywhere!

Starting back on the road.

We ended up with just over 5.5 miles and our very own loop!

Here is the start at the actual trailhead.

Smore’s!

Smore’s are better with Reece’s Cups…

Last night camping!

We started the trip back the next day!

Camping, Hiking, National Forest

Black Fork Mountain Trail, Ouachita National Forest ~Day 3

11/18/2014 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

After three nights at the non-electric site we moved to one with electricity.

It was kind of crazy that we had the whole area to ourselves!

Have you ever stayed in an empty campground?

It is odd.

And a bit creepy.

But also nice.

We did the Black Fork Mountain Trail on our third day.

It is a pretty difficult trail for about two miles but then you are hiking along a ridge and it has a lot of nice views.

The wind here was crazy!

It tried to blow us off many times.

The boys loved it!

This man makes me so happy.

I told Nick to take pictures of me on my last day of being 30.

For some reason I feel like the day before my birthday is a bigger deal than my actual birthday.

We cooked everything on this little stove.

It is nice because it only needs little sticks to burn.

I went down to the creek near the campground to take pictures.

And skip rocks…

Is it odd that I felt like it was a great day before my birthday because I successfully skipped multiple rocks?

I was pretty excited.

I am usually a horrible rock skipper.

This tree was begging for a photo shoot.

This kid cracks me up.

He was humming and swinging his hips the whole time…