2 days + 4 Oklahoma State Parks + 315 photos + 1 million bats
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1 great weekend exploring the beauty of Oklahoma
The adventure started out on a Saturday morning in August with the Jeep all loaded up with the camping gear in the trunk, classic rock music blaring from the speakers, and a full tank of gas. We were extremely grateful that there was an unusual cool breeze blowing which made the three hour trek across Northwest Oklahoma much more bearable in a door-less Jeep. On the other hand, my hair greatly suffered the constant attack from the wind and I never want to experience the pain I felt combing out the mess tangles that became my hairstyle ever again. Note to self: bring a baseball hat for the Jeep to control hair on the next trip.
Now, along our journey the captain of the trek, my wonderful husband Creed, decided to play a new road trip game called "Creed's Jeep Passengers: What Do They Know? Do They Know Musical Artists and Song Titles? Let's Find Out!" (yes, I slightly copied the show from BoJack Horseman sshhhh) I epically fail at this game. I can sing you the words of every song that we played during the whole trip. I cannot tell you every artist or song title nor will I ever be able. I did get one song correct and that was "Fortunate Son" by CCR, so I hope my dad is proud of me.
Before our stop at Alabaster Caverns State Park we visited Great Salt Plains State Park which is just a little west of the caverns. We didn't stay very long here because we wanted to make sure we arrived at Alabaster Caverns in time for the last cave tour, but we plan on going back sometime in September when the sun isn't scorching Oklahoma with blazing heat to dig for salt crystals. After a short visit with the super friendly lady at the front desk in the park office we drove around the lake shore for a bit. The lake at this park looks huge and like its suffering greatly from the drought that Western Oklahoma has been in forever but in reality this lake is only about 4 feet deep. Google it if you don't believe me. Its more like a giant puddle of water.
We made it Alabaster Caverns State Park, located a little south of Freedom, OK,
about 10 minutes before the last tour of the day for the caverns started. Now here is the most disappointing part of our trip. No flashlights, cell phones, or cameras are allowed on the tour. No camera means no pictures of the super cool rock formations in the caverns. Creed and everyone else failed to mention this tidbit of information to me so needless to say when the lady up front said I couldn't take pictures you can imagine my face of annoyance and disappointment. They don't allow people to take photographs because the lights in the cave are set on a timer so if everyone is taking time to snap some awesome photos then people are going to experience more than one moment of complete darkness on the tour. Additionally, there are some bats living in the cave where the tour is held so if anyone takes photos with the flash on then it disturbs those cuties which is awful. So if you want to see the pretty rock formations you'll just have to drive up there yourself because I didn't take any (or be lazy and google pictures, totally not judging you if you do that instead of going out and enjoying nature).
Anyway, the cave tour was about 45 minutes long and not that hard of a hike. There's running water through the cave and so we saw some animals, like frogs, which was really cool. There are some beautiful formations along the tour which are lit by the wonderful timed lighting. And of course, there's always the super dorky part in the tour where some formation looks like a dog or some other goofy thing. My favorite part of these cave tours is the names for all the different formations from the original cavers. I feel like the names really give an insight to the mindset these people had exploring the caves. For instance, in Carlsbad Caverns there's one area called Devil's Spring which to me implies the original explorers of that particular cavern were a little frightened. There's nothing like that to my knowledge like that in Alabaster Caverns. There is one area on the tour at Alabaster that is somewhat morbid called Mirror Lake. When you look down at the water from a certain angle it looks like there is an another room just below you underwater, but if you attempt to dive down you'll probably have a severe headache because the water is only about 4 inches deep. Overall, we enjoyed it because it felt more like a natural trail through the cave instead of a concrete man-made trail.
The bat watch is actually held at the Selman Bat Caves which is in a Wildlife Management Area. At the place of the bat watch, there is a seating area where the biologists and volunteers give out more information about the bat and other wildlife.
There is also a short trail around the area with a tiny seating area that is a bit closer to the cavern where one million bats fly out across the Oklahoma sky. We walked along the trail away from the group to the other seating area so that we were closer to the bats. Here is the awesome part: once the bats start flying out if you are really quiet you can hear the sound of their little bat wings flapping against the wind. Its really quite amazing watching them fly out. The bats fly out in groups and occasionally some would fly low and near the seating area to grab the bugs swarming us. I tried to get some pictures of the bats, but it was extremely difficult to get the camera to focus. So, once again if you want to see this awesome natural phenomenon you'll just have to go there yourself.
So, after watching the bats it was definitely dark outside and we still had to drive to Boiling Springs State Park to set up camp. Luckily, its not that far of a drive between the two state parks and I'm mostly sure that we had the tent set up before midnight. We camped near a light so we could actually see when we were putting up the marine combat tent. It also helps when the tent only has three identical poles so the tent was up and ready in ten minutes. Now, when I think of camping I think of a peaceful area with no sounds that one could hear in the city. NO. I was wrong! Every two or three hours a train blazed by the park blaring its horn every single time. It was like the scene from My Cousin Vinny when the steam whistle blares at 5:30 in the morning. Anyway, after that lovely night I woke up pretty early caught some pictures of a family of deer grazing in the park. I went into full wannabe nature photographer mode laying on my stomach snapping pictures of these deer.
Once Creed finally woke up, we started making the fire that would cook our breakfast. I was in charge of said fire and I let said fire die more times than I care to admit, however I did finally manage to keep it going after a while. After breakfast and packing up camp, we visited one of the boiling springs, named so since the effect of the water rapidly rising to the surface from underground streams gives the springs the appearance of boiling. From the spring, we hiked a short time to a geocache photographing the hundreds of frogs along the way. I swear there were tons of these frogs everywhere along the stream leading to the spring. Frogs of all sizes too. We found one frog, who we named King Frog, that was perched on a rock in the stream and would push off any other frog who tried to sit on the rock. King Frog was a bit of a jerk.
Further down the trail we came across some propped up tree branches that looked like it was straight from the Blair Witch movie. I told Creed that he better not leave me behind if something spooky came after us.The trail we followed eventually led to the river and we thought we could reach the geocache walking along the river. So off came the shoes and socks and down the river we trekked. It wasn't that bad of a walk but Creed did get "attacked" by a gar. I suppose that's karma for when he caught a few at the beginning of the summer. We hiked down to the point where we thought we would be able to reach the geocache, turns out it was blocked with fallen trees. We walked back up the river and back to the trail to finally find the geocache and then we headed off to the next park, Gloss Mountain.
Gloss Mountain State Park is really better for sunrises and sunsets, not for when the sun has already risen in the sky. When we reached Gloss Mountain the cool weather from the day before had been replaced with the typical August heat. On the hike up to the top, I'll admit I struggled because I'm terribly out of shape and I don't know how to pace myself. I took off on the trail only to be out of breath with my heart pounding about a third of the way on the path. The railing along the path up the mountain is also black metal that just radiates heat making the climb even more miserable. Creed however jumped on the opportunity to tease me as much as I had teased him in Colorado for not being able to make the Manitou Incline. "Is it because of the elevation? Because I'm higher than you in elevation and I feel fine", he kept tormenting me. It didn't help there was an older couple who we watched climb ahead of us with seemingly no problem at all. Yet, I'm proud to say though that I was able to reach the top. I just had to sit in the shade for a good while to catch my breath and slow my heart down. From the top, it is a beautiful view overlooking the landscape of western Oklahoma totally worth the miserable climb and you can really imagine what the sun must look like coming up and going down on the horizon. I would really love to go back and watch a sunrise there.After that our journey was done, both camera batteries had died, and we were more than ready to be home. It was a great weekend and a trip that I would recommend to everyone.
