Exciting Last Few Days

 Lately I have managed to win a couple of online contests, one was an actual photo contest and the other a "Like us on Facebook" contest, both contests had photo enlargements as prizes. Well after much debate on which of my 1000's of shots to have enlarged, I decided on these 2. The bird shot was taken in Everglades N.P. and the Leaf was shot at Natural Falls S.P. in Oklahoma. Sheryl and I were quite pleased with how they turned out. Hmmm, now what to do with them???, not much wall space in the motorhome. Probably keep them to display during my photo sales.
The next exciting news was, the folks at Military Living magazine contacted me, requesting to use some of my photos on their website and publications. How cool is that!!! Of course I said yes and was happy as a clam to know a magazine thought they were good enough to use. No monetary compensation was requested and they will be giving me full credit for each photo used, and of course just knowing they will be enjoyed by lots of people works for me!
 

 After a few days of hanging around the house (been to hot to really get out much) I took a little backroads trip around the rural OKC area and ran across this sign. Well of course that instantly got my curiosity up, so I explored a little further.

 Yes indeed, the bridge was definitely out. I'm sure, if you've been following along on our journey, I'm a sucker for old and abandoned places. This bridge turned out to be pretty cool, so I just had to get some shots of it.

 Not even the roads exists anymore.

 I say it been quite a while since it's been used.

That's all the news around here that's fit to print, we'll be heading out towards Northern Arkansas on Aug 7th. Looking forward to some new scenery and fun with our kids who will be meeting us there for a week. Ok, until next time......................................

Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge

 The last couple of days I spent out at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is the main reason for us coming down this way and spending some time. As with most of the eastern U.S. it's hard to find large expanses of public land so you have to see it when you can.  The refuge is 59,000 acres of wild  and beautiful landscape, not what you would expect in Oklahoma. One of the refuge's main attractions (besides it's rugged beauty) is the 650 head of wild free range Bison, which can be seen most anywhere in the refuge. During my outings I was only able to spot a small group and a few loners.

 The main road through the refuge travels approx 15-20 miles east to west, through the southern third. The northern two thirds is off limits to the public, reserved for the animals.

 Small Bison herd.

 I was surprised by the number of lakes and streams within the refuge.

 Since the refuge is free range, the bison wander at will. Getting good shots of them can mean some bushwacking to get close. But remember they are wild, so don't get too close. Thank goodness for a long lens.

 Refuges rugged beauty

 Beautiful Creatures

 Across the stream lies a large designated wilderness area (no mechanical transportation of any kind allowed).

Nothing like a good back scratching in the dirt.

These were just a fractions of the shots I captured, Next time I'll post some more and some of the sights not pictured here. Hope you enjoyed them, so until next time..............................

Lake Elmer Thomas Recreation Area, Ft Sill, OK.

 We are here at the Lake Elmer Thomas Recreation Area (LETRA) on Ft Sill in SW Oklahoma. We left OKC yesterday and made the short 1 1/2 hour drive down here. Our main focus for this trip is to explore the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge just outside the base. We are here for a week, which should give us plenty of time to get out and about the Refuge and City of Lawton. We decided to just spend the day here at the RV Park and just get out and shoot some photos of the surrounding area.

Hope you enjoys those first few. I'll do a write up on the park itself in a few days, so until next time, Take Care and See Ya Soon..........................

Camping with the Family

 All the family that could come finally made it into Natural Falls SP, but so did the rains. It was a bit of a soggy time, but didn't put a damper on everyone's spirits. We all had a good time and actually got to do some activities between the showers.

 Three Generations, Sheryl, her daughter and grand daughter.

 Sheryl's son teaching our grand daughter how to fish. We also did some hiking, exploring, disk golf and of course fishing (not much luck on the fishing though).

At the end of the little lake, we found the dam with a nice cascade on the other side.

It was a good time getting everyone together and a much needed break for them. Everyone had to leave today along with the rest of the campers in the park, so now it's pretty deserted (ahhhh nice and quiet again). Tomorrow we leave and head back to OKC for one final doctors appointment. We are looking at just staying a week there, then have plans to spend some time touring Arkansas and maybe some of  Missouri. We will have a couple of month's to kill before we have to be back in OKC so we didn't want to go far. We both really liked the time we spent in Arkansas last time and are looking forward to exploring some more of the state.
Ok, that's all for now, and we'll see you back here again next time.........................

Natural Falls S.P. Oklahoma

 After our stay in Carthage MO, we made the short trip south to Natural Falls State Park in Eastern Oklahoma. It's a very nice park with lots of activities, from Hiking and fishing to Disk Golf and a playground for the kids. Of course the main attraction is the Falls, but we'll get to that in a minute.

 Our primary reason for being here was to meet some of the family for a short but well deserved getaway for them. They all needed a break from the hustle and bustle of daily life and work (ahhhhh I remember those days). The campsites are nicely paved and level with well wooded sites and plenty of space between them. Above is our rig and our sons camper. We'll have more on the get together in the next post.
Now on to the main attraction and the parks namesake Natural Falls.

 It's small pool area the falls cascade into with a stream leading out to a long thin lake. Since pictures speak volumes i'll leave you with a few of the area.

Hope you enjoyed, so until next time......................................

Corral "Drive-in" RV Park, Guymon, OK.

 As I said in our last post, we stayed a very unique RV Park here in Guymon Oklahoma. What's unique about it you say??? Well it has a working Drive-In Theater, with-in the park and from most sites you can actually watch the movie. They show movies Friday-Sundays and broadcast the sound via your FM Radio.

 They also have several old car placed through out the park and theater to bring home the old time ambiance. The RV sites are quite spacious and level, this is a well kept park.

Tonight's Feature: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I enjoyed it from my comfy driver seat. All movies shown are family friendly with a rating no higher that PG-13. As I said, it is a pretty unique park and I just had to share it with you. So if your ever passing through Guymon in the Oklahoma Panhandle and need a nice clean park, this is for you.
Tomorrow we leave for Colorado, we'll be stopping in Springfield and Lamar as Sheryl wants to research a little family history from that area. Thanks for stopping bye and we'll see you back here soon.

Foss Lake State Park, Oklahoma

 We picked up the motorhome on Friday ($1887.00 lighter in our account) but well worth the peace of mind knowing everything is up to snuff, and promptly headed west. Our journey didn't take us too far as we planned on stopping at Foss Lake State Park in Western Oklahoma for a few days. The park is pretty much centered around a large lake mainly used for fishing and general recreation. The lake is down pretty far as most all seem to be due to the ongoing drought, but is still pretty. The park has several campgrounds open to RVers, 110 sites with elec and water, but only 10 with full hook ups.

 We chose one of the full hook up sites as we were going to be here for a few days. The full hook up sites are very close together, but most of the partial hook up site have much more room. I think next time we stay here it'll be in one of those. The sites are pretty level and either grass or gravel.



 

Sunsets at the lake can be pretty amazing.

 



One of the more interesting and unusual attractions at the park is the large herd of Buffalo they have on a 460 acre preserve surrounding the visitors center. The Buffalo normally stay down in a back draw or over one of the hills out of sight. However on Saturday Mornings, the brunch bell is rung and the rangers lead a stampede of the big fellows right up to a viewing area behind the visitors center. There is a small deck you can watch from, or like me, get right down by the fence and get face to face with them.

 It's quite a sight to see and once the hay is gone, like most of us after a hearty meal, they settle in for some down time. This day they spent most of the day around the water hole at the viewing area. These Buffalo are not domesticated in any way, they are just as wild as any of the herds roaming the larger preserves.
Our time here at Foss Lake will be up in the morning and we have plans to head on over to Dumas, TX. (just north of Amarillo) to visit Sheryl's sister for a couple of days, before continuing our adventure west.
That's it for now and we'll see your from the Great State of Texas in our next posting, so until then....................

2014 Tinker AFB Air Show

 This weekend was the Tinker AFB Air Show, and while we didn't go to the show itself, we had pretty good viewing from the Base RV Park. You may ask, why didn't you go to the show since you were right there? Well after 24 years in the Air Force and physically working 24 Air Shows we just had no desire to fight the crowds. We do however still enjoy watching the USAF Thunderbirds and Navy Blue Angels fly. It's been awhile since I've seen the Thunderbirds so I wanted to get some shots of them, all the pictures you see here were taken while sitting outside the RV here at the park.

 As with most airshows, several vintage aircraft performed.

 Check out the flames on this MIG as it rounded the park.

 The Air Forces Parachute Team jumped in.

 This guy came low enough to count the rivets on the plane.

Of course the Thunderbirds stole the show. If you'd like to see more airshow photos, click on the link to our Flickr Gallery on the right side of the page.

We still have a couple of weeks to go here in OKC before the next leg of our adventure continues, but until then we have things to keep us busy here. So until we meet again....................................