Rivers/Bridges/Mountains/Bisons and Longhorns OH MY!

OK, Where do I begin.  I knew a song once that began that way. LOL  I'm feeling pretty weird  today.

Last Saturday morning Mike and I woke up and decided to drive to Verden to eat breakfast at one of our favorite little diners.... It was closed. :(  We drove on to Chickasha, our second choice was so busy there were people standing two deep waiting on a place to sit.....so we drove on to another little diner in Chickasha and there with a completely full diner finally had our breakfast.  Then we drove back home to Anadarko.  We were going to be lazy, but I decided I wanted to drive out to the farm to see if it had rained out there and see if anything was beginning to grow again.  With camera in hand, I'm learning to grab it with my purse, we took off for the farm.

Not much has changed with the farm.  We still have lots of burnt trees.  We did get a little bit of rain and it washed the soot down into spots and it looks pretty grose.  We drove down around the road to the bottom of our place and walked in to where the trees did not burn as bad.  They still burnt but just not as bad.  It looks so different than it did when the trees and grass were there.

Ok from there we went on a quest.  I was searching for an old railroad bridge to possibly take my grandkids pictures on.  We drove to Washita...the old bridge is gone.  We drove all over Caddo County and Grady County and part of Comanche County.  We were in Chickasha when Mike took off South out of town.  We turned back west and went through Cement, Cyril and Apache and kept going West until we got to the highway that goes south to Medicine Park.  We stopped about 3:00pm to eat at Ann's Country Kitchen.  There I got my Indian Taco fix and we were off again to the Wichita Wildlife Refuge.

We drove past Mt. Scott and on west past the Visitors Center to the Park Headquarters and then on south of there to great little area called Charons Garden Wilderness Area.  The rock formations are unique and the cactus are still trying to bloom.  The small lakes are beautiful even when they are 3 feet lower than usual because of the drought.

The lake is down, but still beautiful.

These rock formations are just great to look at.  The look like they are balancing on top of the mountain.

On our way out of the Charons Garden area we noticed a herd of Bison that we didn't see as we drove into the Gardens.  The Gardens were really closed because of the hot dry weather.  There was an extreme heat warning.  We could not go hiking, but we will come back when it is cooler.  I think we may have to bring our grandkids down here to see this.

The herd of Bison that were at the entrance into the Gardens.

After we left the Gardens area we drove back the way we came in and drove into some other areas in the refuge.  On our drive we saw Longhorn cattle, Prairie Dogs, and another herd of Bison.  The elk were hiding down by the creek where it was cool.

The cattle were trying to stay in the shade where it is much cooler than the sun beating down.

They poise for you to take their picture.  They are so funny and they are everywhere and hard to see because they are the same color as the ground.  

This is lost lake.  It is such a beautiful place, but there is much mud showing through because of the lack of rain.  I surley hope it rains soon.  It will take many inches of rain and cooler weather to restore this lake to what it once looked like.

A couple of the large Bison.

The herd.  There were many calves.

This was the largest of the bulls.  He really is magnificent.  

By this time it was dusk and time for us to start home.  I really never did find the railroad bridge I wanted to find, at least not one I could get to without walking a mile.   I did find some other beautiful places to take my grandchildren and maybe even snap a pic or two of them.  Every time I go to the Wichita Wildlife Refuge I see something I haven't seen before.  It is a wonderful place to visit.  You never know if you are going to see a herd of Bison or maybe just one or two.  It is a history lesson though.  If you haven't been down there, you should go!