Category Archives: Parks

Camping, Hiking, Parks

Alabaster Caverns State Park ~Freedom, OK

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On the way to Alabaster Caverns State Park from Pawnee just happened to be Gloss Mountain!

This is one of my favorite spots in Oklahoma so of course I decided that we needed to get out and stretch our legs there!

Quick stair climb to the top and you can see for miles!

That is my idea of a great travel break!

When we got to our spot at the park I was a bit worried.

Although it was nice and close to the bathrooms and playgrounds (a really nice thing for 6 kids), it was also right next to the main park road and visitor center.

This is a very small park so there are not many options but this time it worked out okay since we were the ONLY PEOPLE STAYING AT THE PARK!

Thankfully their were very few visitors also because I felt a bit like we were in a fishbowl when anyone else was there.

I would not want to stay in this spot in the summer when it is filled with people.
Because we were right next to the visitor center it was really easy to go on the first cave tour of the day!

Which means it was only 5 kiddos and me(Nick stayed back with our youngest) with the tour guide.

I was not sure how interesting the tour would be(especially since I DO NOT like caves) but it was actually really fun!

We saw hundreds of bats!

A lot of them were super close also!

One entrance is not open right now so instead of going through the whole cave you go part way and turn back.

But the kids did not seem to mind because we got to see the bats again!

They were definitely the star of the show.

They got more snow than we did so there was still a lot of snow on the trails! There is not very much hiking available here because it is such a small park so keep that in mind.

And some of the trails might be short but they have steep drop offs, which are even more interesting when it is covered in snow and mud.

We had trouble finding one or two of the trails and I am not sure if that is due to poor trail markings or just being harder to see in the snow. These views were worth all the extra work though!

Such a pretty place!

 

The playground was a big hit and really helped keep the kids entertained. It always helps to bring a friend also 😉

 

One of the things I ended up loving about this park was it’s small size.

I felt like I could watch the sunset from this beautiful lookout while still keeping an eye on the kids.

Win win
I walked over to this spot over and over while we were there.

So peaceful(even with my wild kids screaming in the background).

My spot 😉

Western Oklahoma will always have a special place in my heart.

The wide open landscape always brings me peace and a smile.

Camping, Hiking, Parks

Cove Lake Recreation Area -Paris, Arkansas

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We really enjoyed Cove Lake Recreation Area campground in western Arkansas! It was really close to Mount Magazine and had several trails at the campground also.
The sites do not have electric and there are vault toilets just fyi.
It does have a small swing set at the campground!
The only thing that caused more planning and work was the water was turned off at the campground for the winter which I thought might be the case so I did bring several gallons but ended up needing more.
We enjoyed the hike around cove lake. It was around 4 miles and had beautiful views of the lake and lots of pine trees. So pretty.
We hiked to top of Signal Hill the first night we were there because the sky was clear and I wanted to make sure we saw all the views right away just in case it was cloudy the rest of the time.
Two out of the three previous trips here had been cloudy and we could not see anything.

I was totally blown away on this trip and fell in love with this beautiful park.

I love this Eastern Benefield Trail that we took on the last day. Beautiful views!
Lots of steep cliffs though so you might not want to take really little ones on this one.
Sunrise rock
We drove over an hour to visit two other state parks one day while in the area.

Pretty sure the kids favorite was the Bear Cave Trail at Petit Jean State Park.

It has lots of rocks and is short, all things they like.

Next up we hiked to the Rock House Cave from the waterfall overlook. This was a long and totally unneeded hike since you can park really close to it. My girls insisted they wanted to hike. ha

They were less enthusiastic when they found out they had to hike back also and could not take the “short way” back. After a lot of steps going up and down we did make it back though.

We also did a trail at Mount Nebo but it was a lot of steps after a long morning of up and down hiking and the spring was kind of anti- climatic for so much work.

I have loved the hiking on a previous trip so I know we just chose the wrong hike at the wrong time.

We started out on the Rim Trail which is one that was a favorite on a previous trip. The kids heard it was longer and said they wanted to do the hike down to the spring.

But this was the trip down…

Ha!

Mount Magazine at sunset!

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.