Halloween at Marval

A friend at work shared with me her family's  favorite camping destination- Marval.  It is a private RV resort near Gore, Ok.   It is beautiful here on the Illinois River.  The river runs right through the campground.  During the summer, the river is stocked with trout.  There are some pictures of some pretty impressive catches!  We didn't fish this time, but did some wading and rock throwing.

 We found this cool log on the side of the river that was perched on a rock to make a perfect seesaw.  We took our bikes and rode around the loop many times then made our way over to the craft building to be creative for a while.  They had lots of projects to make.  M made a pillow case and G did some sand art. Following that, we headed back outside for some mini golf.  G won, of course.

 

What we liked most about Marval is that it has a family theme each weekend.  It is different each week and the whole month of October is Halloween.  I wish I was able to take pictures in the dark with my camera.  People go all out for Halloween here.  Some set up haunted houses, big blow up yard decor, tree lights, you name it.  Our few lights and hanging spider were nothing to compete with the others.  I had no idea. Just after dinner the kids began to trick or treat.  The whole park was full of kids and families all dressed up for Halloween.  Once the candy was all handed out and the sun went down, the local Boy Scout troop put on a haunted trail in the woods.  The kids LOVED it!  Definitley a fun Halloween activity to do again next year! 

G was a Ghostbuster and M was Bones, from her favorite TV show, Bones.  Another fun weekend out in the great outdoors of Oklahoma.  We will definitely come back here again!

Coon Tales

 We had to take a little break from all of our camping fun to spend some time at the lake.  Starting in June, the temperatures stayed over 100 degrees.  Even with the air conditioner in my little pop-up, I'm just not that tough.  Weekends at the house on the lake, swimming and boating beat out camping.  Especially since there was a burn ban, too.  Who can camp without a fire?

Finally, the first weekend in October the weather looked good.  80's in the daytime and 50's at night.  Perfect.  On short notice, we decided to head back to Osage Hills State Park.  The last time we were here, it was only for an afternoon and there was much we didn't see.

Since our last adventure, we added this cool screen porch to the camper.  It seemed to be the perfect "kitchen".  My stove is inside, but I set up the cooler, the table with all the food on it and organized it all out there, freeing up some space inside.  It also was a great place to put the dog's kennel so she could sleep out there at night.

 

 We decided to take a hike around the lake.  There were some beautiful views from the top of several hills.  We had a picnic on our hike and then things got a little tricky.  It got hot and the trails are not hiked very often and not marked well.  A 1 mile hike turned into a very whiney 4 mile hike.  We did finally make it back to camp.  My kids thought it was intentional torture. 

 

 After dinner, some fun around the campfire and marshmallows it was time to go to bed.  The kids take turns each trip on who gets the pop-out bed and who gets the smaller one where the table is.  P and I get the King size pop-out bed on the other end.  I have a little trouble sleeping with all of the critter sounds outside so I use earplugs.  Because of this, I didn't initially hear all of the comotion until I started feeling the camper shaking from the kids bouncing around from window to window squeeling about the racoon that was in the screen porch.  I jumped up to see that what we thought was a secured screen porch had been breeched by a small racoon that after feasting on some of our delicacies, could not figure out how to get back out.  Our Golden Retreiver ( who isn't much of an outdoorsy kind of girl) didn't make a peep.  She was curled in a tight little ball in the back of her nylon zip up kennel.  She was terrified.  As was the racoon that kept climbing on her kennel then jumping onto the wall of the screen porch.  We had to get it out before it broke in to the kennel and hurt the dog and completely destroyed the new screens!

It was a completely redneck affair and I so wish I had my camera out from the start.  P was in the porch in a t-shirt and boxers trying to unzip the door and shoo the little coon with a broom.  Kids screaming all the while.  I'm sure by now the whole park was up.  We never saw it leave, but all was quiet.  We resecured the base, zipped up the door, moved all the food and the dog inside.  Back to bed.  M was completely freaked out and then yelled that it was still in there!  Looking out her window you could see that it hadn't left, but rather crawled up between the screen and the shade that was rolled down.  It was hanging very quietly trying to figure its next move I'm sure.

Something had to be done.  We went back out, unzipped the door and beat the sides of the porch until it finally let go and took off at a full run.  He didn't come back.  The next morning we were sharing our adventure with the park ranger who said the racoons are so smart (and have opposable thumbs) that they will actually drag off coolers into the woods to scavenge.  They also had a racoon UNZIP a tent the weekend before and stroll right in to check out the food inside.  Apparently the wife was not one bit happy....I wouldn't be either!  M now has a very unhealthy fear of our little ring tailed friends.

It was a long night.  Thankfully, followed by a beautiful fall morning with pancakes, sausage and biscuits over the campfire.

Osage Hills State Park

This was our first "hanging out on Saturday morning and decided to go camping" trip.  We were watching the weather and saw it was going to be a beautiful warm May weekend.  It was also M's 12th birthday.  The nice thing about owning the trailer and having it at home all stocked up with linens, dishes etc.  is that you can decide at the last minute and just go.  In 1 hour the kids packed their bags, I ran to the grocery store to get necessary food and drinks and we were off to Osage Hills State Park. 

Osage Hills is a short hour drive from our house so it is a perfect last minute location for us.  Another bonus is that Grammy and BD live just about 20  minutes away and can easily join us. 

We called and let Grammy and BD know we were on our way.  Grammy brought the cake and we had birthday dinner on Saturday night at our campsite.  Long before dinner, though, we did some fun exploring. 

I love Osage Hills.  It brings back memories from high school for me.  I would go in the summer with friends and swim in the creek and hike around the lake.  The water was a little cool in early May for any swimming, but we did wade and throw lots of rocks.  G loved the little waterfall that he could walk across.

Another bonus for this time of year, there were only two other campers there that weekend so it was like having the whole park to ourselves.  Nobody parked close to us and we had lots of room to run and play.

Here are Grammy and BD enjoying our campfire after a yummy dinner.  I made Dutch oven Jambalaya and toasted french bread over the fire.  Nothing is quite as good as food cooked over an open fire.

Here is G, proudly watching over the bacon and biscuits (in the dutch oven).  G is the keeper of the fire at all of our camp outs.  Unfortunately, Oklahoma weather is very unpredictable.  The forecast for the weekend was sunny and warm.  Shortly after this picture was taken, it started POURING rain.  We have never packed up and pulled out so fast!

Where Do We Start?

Deciding where to go was quite the challenge.  We know nothing of the state parks in our area and were hoping to have as good of an experience as we did at Devil's Den so the kids would really love this new adventure we were on. Searching for something close to us, we decided upon Sequoyah State Park on Fort Gibson Lake.



One of the many fossils we found on the Fossil Trail.



This is a coyote that has been rescued and is kept at the nature center there
along with a couple of foxes, a beaver and an eagle.



There was a really nice nature center with a friendly park ranger that took us on a short hike to see all of the fossils.  Inside the nature center, there were fish, snakes, fossils and plenty of things for the kids to explore for a while.

How about that sunset?  The kids had a great time and so did we.  We had fajitas and burgers for dinner and pancakes and sausage and biscuits for breakfast. Yum.

The only drawback to this park is that if you wanted hot water in the bathrooms, you had to have quarters...Seriously? Good thing I have a water heater in my little pop-up!



One of Our Very Own

We just couldn't quit thinking about how much fun we had on our Spring Break adventure. I think P thought I was crazy, but I wanted one. There were so many questions- Would we have time? Would we really use it? How much are they?

I got on to Craig's List and started searching. Nothing that quite met my expectations. Did people not know how loaded you get these things? Then I saw the ad. Tulsa RV Show. This weekend. Guess what we did Friday night with the kids?

The kids of course fell in love with the $250,000 bus...I don't think so. We found the pop-ups and found just the perfect one for us. It met all of my criteria... bathroom, water heater, sink, refrigerator, heat/AC, heated mattresses (these rock!). It even has an outdoor grill.

So this is our little home away from home for all of our adventures to come. We did add one fun feature- a screen porch. It just about doubles the living space and gives us a great place to keep the dog. Look out Oklahoma wilderness, here we come!

In the Beginning

Spring Break of 2011 we started on an adventure that we had no idea would become a favorite pass-time. I had started a new job and had very little vacation time. We were trying to think of something close, fun and completely different to do with our kids- M-12 and G-8. We had recently gone to the Boat Show and the kids had a ball looking at all of the campers. While there, the nice lady had told us that they also rent their trailers. As much fun as it sounded inside the convention center, sleeping in one in the wild was a whole different deal for me.

I must say, I do love the outdoors. I am a Cub Scout leader and LOVE doing all the outside boy stuff with them. I love to fish, shoot and hang out by a cozy fire, but sleeping arrangements include a real mattress and air conditioning or heat. No roughing it for me.

So, we rented a pop-up camper for a 4 day trek to Devil's Den State Park in Arkansas. I had all the ammenities I needed- an indoor potty, 3 burner stove, sink, shower, heat, air and my favorite (it was cool at night), heated mattresses. I never would have imagined that we would have so much fun. I also found that all the other people camping at the park were families just like us. No mass murderers, kidnappers and creepy people. Just lots of families having fun outdoors with their kids. The kids were sold. We got out and hiked the trails, saw the caves, canoed on the lake, but do you know what the kids wanted to do more than any of that? Play in the camper.

I also decided it was pretty fun cooking over the open fire. We had biscuits(in the dutch oven), eggs and pancakes for breakfast and burgers and pies(in the dutch oven) and bbq sausages and potatoes....good yummy stuff all made over the fire.

We loved Devil's Den. The hiking was beautiful- waterfalls, caves, hilltop views. It was spring break so there were park rangers doing all sorts of activities for the kids- our son's favorite was all about Wolf Spiders and how to spot them at night (their eyes glow green). The bathrooms were new, clean and had hot water. We were exhausted when we got home, but all agreed that was a pretty fun adventure!