our weekend adventure with beavers and big foot

well so if our recent sunday trip to woolaroc was a wild hair…i guess you could say this past weekend was spiral perm and highlights. 

with the exception of last weekend, most of the time these little adventures start out with tripp saying something like, “hey babe…what would you think about driving down to {insert destination here} to spend the night?”  because that’s so tripp…he loves to go and see new places.

so last week tripp suggested that we take a drive to broken bow, oklahoma.  it’s in the far southeast corner of the state – even further south than robber’s cave.  and i enjoyed seeing that part of the state so much that i immediately said yes.

***warning!  vacation pictures ahead!***

it’s about a three hour drive from tulsa to broken bow, and once you get off the turnpike it’s a beautiful drive.  it happened to be cool and cloudy on saturday because the weather is (omg!) more hormonal than i am.   but it was so wonderful  to see how green and lush everything is getting. 

after a quick stop in antlers for some lunch, we made our way east on highway 3 through the foothills of the kiamichi mountains. and always so interesting to me the way the landscape changes as you get further south and east.  rolling hills, tall pines. not something most people think of when they think of oklahoma.  i just love it.

it was about an hour and half from antlers to broken bow.  and from there we went north into  the beavers bend state park.

i know seeing other peoples’ vacation pictures is usually not all that exciting so i’ll spare you the details.

…it was pretty, we took a train ride, i took a picture of some flowers. 

because tripp is our family-travel-coordinator extraordinaire, he checked out the area on trip-advisor and found a place in hochatown called – wait for it – girls gone wine!  and as the name suggests, it a local winery owned by three girlfriends (carrie & suzanne i’m looking at you right now!!).  you can get free wine tastings, but the best part is that you can get a couple of glasses of wine and some cheese and crackers and sit out on their patio and enjoy it.  which we did.

truth be told i ‘enjoyed’ mine and most of tripp’s.

oh so here is a fun sidenote – mccurtain county, ok is considered a semi-dry county.  which, if you’re not from the south (or the middle ages), means that you cannot buy mixed drinks or wine in restaurants.  but what you can do however, is purchase a ‘membership’ into a restaurant whereby allowing you to bring in your own booze.  which the bartender will promptly label with your name for you to enjoy at your leisure.  which apparently at the restaurant we went to saturday night there were many people enjoying their ‘membership’ that night.  and because tripp and i wanted to enjoy the bottle of wine we bought at GGW, we purchased a three-day ‘membership’ at the restaurant.  it was five dollars.  i don’t even know what else to say.

anyway…

when tripp first started planning our weekend he looked into the cabins at beavers bend, but alas most of them required a two night stay.  so instead we stayed a bed and breakfast.  which was run by a sweet little old couple.  and it was lovely.  our host loved birds as much as i do so it was fun to talk about all the different species he sees on his property.

oh and he grew pretty pink roses too.

on the way home sunday, we drove through the beautiful pine forest of kiamichi mountains.  my photos don’t do it the least bit of justice – it’s just breathtaking.  the sights, the smell of pine in the air.  and such a glorious day to boot.  so wonderful.  so hard to believe it’s oklahoma!

and oh my gosh tripp would kill me if i didn’t tell you that we went through honobia, ok  (i swear i don’t make up the names of these towns) because that my friends is the big foot capitol of the world!!

‘looking kinda ‘squatchy’ in here.’

this is my life friends.  i couldn’t make this up if i tried either.

anyway, so we’re driving along the whole time and all alongside the road are these pretty wildflower plots.  finally i told tripp he was just going to have to pull over.  which he did.  because he loves me and because he’s a great guy.

well so even though i know that this blog post is already way too long and boring (well except for the bigfoot part right?), i would just like to take a minute here share a couple of things about being married.  you know, we celebrated our 21st anniversary back in january.  and i think marriage is very much a journey.  because although tripp and i are basically the same people we were when we got married…we have evolved – both as individuals and as a couple.

and like any marriage, we’ve had our share of uphill and downhill.  we have gotten lost and had to the check the map.  sometimes it’s been 85 mph down the turnpike and other times it’s been a slow drive through the country. and there are times when we sing at the top of lungs to old rock n roll songs and times when we sit in that comfortable quiet holding hands.   marriage is all of that and million other things.  but for me – wherever the road takes us, i’ll be fine.  as long as we go together.

peace, kelly