Natural Falls State Park

I am writing this entry from the ranch in Missouri. We arrived here on May 25. We have been very busy since we have been here. I will write more about life here on the ranch in future entries, but for now I will finish our recent travels. The last stop on our 7 month+ trip was Natural Falls State Park in far Northeastern Oklahoma.

We left Beavers Bed State Park on May 23 and drove north on Highway 259 then 59. There is a significant ridge that runs east/west from Mena, Arkansas to Talihina, Oklahoma. There is a beautiful drive along the ridge. We had to cross that ridge, so we had a steep climb and just as steep descent. In all of our travels we have traveled through many mountains and that made this area easy by comparison. We did stop at the top to take a look. It is a nice view.

It was mid week and we knew we could stop at a number of different places at the end of this day. The only thing we were thinking is that we wanted to get to the ranch before the coming holiday weekend. It is strange how much we try to avoid the campgrounds on holiday weekends. It was not long ago that we looked forward to the three summer holiday weekends. Now we just try to avoid the packed campgrounds.

Kim was watching the weather radar and monitoring a weather system moving north of us. We decided to keep moving north and make just one stop at Natural Falls SP. The drive was just short of 200 miles, but not bad at all with mostly empty rural roads. The scenery was very interesting. This is all lands that were used for the relocation of the Cherokee and Choctaw. It is all very sparsely populated. Kim determined that we would arrive at the SP just as the storm was hitting, so we stopped for dinner and then made it to the SP just as the storm was leaving. Now, that is good navigating. We do make a pretty good team.

We had our choice of sites when we arrived and chose #8. It is a very long back in. We were perfectly level, so we decided to not disconnect.

We decided to stay two nights. The park advertises a nice waterfall, so we went to check it out. The falls are 77 feet high and is very beautiful. We were shocked to see something like this in NE Oklahoma. The water exits the limestone cliff at a number of spots in addition the the main falls.

There are nice trails and boardwalks all around the area. We really enjoyed the views.

There is Kim at the upper overlook.

I just love the way people obey the rules.

We continued on to the other trails in the park. There were not long, but had some very steep hills. We did find another falls over a small dam.

Natural Falls SP is very well maintained and even had a Disc Golf Course. This is a fairly small park with only about 25 sites. We had good cell coverage and good OTA TV.

We liked the waterfall area so much we took another walk in the evening to go see the falls. This time we had the views all to ourselves and we sat and enjoyed the view for a long time and talked about our trip. The following day we made the final 190 mile drive to the ranch.

We have mixed emotions about coming back to Missouri. I will write about those feelings in coming entries.