We started out our day noting that our local squirrel has figured out a way to foil the steel hook and bird feeder roof such that he was able to get at the bird seed although he had to do it upside-down. He is the first squirrel to achieve this feat although skunks and raccoons have been able to tip the steel hook over and break into the yummy contents.
After making sure the birds would have some dining opportunities, we jumped into the truck and decided to take a spin into Oklahoma, just across Lake Texoma from our RV spot in Texas. We were initially going to Lake Murray State Park but that got sort of sidetracked and we went to a place called the Country Kitchen in Kingston, OK.
My quest to find the best chicken fried steak was shortened today when I got my breakfast here. Jake’s in Bend, Oregon, and Dean’s in Clackamas, Oregon, were my favorites for this pedestrian treat until meeting their match in this little backwater town. Peggy had a western omelette and said it was tasty. $24 out the door- it was great.
From Kingston we wandered north for about 25 miles until turning off on some secondary highways around Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge, a 16,000 acre parcel of mostly wetlands south of the town of Tishomingo. The refuge is accessed by driving down dirt roads into little slices of the refuge shoreline where it surrounds Cumberland Pool. The Pool is a Army Corps of Engineers creation to trap sediment before the Red River reaches Lake Texoma to the south.
As we were circumnavigating the Pool, we found a sign pointing to a road to the Chickasaw White House. We had no idea what that might be so we turned off and followed a dirt road for a couple miles until we spotted a magnificent confection of residential design and construction. Back here in the boondocks, some character named Douglas Hancock Johnston built a beautiful white house with separate guest bedroom. He must have told the carpenters doing the fancy woodwork that money was not important but a gorgeous house was. The results were very nice.
We also made a stop by Fort Washita which, of course, was closed today so we took a few pix through the gate and skedaddled. We continued on, trying to find a loop road through Tishomingo but we were repeatedly foiled. Instead, we continued down the dirt roads into the little glimpses of the refuge before turning around and backtracking and continuing on our way. We finally made it to refuge headquarters where there were pieces of equipment and ranger-looking guys but no visitor center.
However, on one of our little dusty forays in through the swamp to the edge of the Pool, we ran into a retired biologist who lives and fishes in the area. He was a font of local wildlife info although he kept creeping up on Peggy until she bent over sideways to escape. He may have just been a little deaf because he was certainly too old to get frisky, especially with a gorilla sitting in the adjacent seat.
We exited the refuge into the town of Tishomingo. There is a Chickasaw National Capitol Building, something we know nothing about. There is a bronze statue of Tishomingo, a truly great Chickasaw leader, out front. Tishomingo died taking a U.S. Army sponsored stroll on the Trail of Tears.
There are some pix we took along the way and you can see ’em by clicking here