July 15 -26
Picasa web album link:After leaving Albuquerque, we were officially heading home. Without any serious plans, we headed east on I-40 after deciding to get across the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi as quickly as possible. We did one-night stops in Amarillo Texas and then Oklahoma City. Our destination was Tenkiller Ferry Lake in eastern Oklahoma. Kurt had visited this lake as a young man and remembered it to be an extremely clear water lake. We stayed in an Army Corps campground in a lakefront site, which was very nice. In the four nights we stayed there we got our kayaks on the lake for a paddle and drove around the beautiful mountains to check out the area. We also were looking for the possibility of a kayak shuttle on the Illinois River. The river looked great for a paddle, but it was too much driving and working with limited outfitters that really didn’t want to shuttle us or our boats, but wanted to rent kayaks to us, so we abandoned that idea. There were not any decent hiking trails nearby, so we pretty much hung out at camp and relaxed.
Our next stop would be in Beavers Bend State Park in
southeastern Oklahoma. This was highly recommended as a great park. When we
arrived, the park was so huge around Broken Bow Lake that it was difficult to
find where the campgrounds were, due to inadequate signage. We finally found the park office and was told
where to go and find a campsite. We were able to find a nice site on the river
side campground loop; however, it was a pull through and our front porch was
right on the street. We even had kids riding their bikes through our campsite,
which we quickly advised them to stop. We had signed up for four nights as
there were nice hiking and mountain biking trails within the park. One trail we
were able to hike started right at the campground and turned out to be a fun, challenging
hike up and back down the mountain. The mountain biking trails were in a
completely different section of the park, which required us to drive about
20 miles to the trailhead. The trails were decent, but not really meant to be
mountain biking trails. There was a lot of driving within this park to see the
different features. Kurt did get his kayak on the Mountain Fork River for a short
paddle; the paddling section of the river was very limited. On the third night
there, a major storm blew through. Thanks to our weather radio, we were able to
prepare for the winds and rain. We hunkered down for about three hours as the winds
and driving rain pounded our trailer and the lighting snapped all around. Of
course, the power went out and we had no idea when it would be back on. We
decided then, if there was no power the next morning, we would go ahead and
leave for a better place. At least it cooled down that night, so it was not too
bad, except for the moron RV neighbor that ran his loud generator most of the night.
They finally turned it off when Kurt reminded them of the no generator rule at
10 pm. The next morning we waited for the power to come back on. After speaking
with another camper, we found out no one was able to get out of the park as a
live power line was down across the entry road…
ugggggh… Neither the campground hosts or rangers were forthcoming with
any information as to the status of electricity or roads. It was very
frustrating. Around 11 am the power finally came back on, so we reluctantly
decided to stay the night since it was already paid for. The next morning we
did pack it up and get out of Dodge!
The next day we did another one night stop in Greenville,
Mississippi. We were making our way to Oak Mountain State Park in Birmingham
Alabama, where we did have reservations. We had one extra night, so we stopped
at another Alabama State Park, Lake Lurleen near Tuscaloosa. This turned out to be a very nice lakeside
park with great hiking and mountain biking trails. Too bad we only had the one
afternoon to explore. We hope to come back to this park some day and spend more
time, it was beautiful.
The next morning we headed to Birmingham and were excited to
go back to Oak Mountain, where we did stay last year.
