Talimena State Park, Oklahoma - March 9th to 12th, 2023
Traveling and hiking is fun. But it is even more memorable when we share those activities with friends. A last minute change of plans brought our friends to Talimena State Park to meet up with us for a couple of days, which made our time there even more special.
The drive from Little Sahara State Park to Talimena State Park was foggy and drizzling rain the whole way. We stopped at a Camping World just outside of Oklahoma City to find a ten foot sewer hose. They had the 10 foot Rhino Flex RV Sewer Hose extension (paid link) that we were looking for, along with the Rhino Flex clear elbow 4-in-1 adapter (paid link). Score! Now we can try to figure out how to mount the SuperSlider (paid link) under the rig again to store the hose.
The landscape changed from flat, open prairie to rolling hills, green grass, and trees donning their spring blossoms. Yay! Spring is in the air!
The campground at Talimena State Park is small, but the sites are in among the trees. However, it is right next to the highway. Our reserved site was on the highway side, but the campground is so small, we’re not sure being on the other side of the loop would have made much of a difference. The noise from the highway was loud, especially when a semi truck drove by, but, thankfully, the highway was not very busy. There wasn’t much traffic at night, so we slept pretty well.
Friday was a chore day for us. We drove into the nearby town of Talihina. First chore was laundry at Sandy’s Laundromat. After having lunch in Red Tail (Our Winnebago EKKO), we parked on Dallas Street and walked the couple of blocks of the downtown area. Next on our chore list was to visit the Post Office to buy a stamp and mail a birthday card.
Then we walked over to My Crystal Chandelier Coffee House. With our chai lattes, Keith had a cherry turnover while Ann munched down on a cinnamon scone. Both were delicious. The coffee house was a nice cozy place to hang out. They had comfortable seating both inside and outside. Even though it was the nicest weather day we’ve had so far this season, we chose a couple of comfy chairs inside.
Outside, there was a guineafowl. We saw it before we came inside. It liked to peck on everything in sight, from wood to metal. While we were inside, it came over to one of the glass windows and pecked at it for quite some time. We’re not sure why. Perhaps it saw its own reflection in the glass? Luckily, it didn’t peck hard enough to damage the glass.
From there, we drove down Dallas street to the Thick and Thin lumber yard. We picked up some metal strapping for remounting the SuperSlider underneath Red Tail. We were hoping to also find some P-clamps for mounting the stretchy net, but they didn’t have any. That project will have to wait. However, the lumber yard did sell fly swatters, so we bought one of those. We didn’t have one yet for Red Tail, and the flies are starting to show up, now that spring was in the air.
On our drive out of town, we stopped at Shorty’s Propane to fill one of our tanks. We started the season with two full 20# tanks, but we’ve been running the furnace every day so far, for ten days and have emptied one of our tanks. Hopefully our propane usage will slow down as the temperatures rise.
Back at the campground, Keith got to work on remounting the SuperSlider. It took him about an hour, crawling on the hard gravel, not the most comfortable place to work. He was able to secure the SuperSlider at an angle, to get around the low-hanging water compartment, securing it with the metal strapping that we purchased. The SuperSlider is now long enough to hold the 10 foot RhinoFlex sewer hose along with the attachments and the Americanizer.
We threw away the sewer hose that came with the EKKO. Hopefully we can give away the unused 15 foot hose that we bought to someone at one of the campgrounds. It was too long to fit under our rig and we’re not returning to Pueblo any time soon to return it.
Just about dinner time, our friends, Dave and Sandy, showed up in Red Tail Lodge (One). They are the friends we sold our VanDOit camper van to. Their original plans were cancelled due to winter storms, so they decided to join us for a couple of nights. They managed to get the camp site right next to ours. Thursday night, we had the campground to ourselves, but Friday, everyone started showing up for the weekend. It was great to see how Sandy and Dave are enjoying the camper van. We ate dinner together comfortably inside Red Tail Lodge Two (our EKKO). It was an enjoyable evening full of wonderful conversations.
Saturday, the four of us went for a hike. The Ouachita National Recreation Trail starts in Talimena State Park. It is a long distance trail, 224 miles long, stretching across the Ouachita National Forest from Talimena State Park in Oklahoma to Pinnacle Mountain State Park in Arkansas. It is mostly a hiking trail, but 137 miles of the trail are open to mountain bikers as well.
We were not backpacking, we just wanted to go on a day hike. We went as far as Potato Hill, about 2.5 miles from the trailhead and turned around. It was a windy day, with possible thunderstorms in the forecast. It is a beautiful trail in the mountains, through pine and oak trees. There was one creek crossing without a bridge, but we managed to negotiate the creek using rocks, without getting our feet wet. There was a nice view from Potato Hill, but the winds were too gusty and cold there to stop to eat our lunch. So we headed back down the trail a ways, until we found a nice spot to sit among the trees, out of the wind.
We crossed paths with a few other hikers. Some of them were backpacking. One small backpacking group was training for the Philmont. Philmont is a Boy Scout High Adventure Ranch that offers multi-day treks for scouts in New Mexico. Our friend Dave is quite familiar with Philmont, as he was on staff there back in the 1970’s.
We completed the 5.7 miles with an elevation gain of 974 feet in about four hours. It was hike #6 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2023. Sharing the hike with our friends made the hike even more enjoyable.
For dinner, we all piled into Red Tail and drove into Talihina to find a restaurant. We ended up at Treats & Treasures, a soda fountain and gift shop. It is a cute little place. We enjoyed our burgers, fries, and fried okra. For dessert, a couple of us had ice cream. It was a perfect ending to the day.
After dinner, we all turned in early. We were tired and we were losing an hour that night since it was time for daylight savings time to start.
Our friends left on Sunday but we were staying another night. After saying good bye to our friends, we just decided to have a lazy day hanging around the campground. We thought about driving out to Potato Hill and hiking further down the Ouachita Trail, but it was a little cool outside and we didn’t feel like hiking.. Ann worked on a blog post and Keith took a nap in the afternoon. Before dinner, we walked down the Oauchita Trail just a little ways and turned around at the creek crossings, just to stretch our legs. It was probably less than half a mile altogether.
Talimena State Park was more crowded on Sunday than it was on Saturday. Not only was the parking area at the trailhead full, just about every other place to park was taken as well. There were day hikers and backpackers using the Ouachita Trail, but the more popular activity was ATV’s (All Terrain Vehicles). ATV’s are not allowed on the Ouachita Trail, but there was a maze of other trails in the area that allowed them, including the Choctaw Nation Trail. Trucks pulling trailers, with anywhere from one to four ATV’s on board, were parking in the grassy median in the camping loop. The small campground looked like a parking lot, just bustling with activity.
After dinner, Ann baked some apple brownies in the Omnia Oven (paid link) on the propane stove. The propane stove doesn’t seem to burn as hot as our butane camping stove that we used to use. Even though she turned the burner on high, it took longer for the brownies to bake, about 45 minutes. However, they seemed to bake more evenly than on the butane stove. We’re guessing that has more to do with a controlled environment, baking inside the heated space of Red Tail, compared to baking outside in cold weather along with wind that carries the heat away from the sides of the Omnia Oven.
Our fresh water tank was down to 20%, so Keith filled it back up to 50%. We’ll wait to dump our tanks until we are leaving in the morning. Our cassette toilet was getting rather full. We hadn’t dumped it since Friday. We generally only use it after dark, during the night, and first thing in the morning. However, just to make sure we didn’t overflow the cassette, we made a walk to the campground bathhouse before turning in for the night.
We will always remember Talimena State Park as the place where the two Red Tail Lodges reunited. Thank you, Dave and Sandy, for joining us. We hope to do that again soon.
Check out our related video: Talimena State Park, Oklahoma
(Ann)