Vacation in Oklahoma.....Advice anyone?

[OnionPatch]

Hi there. My extended family is planning a small family reunion that we can all drive to because we have quite a few family members who do not like to fly. I have never been to Oklahoma and neither has anyone in my family. However, eastern Oklahoma is the geographical center of us all. I am considering Broken Bow Lake at Beaver's Bend State Park but I really have no clue what this place will be like aside from the pictures on the internet. It seems sort of large and busy and we might prefer something smaller and quieter. I thought I would check in here at the Oklahoma forum to get some advice from those who would know best. Any help and advice will be appreciated.

We are looking for somewhere in the rolling hills or Ozark areas and would like to rent some cabins. We have a few members who love to fly fish for trout, etc. We have some members who like to ride horses, too. We would like the place to be somewhere with as much natural beauty as we can find, as we are all nature lovers. We're all looking forward to checking out this area since we've not been there before. Are there any "must-see" places in the area? Any certain local foods we should try? How hot does it get in the summer? We also have the option to go at the end of March but are guessing it may still be too cold in March in Oklahoma to be outside much. Are we correct? Any other useful advice?

Thanks for the help! I'm looking forward to visiting your state. :hi:

[Bunkie0913]

1. Oklahoma vacation

I just happen to be here in beautiful SE OK. I grew up in the area you are mentioning and it's truly lovely. My 85 year old Dad still lives on the land granted to my grandmother in the takeover of Indian territory. We visit there often. In Wilburton there is Robbers Cave State Park which has a stream for trout fishing, paddle boats, putt-putt etc. and is a great family place (I was born in Wilburton). Sardis Lake is beautiful and 5 of the 20 biggest bass caught in OK came from that lake. It is located by the Choctaw Capital and the council house has a museum open weekdays. We stay at the Hickory Ridge cabins where we can have a campfire and solitude with the comforts of home! Last time we were there the cabins were all booked so we stayed at a different place which was great fun. The guy had a big bonfire and we sat around and drank beer while he picked and sang, there will be a Spring Fling there March 21-23 that we plan on attending.
I've only driven through the Broken Bow area and seen the sights. Wow, it is beautiful. I've wanted to stay at Beaver's Bend but have never had the opportunity.
Anyway, spring is a lovely time to see the hills come to life after the winter. You never can tell what the weather will be, might be 80 and it might be freezing! It does get pretty dad-gummed hot here in the summer.
I don't know if any of that helps you but I had fun writing it. Let me know if I can ramble and assist anymore!

[OnionPatch]

2. Thanks, your comments are encouraging!

It's good to hear positive comments. I'm sure the area is beautiful. The pictures leave no doubt. I grew up in the rolling hills of eastern Ohio, and SE Oklahoma looks similar, at least to someone who has been living in southern California for 12 years. :)


Thanks for all the names and descriptions of the places. I'm going to check out the map and see where all those places are in relation to Broken Bow. I saw Hickory Ridge Cabins. (Is this it?...http://www.hickoryridgeguestcabins.com/cabins.php) Those look like fun little places to stay. How far are they from Sardis Lake? Do you remember the name of the other place? I'd love to sit around a fire and listen to someone play!

By the way, welcome to DU, that is, if you are new. Sometimes people have been around a long time but just don't post a lot.

[Bunkie0913]

3. glad to help

That is the link for Hickory Ridge. It sits on the side of a hill and there is approx 8 cabins. We always stay in #3! They are small but cute and have stove, frig, coffee pot and microwave. Little stone ring off of front porch to have little fire and a charcoal grill. The cost was $65(for 2 adults) last time we were there and each adult adds $10. It sits just about 2 miles from the Choctaw Council House and there are fields of Buffalo off the road. The lady that runs it is named Kathleen.

The other place I mentioned is just a mile or so away but it sits on the highway. There is a store and cafe next door with friendly folks and good food. That is the place we sat around with a guy named Willie Steve who picked and sang. He turned us on to James McMurtry, who we went to see at a show before Christmas and was just written up by John Nichols (impeachment advocate extraordinaire) in the Nation magazine, as the most progressive musician of 2007. Willie Steve has an excellent fire pit and a stage behind it to have real shows. That is the Spring fling I mentioned before. There are maybe 3 cabins, 4 motel rooms, RV and camping spaces. He has a Myspace page where you can listen to music. His son is Zack and plays with a band called Those Guys and they have a Myspace, too. I'm not very good on a computer but the website is www.sardiscabins.com I think. We only stayed there that once and it was for a bare minimum motel room(all non smoking)for $65. Sardis Lake is within a mile or so of both.
Of the 2 places, I prefer Hickory Ridge but that picking and singing is fun! Willie Steve wrote me an email and said tickets for the Spring Fling are $20 a day, I think that is in addition to the cost for a place to crash.
The Oachita (sp) Mountains lead from Talihana Ok to Mena Arkansas and is commonly called Talimena Drive or Winding Stair Mountains. Wilburton, Talihana and Sardis Lake are all my old stomping grounds and geographically close.
Broken Bow is somewhat SE of there I think but I'm not very familiar with the area.

[Bunkie0913]

4. BTW

Thank you for the welcome. I have been lurking around for a couple of years and only recently registered to post here.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Another suggestion ...

I'm not sure what this place actually costs, what your budget is, or whether this would accommodate everyone, but you might consider the Robert S. Kerr Mansion in eastern Oklahoma. I went there a few years ago as a part of historical survey and was blown away by the place, both the place itself and the surrounding area. I remember one of the people with us asking what the place cost and recall that it seemed fairly reasonable to me at the time. But, I don't remember the specifics. The mansion itself is built on a hill and surrounded by a lot of nothing but hills and trees and absolute beauty.

It's near a small town called Poteau, in the Ozarks, and is close to an even smaller town called Heavner where the Heavner Ruin Stone is located. If you're not familiar, this is a stone discovered with ruins on it of apparent Viking origin, suggesting that Vikings traveled around what would be come the United States, up the Mississippi, and into the tributaries that eventually run through modern day Oklahoma, possibly as far as north as a little south of Chicago. There's a small museum there as well as the stone itself, which sits protected near where it was found below a cliff. That, in my view, is a must-see. And, if you can't stay at the Kerr place, if you end up anywhere near there, go. The Spiro Mounds are relatively close as are several lakes, streams, and rivers suitable for fishing.

Poteau also prides itself on the "worlds largest hill" nearby. It's just shy of the official definition of a mountain, i.e. still a hill, but pretty big for a bump in the ground.

Whatever the case, my main suggestion would be to find some place in Southeastern Oklahoma. More natural beauty there, imo, than anywhere else in the state unless you like FLAT.

Regarding the weather, don't even try to plan around it. March *tends* to be mild and windy, but we've had both ice storms right up through April as well as ferocious thunderstorms and highs in the 80's at the same time, sometimes within days of each other. Summer is hot. June and early July *tend* to be more reasonable than late July and August when it can and usually does reach near 100 or more. For the sake of your health, wherever you choose your lodgings, pick something with hotel like qualities, i.e. rooms with a roof and A/C unless you're all adventurers who don't mind throwing dice with the weather and can handle what can be downright atrocious conditions that make the animals retreat to caves and higher ground. The weather might be perfect, but you really don't want to get caught out in a rustic camping ground when a flash flood comes along with no "home base" to which you can retreat. Many a camping trip when I was a kid was cut short by tornadoes. Tents don't hold up well against them. :-)

P.S. If any of you are drinkers, bring it with you. The beer is 3.2 (water) unless you go to a liquor store, where you have to get it warm. And, finding a liquor store can sometimes be a challenge in that part of the world. Plus, many counties in SE OK don't allow restaurants to serve liquor. I only mention this because I got yelled at once by a friend who'd never been to OK and went to a restaurant I suggested on a drive through because he couldn't order a glass of wine with his meal. I forget sometimes most of the rest of the world isn't like this.

[OnionPatch]

6. Thanks, we'll check that out if we can.

The mansion sounds like an interesting place to visit. I have the feeling the rooms are a little out of our price range, though. But we'll need some day trip locations and this looks like a good option. Lunch there might be fun. The ruin sounds like something I would really love to see. How cool! I'm a geographer, so the big hill will also be fun for me to see.

I'm glad I posted because it's great to get the inside scoop on the area from people who know. Very cool! I'll probably print out this thread and take it with me. Thanks especially for the info on the alcohol! While we aren't a bunch of drunks or anything, we all like our alcohol and it would be a serious problem if we found out we couldn't obtain anything to drink at our family reunion! 3.2 beer? Wow! I haven't had any of that since I was 18-20 years old and it was the only alcohol I could legally purchase at the time. I do remember that it tasted like water. So, we'll stock up on spirits before we get there and a mighty thanks for that tip. :toast:

And thanks for the weather info as well. I actually have reservations at Beaver's Bend cabins for the end of March but the rest of the family is worried that it will be too cold at that time and thinks we should change the dates. The only other time we could go would be in mid-June. But 100 degrees doesn't sound like much fun, either! Which one would you rather place your bets on? Late March or mid-June? We are really hoping to do some hiking, fishing and horseback riding, so the weather is going to be a factor. We won't be doing any rustic camping on this trip, though. The cabins have heat, etc. I don't know about AC, though. Maybe we should stick to the March date.

[Bunkie0913]

7. Update

I've been in touch the last couple of days with WillieSteve at Sardis Lake Cabins to get our reservations for the show. It was originally scheduled for March 21-23 but that is Easter weekend so he moved it to March 28-30. The tickets are $20 for all 3 days not per day so I told you wrong on that. We don't mind the 3.2% beer thing, it means we can hang out longer without getting smashed so quick.
I've been to Poteau many times, it is lovely. I've even been on the World's Highest Hill!
I can only speak for the cabins we have stayed in but they have heat and A/C. Check the distance from Beaver's Bend to Clayton (Sardis Lake) I remember it being quite a ways. Poteau is at least an hour NE of Clayton so it is a pretty good drive from Beaver's Bend.
You can't predict the weather here anytime but mid-June should not be killer hot. End of March you are not likely to be swimming but the other outdoor activities depend on cold and rain. Mid-June would probably be a safer bet but last year it started raining in April and didn't stop until July or so. Lake Texoma went over the spillway for the 1st time in approx 15 years. Just about every lake in Tx and Ok was closed. We had the boat on the lake twice last summer when it is usually twice a week!
I hope ya'll have the greatest of all times whenever you come and wherever you stay. Let me know if I can do anything to assist.

[OnionPatch]

11. Some rain would be a novel thing for us!

Here in southern California we're having the worst drought ever but it's raining right now. Some people, myself included are about ready to dance in the downpour. But my relatives from the east wouldn't be as amused if it rained on our get-together. Guess we'll need to take our chances. It's looking like the family wants to go in June. Too bad I'm going to miss the good music. :(

[RoyGBiv]

8. I'd bet on March ...

The weather in March can be ... interesting, but in late March it *usually* isn't cold, or if it is, it'll only last a couple of days. Mid-June is my birthday, and the one recollection I have of all my birthdays is that it's always too damn hot to do anything. The temps around Oklahoma do a big crank up in June, going from reasonable 80's and low 90's during the day and cool nights straight up to near the 100 degree mark all of a sudden with humid evenings and lows in the upper 70's. When I lived in OK, I always planned my camping and fishing trips for March and April.

The one thing you'll have to watch for is tornado season. No one can predict when the big thunder boomers will come, but March tends to be when they start. SE OK usually doesn't get it quite as bad as the central part of the state though, and the one good thing about thunderstorm season is they blow through in the afternoon and evening and are gone the next morning. So, it's not like they tend to ruin entire trips, just individual days sometimes.

All this talk is making me nostalgic. I left Oklahoma for Houston in October, and I'm actually starting to miss it. A lot of the state is like a mini-desert without the beauty of the sand dunes, but SE OK is very nice. I love all the lakes, rivers, streams, hills, trees ... If you're into that sort of thing, I'm sure you'll enjoy yourselves.

[OnionPatch]

12. My mother is worried about tornadoes.

But then she will usually find something to worry about. It's earthquakes here, tornadoes there....planet Earth is a dangerous place. I would like a nice big thunderboomer while I'm there (without the tornadoes.) I moved out here to California from the "lighting capital of the world", St. Petersburg, Florida, and I miss the storms. Thunder is very, very rare here.

So you're in Houston now? I lived in Beaumont for about a year for some work I was doing there. I used to go camp up at Sam Rayburn Reservoir to get a fix for some lakes and the outdoors. There were even some smallish hills there. Canoeing the swamps in the Piney Woods was fun, too. Different, but fun.

[RoyGBiv]

13. Don't be ...

... worried about tornadoes that is. You have a greater chance of being in a car accident than even seeing a tornado. I've seen a lot of 'em, but I was a part of a civil defense spotter team that went out looking for them. The big nasties don't come along all that often. We have a lot more tornado warnings here than actual tornadoes. (The purpose of the spotter teams is to find the actual funnels and direct emergency personnel. Circulation might cover a several mile radius while the funnel(s), if it(they) develops, will run along a path a few hundred yards wide, if that.) A warning gets issued by the weather service whenever circulation is detected by radar, which happens a lot more often than actual funnels.

And the vast majority of actual funnels come and go in minutes.

Not trying to downplay them too much, but in reality lightning is far more of a threat than the tornadoes are. Plus, March is not prime tornado season.

Of course, trying to tell people not to worry too much about this is kinda like telling people flying is safer than driving. It is, but when you do have a wreck in the air, it's really a nasty one.

[citizen49]

9. Seriously consider the lake Tenkiller area

South of Tulsa on the Illinois River just south of Tahlequah

Beautiful Lake with many cabin's to chose from:

PDF - http://www.laketenkiller.com/pdfs/tenkiller_guide_07.pdf

http://www.laketenkiller.com/

[OnionPatch]

10. Thanks for the links

That really does look like a cool place. Tons of rental cabins, too. I'm checking it out some more on the net. There seem to be a lot of lakes in that area.

Oh, and welcome to DU, citizen49!! :hi: Thanks for your help.

[FireAnt]

14. More info. on SE Oklahoma

For vacation ideas in extreme southeast Oklahoma, try http://www.mccurtaincountygetaways.com/

This site is operated by the McCurtain County Tourism Authority (a county goverment organization funded by a county lodging tax). It include links to most of the cabin rentals and other recreational activities available in the area.