3 more state parks checked off!

12/10/2018 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

Nick made the mistake of mentioning the fact that his Grandparents liked to visit every state park in MN.

It kind of lit a fire under me to visit all the Oklahoma State Parks and on our last trip we get to hit up three more!

We have about three state parks left and some Grand Lake Areas to go before we have been to them all since we have moved here.

So here are some of the parks we stopped at and what we thought.

Hugo Lake State Park The Bois De Arc Trail was a nice paved trail but pretty run down looking. We did not see much else for us to do there since we mostly like to hike and go to playgrounds. The kids liked watching birds at Hugo Lake Dam. Raymond Gary State Park was a nice small park. It was definitely not a place we would drive hours to camp at but the playground was a nice stop to end our day. We also stopped at Clayton Lake State Park but I could not find anything to do there so I did ended up not even taking one picture!

So if you have been to that state park let me know what you like to do there.

Do you have a goal to see all of something?

My Family, National Forest, Parks

Lake Wister State Park, Runestone Park, and Ouachita National Forest

12/04/2018 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

I wanted to camp at Beavers Bend State Park for the festival but they were full when I checked a month or so before so we stayed the first two nights of our trip at Lake Wister State Park. Not all of the campgrounds were open for the season so we ended up staying at the Victor Campground. It was a beautiful campground, right on the lake but it did take a while to get back to it and the road was a bit rough. The plus side of staying right on a lake is beautiful sunsets and sunrises, the downside is it was a bit chilly. Our heater is not working in the rv right now so we were using a space heater.

The kids stayed toasting warm but our room was pretty chilly.

Rving in the colder weather with 5 kids is very different from the summer or warmer months.

We needed to pop up and down this dinette over and over so the kids can eat inside.

Not a big deal but that means everyone is in the camper more also.

One of the nice things about Lake Wister is how close it is to Runestone Park.

Runestone Park used to be a state park and I am sad that they did not keep it.

It has a viking runestone at the park that I went to see when I was a child and it was not common knowledge that vikings had come this far into the United States.

The path down to is it is beautiful, make sure you stop by if you are in the area.

We went ahead and did the Mountain Top Trail at the Ouachita National Forest while we were in the area as well. My original plan was to stay at the Talimena State Park for those first two nights but I changed my mind at the last minute. I actually think it would have worked out better to stay there so if we make the trip again and want to break it up some, we will probably stay there. Back at Lake Wister, we checked out the Lone Star School Site and some hiking they have.The twins are taking gymnastics and decided these looked like balance beams.Next we went on the Lonestar Nature Trail.It had the most interesting fungus!I like hiking during Golden Hour 😉More interesting nature finds.We ended up stumbling across this really nice paved walking path at the end of our hike.This is a pretty small park and if you are not going to be playing on the water might not have much to keep your kids entertained but it was beautiful.

The kids stayed toasting warm but our room was pretty chilly.

Check out the video I made of our time there!

Festivals, Parks

Beaver’s Bend State Park Folk Festival ~Hochatown, OK

11/19/2018 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

We went to the Folk Festival at Beavers Bend State Park on the last day of the festival.

That way we would be able to camp at the park that night.

It goes from Friday-Sunday.

This was such a fun event!

My girls loved the petting zoo.

My boys loved the blacksmith and carpenters. Everyone at this event was so helpful and were great with kids! Red Dirt shirts being made. They even let the kids help. She showed them how to play the spoons. We recognized him from other events we had been to. They had great music! Friendly animals at the petting zoo! They asked him to play every flute!

I am so glad I finally made it for this event!

Check out the video I made of our visit!