Saturday, July 30, 2011

Still In Texas

We are still baking in north Texas. It is so very HOT here. It just seems we can't get away from this blazing HEAT.

We are currently staying at a COE park at Lake Lavon. These parks at Lake Lavon leave a  lot to be desired. Only few of the site have 50 AMP. There are NO sewer  hook up. There are very few trees and the trees that do exist aren't large enough to produce any real shade.  They mow maybe twice a year and that isn't near often enough.



There is a small hint of green in the grass. This heat has killed almost everything that should be green right now.

We will be staying at least another week or so here.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Back in Texas

Well we're back in Texas. We left Green Leaf State Park at 8:00 A.M. Friday morning and drove to Lake Lavon. We made it to our site around 2:30 P.M. We returned back to our home area to be with a friend in a time of need. Her step-father is very ill.

We are staying in a COE park. It doesn't have much to offer but it puts us in the area where we want to be. The weather is hot here but NOT as hot as it was in Oklahoma. Our current site backs up to the lake and there is a breeze blowing. It's not a cool breeze but it is air movement!

Dawn and I took a few things that we realized we didn't need to our storage unit yesterday and dug out our recliners, loaded them up in the back of the truck and brought them back to the trailer. Our recliners are very worn and have a lot of butt hours on them but they are comfortable. It was a bite of work but it was well worth it.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Monday, July 18, 2011

Busy Day

This morning we realized we almost had the in the park to ourselves. There is only one class C here. We sat outside and watched the deer graze under the oak trees. We saw a doe and her very young baby run through the park.


Dawn drove us into Braggs to pick up our mail. We have a wonderful friend that sends us our mail about once a month.

We also went into Muskogee to K-Mart to pick up a 6’ ladder (Cosco) I noticed the other day and didn’t buy. This ladder is way too cool. It is lite weight, has a carrying handle, a paper towel holder and it has a large step at the top. Our current ladder wasn’t tall enough to allow me to blow off the top of the slide-outs. I didn’t want a heavy ladder that I would have to man handle in order to use it. I wanted something lite weight enough that I could handle by myself. This is the one! It was a good price too, $49.99. That’s lite on the wallet too.


On the way back to the state park we stopped off at a produce stand. We bought a green tomato, new potatoes, okra and squash. I can’t wait for dinner!!!
We hope we can find fresh produce stands at our next stop.


Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Fresh Produce and lots of Peaches

Yesterday we drove to a small town about 14 miles away to the laundry mat. We did our laundry and explored the area. We found a roadside vendor selling fresh sweet corn. We bought 7 ears for dinner. We noticed a sign that said Dwight Mission. We decided to follow the signs and see what Dwight Mission was. Well needless to say that we took off down this little country road and drove for forty-five minutes before we finally found the Dwight Mission. Here is a little history;

Dwight Mission was founded at the request of Western Cherokee Chief Tahlonteskee in 1818. Tahlonteskee expressed to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), an extension of the Presbyterian Church, the desire for a mission school to educate the Western Cherokees. The Western Principal Chief knew if his people were to weather the ensuing changes before them it was imperative they be educated. And Dwight Mission became the first mission west of the Mississippi River to serve the Cherokee people.

The mission was to be located in the newly created Territory of Arkansas which in part became the Cherokee Reserve as part of the Treaty of 1817. The Treaty of 1817 was an agreement between one group of the Cherokee tribe which would give up their lands in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama and in exchange would receive an equal portion of land in Arkansas. This group of Cherokee became known as the “Old Settlers”. The Cherokee Reserve was situated in the northwestern part of the Arkansas Territory between the Arkansas and White Rivers. 


 It is a beautiful place located out in the middle of no where. We found our way back to the highway and ended up in Sallisaw. by this time, we were starving. We found a pizza restaurant and stopped in for lunch.

On our way back to our fiver we found a little road side produce stand. We pulled in and Dawn grabbed us some new potatoes and okra. It is fresh. Picked from the garden that morning.

Needless to say, for dinner we had new potatoes cooked with a little butter and onion, okra fried until lightly browned and sweet corn cooked in the shuck on the grill. That was the BEST meal we've had in a while.

Today we drove over to Porter and checked out the peach festival. Everything was peachy! They had fresh peaches, peach cobblers, fried peach pies, peach smoothies, peach tea and this list goes on and on. The Porter fire department handed out bowls of ice cream with peaches poured over them. There was a small carnival and a few arts and craft vendors. We didn't stay long. When the temp reached 103 we decided it was time to leave.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Friday, July 15, 2011

Braggs, OK

For those who have asked, we are in Oklahoma just south of Muskogee.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Thursday, July 14, 2011

A Day in the Life

We did a little exploring today. We drove into Tahlequah. We checked out the Cherokee Courthouse. We took pictures at a city park. We had lunch at a Tex-Mex restaurant. We also visited the Verizon store to get some things taken care of with our phones.

The weather is HOT. They are experiencing record breaking temps here. It has been over 101⁰ everyday expect 2 since we arrived. Seems like the central US is dealing with a heat wave and draught conditions.

When we got back to the state park we had new neighbors. Matter a fact; we have about five new trailers that came in while we were out exploring. We have gotten a little spoiled by having the park to ourselves.
On the weekend we always have a few people stopping in for a few days. We are in our third site since we arrived here. The first site (35) is the best. It has lots of shade. We had to move after a week because it was reserved. We moved to site 19. It is located next to the playground, dumpster and restroom. That site had NO shade. After 3 days, we moved to site 36. It is across the street from our first site and only gets evening shade. It is a nice wide site and backs up to the inner circle where the deer graze.

We do enjoy the peacefulness of this park. We have to drive 20 miles to Muskogee or 17 miles to Tahlequah for groceries or gas. There is a grocery store in Gore which is 9 miles away but they are expensive.


We are taking our time to explore the areas of each place we stay. We are not in any hurry! We want to fully explore each area before we move on to the next stop.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Monday, July 11, 2011

Still at Green Leaf State Park

We are in our third site here at Green Leaf SP.

We had to move the first time due to a Good Sams - Redbird rally. We moved again yesterday to another site that had some shade. It is HOT here and we are planning on staying here until the 20th. We might be heading to OK City from here. Have we mentioned how much we love this state park? It has lots of mature oak trees. The sites are level and it is peaceful.


Good stuff on  the grill
We do have difficultly getting a Verizon signal here. It maybe due to all the trees. This park sits atop a large hill and has a small lake. The pool is nice and we have dipped our hot bodies in the water a few times.
Deer in the campground
Turkeys grazing at our campsite

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Green Leaf State Park - Braggs, OK

On June 30th  we said our sad good byes to our camping sisters and left Beavers Bend Resort State Park after 10:00. 

We had a bit of serious trouble before we even got out of the park. We were driving about 25 to 30 MPH down the hilly, curvy roads when Dawn noticed that a rear window was down and that Abby was lying beside it with her hair blowing in the wind. Dawn told me to roll up the window as she tried frantically to reach her hand through the pet barrier and grab Abby. I was pushing the window button but it wasn’t going up. Dawn’s hand wouldn’t fit through the wire of the barrier. The entire time she was trying to get Abby to come over to the barrier but she didn’t want to lose her place by the open window. 

Meanwhile, I was doing my best to pull over off the surface of the road without getting into the ditch. I finally got the truck and trailer stopped; I jumped out to see Abby about to leap out the window. Dawn and I were very shaken and it took us a minute to calm down. I rolled up the window and secured Abby back in her place; I realized the reason the rear window would not roll up was because Abby had her foot on the button. Once back in the driver’s seat I pushed the window lock. We took a few deep breaths and moved on down the road. We finally recovered from our scare when we were approaching a stop sign and I realized we didn’t have any trailer breaks. I was able to stop the truck and trailer without any serious problems. I pulled onto the side of the road and checked our trailer connection. The connection had come loose. I plugged it back in and we were back on the road.

This is Abby, the kid that likes to ride with the window down




We drove north along the Indian Nation Turn pike to McAlester. We experienced a lot of road construction along the way and some rough pavement but we made it safe and sound. We pulled into Green Leaf State Park around 3:00. It is a very nice little state park 20 miles south of Muskogee, OK. We are staying in the Gobbler Ridge area. Deer and turkey roam thru the park. We almost have the park to ourselves. We have a nice level site with shade trees, 50 amp service, good water pressure and a great view. We paid $20.00 per night. We still can’t get phone service but we do have TV.

Friday we drove to Muskogee. We treated ourselves to lunch at an Amish Restaurant. Lunch was really good. I had the pot roast with green beans and salad. Dawn had Amish ham, mashed potatoes and salad. They dinner rolls were melt in your mouth good. We also had dessert. Dawn had chocolate pie and I had lemmon. We also grabbed a couple of the fried pies (lemon and Blackberry).  

We stopped by Kmart and Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. We plan on exploring the area more before we leave.

Yesterday we drove into Sallisaw to explore. We stopped by Long John Silvers and had lunch. We also stopped by Wal-Mart and picked up a few groceries. We grilled chicken, fried okra with yellow squash, cantaloupe and stuff jalapenos for dinner. Life is good!
Just a side note; Oklahoma state parks recognize Good Sam’s. That is great news. Our Camp site with 50 amp is $18.00 not $20.00. We love a bargain! We have decided to stay here at Green Leak SP for another couple of weeks. We have to move to another site for a couple of days due to an RV Rally. We don’t mind moving to another site for a few days. We didn’t realize until today that our current site was reserved. We drove up to the park office to see about getting another site. Mary Ellen at the office mentioned said only one 50 amp site is not reserved and it doesn’t have any trees. She told us that Tenkiller state park, which is only nine miles away, has full hookups for a couple of dollars more per night and she said the lake is beautiful. She was nice enough to call over and make us reservations. We decided to drive over and check it out. We loaded up the dogs and drove to Tenkiller sp.

MaryEllen was right the lake is beautiful. The small RV area with full hookups is very compact and the RV’s are packed in tight. We drove back to Green Leaf and told MaryEllen we wanted to stay here at Green Leaf sp. She gave us the last remaining 50 amp site and called Tenkiller and canceled our reservations.
This is a really nice park with most sites shaded. The deer and turkey graze through the park every morning. The sites are spread out with the exception of a few. They have a swimming pool, laundry, marina and miniature golf. The walking trails are asphalt.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Friday, July 1, 2011

Beavers Bend Resort State Park

All is well with us. We've not had phone service or computer access for the past two weeks.

We spent 10 days at Beavers Bend Resort State Park. Our site was located in the Buckeye RV Area. We had a beautiful site under the large pine trees with the sites alongside the Mountain Fork River. Our site (31) was nice and level with a concrete pad, 30 AMP hook up, bar b q, picnic table and good water pressure. The circle of Buckeye is one way and the large pine trees are very close to the road making it a bit uneasy. But we were able to maneuver our way through. Half of the sites are on the river.

We arrived Sunday, June 19th about 12:30 and had to wait for almost 2 hours for our site to become available. It was occupied by a park ranger that was in No hurry to move his fifth wheel. It was extremely hot out and we sat in the truck with the AC running so we didn’t die from heat stroke.  

We camped with eleven other women. Four of the women are from the San Antonio area of Texas, two from Oklahoma City, five from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This group is occupying 4 camp sites and one cabin.

We already knew two of the women from Texas. Last year they mentioned this annual Beavers Bend vacation thing they do each year we just invited ourselves to tag along.  We are so glad they let us join along. We are all having a great time visiting and getting to know one another.


One evening we all went out for dinner and then to the casino in Broken Bow to play the penny slots in memory of our friend, Bonnie. Bonnie loved to play the slots and was supposed to have joined us on this trip. Unfortunately, Bonnie past away suddenly just a couple of weeks ago. Dawn and I had only met Bonnie once but these other women have known her for over twenty years.

We’ve gone as a group and eaten at the local restaurant here in the park and we’ve also eaten at the Mexican food restaurant in Broken Bow. We also had dinner at the cabin a couple of nights for home cooked meals.
The women staying in the cabin left on Friday morning so that left 9 of us until the 30th.

Dawn‘s headaches finally subsided on Saturday, June 25th. It has been hard for her to stay indoors and suffer with headaches and not be able to visit or take part in the boat rides or canoe trips.

Luckily she is feeling much better and able to enjoy herself. Matter of fact, she fixed breakfast for the group one morning and dinner that night.

Monday morning eight of us rented kayaks and explored the river. Shortly after we got started down the river there was a rocky area with some rapids and Dawn turned her kayak over. Luckily, we were in shallow water and Donna was able to help Dawn get the water out of her kayak and get her back on her way. It was smooth sailing after that and everyone had a great time and got plenty of sun.


Our Review;

±   Shaded, level paved sites, grill, picnic table, wildlife, lake, 30amp, good water pressure, friendly staff, river, restaurant, park store,  

-  Distance to shopping & fuel, No Verizon Signal, No TV signal, old restrooms, busy park,