Bonham State Park

It has been 7 days since I have written in this blog. We have been moving north. We are currently at a beautiful State Park in NE Oklahoma. It seems a bit strange that tomorrow will be the last travel day on this trip. We have been traveling for 5 days more than 7 months on this trip. We think about our travel in terms of trips away from Missouri. We have been traveling about 31 months of the 43 since I retired. That seems about right to us. We are not sure what we will do next. Our plan is to get back to the ranch and wait for the hitch itch to kick in. OK, now to catch up...

We left Holiday Park at Lake Benbrook in Texas on May 16. We did something that we have never done before. We had paid for 3 more days, but decided that we had done all that we wanted to do and were tired of the DFW area. We also had plans to spend some more time with Kim's parents up along the Red River.

We had no issue getting a refund at the COE park. The people that worked in the office were very friendly and helpful. We headed north trying to skirt the heavy traffic around the DFW Metroplex. We went north on I 35 out of Fort Worth and then turned East on 380 out of Denton. I was expecting a two lane country highway, but I was wrong. Even though we were about 50 miles from the center of the massive city, we were in stop light to stop light driving. It is all new construction and it further reminded me of why I have come to dislike large population centers.

We finally got on a fairly rural road as we left Highway 75, but we were still in construction. We then hit a rural road, just outside of the city of Bonham. This is our second visit to Bonham State Park. We stayed here once before in the year before I retired. I remember working from the park and wishing I could just go out and hike in the park. This time I did just that.

It was very windy the first few days we were there, so paddling in the lake was not a good plan. I just hit the trails that go around the pretty lake. Here is a shot of the campground from the far side of the lake. You can see our trailer in site #7, backed right up to the lake. It was just us and two other rigs in this 14 RV site park. We had decent Verizon signal and 6 OTA TV channels. The cost was $20 for Water and 50 amp Electric. It is really a nice park with virtually no road noise.

The trails are a bit overgrown, but still very easy to follow.

This park was originally built by the CCC back in the 1930's. You can see some of their rock work all over the park including the administration building. What I did not expect was there are picnic areas in remote areas of the park that were built back in the 30's that are just sitting there waiting for someone to hike in and enjoy the place.

I walked about 3/4 of the trails in the park and ended up with a great 3.5 mile walk. The next day, I did a 5 mile bike ride on the roads around the park. I am still trying to get in better shape for both water skiing and riding when we get back to Missouri.

Kim's parents have a beautiful piece of property just a few miles north of Bonham. They were making a trip up to the property to enjoy the peace and quiet for a few days. On their way up, they stopped by to visit us in the park. We decided to take the 1.3 mile walk on the lake loop trail. I think they enjoyed it. Here they are with their oldest daughter.

The next 2 days we headed up to see them at the property. They have built some structures around their trailer to reduce the impact of the Southern Oklahoma weather.

Kim's brother likes to spend time here and has done a fair amount of work around the place. He has a vintage trailer that is very cool. He has refurbished it and it now is nice. I just loved the aqua blue range and refrigerator.

We really enjoyed our time. We played some games of Farkle and Pegs and Jokers and then went to the Senior Center in a near buy town for a fund raiser cake and pie auction. We scored a pecan pie that was pretty good. I really enjoyed hearing the auctioneer. He was like a comedy act. 

We said our good byes and then headed back to our site at Bonham. We spent 5 enjoyable days there and were now ready to make the move back north. We did have a few places we wanted to see along the way. Come back to read my next entry and see what beauty exists in the state of Oklahoma.