Category Archives: Parks

Animals, Hiking, Parks

Scenic Drives and Sand Dunes ~Freedom, OK

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Since Alabaster Caverns is a pretty small park and I love western Oklahoma, we decided to drive around while there couple of times.

I have a scenic drive map for Oklahoma that we used as a starting off point and it was great!

Not the part where I tried to take us to a WMA after a lot of snow and we almost got stuck…

But everything else was great!

At one point I wondered why I thought trapping 6 kids in a vehicle with me would be relaxing and questioned my vacation choices but then we saw a BOBCAT!!!!

I joked with the kids that I would pay them a dollar for finding me a bobcat since I had never seen one in the wild and I ended up finding one! That made the loud car ride totally worth it! That and lots of beautiful wide open spaces! Right after we saw the bobcat we then saw a badger! Poor guy was terrified, ran to this whole, and began frantically throwing dirt out to get away from us…I get that. We are loud. We also decided to stop by the Little Sahara State Park one day. The kids were not sure about another ride to go see something but ended up loving running down the dunes. You can rent Off Road Vehicles to go out on the main part of the dunes but that is a bit pricey so we stuck to the nature trail and viewing area. The viewing platform is pretty far removed from the main part of the park so can be hard to find but it is worth it. Watching the sand blow off the tops of the dunes was mesmerizing.

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!
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.