There were no signs pointing the way, but we tried walking down a steep gravel road beside the bridge. We soon found ourselves in the middle of the Disney Off-Road Terrain park.
On this blue-sky Saturday, we had to be careful to avoid all the vehicles that were testing their tires and driving prowess on this rugged terrain.
Perched on a steep hill protected with scrub trees, we felt safe that none of the off-road vehicles would be driving in our direction. But we were clearly mistaken in the abilities of these cars.
We would assume that any vehicle approaching a 90-degree rock wall twice its height would turn around and go the other direction.
This driver didn't make it on the first attempt, and had to roll back down . . .
but we watched in amazement as he somehow crawled straight up that rock wall on the second attempt.
It was quite a show as we saw these specially rigged jeeps make it up and over some incredible rock structures!
We had stumbled onto a front row seat of a show that we didn't even know existed before today.
A further walk over the white rocks took us to another unknown section of the state park--Little Blue. People were swimming and fishing, and enjoying the shade of the rock cave below us.
It's hard to appreciate the size and steepness of these rock formations . . .
until we zoomed out to see the people inside the cave and a jeep on top.
We discovered another section of the Disney All-Terrain Park with a viewpoint close to the dam bridge. There are signs that warn that the area must be evacuated immediately if the dam's flood gates are opened. It doesn't look like that has happened in quite some time.
A trickle of water was escaping from the dam, and that made a wet highway for the smaller four-wheelers to splash to the top of the rocks in this section.
After a delicious barbecue brisket lunch at a local food truck, we were on the road to our next state park of the day--the Cherokee State Park Area. This view along the river was taken at the properly named Riverview area of this state park.
We took a picture of the nice campground at Riverview, just to remind ourselves that this would be a great place to stay next time we're in this part of the state.
The last stop on this marathon state park day was Spavinaw Lake State Park. Denisa climbed the steps up to the dam for the bird's eye view of the lake. She saw only two fishing boats on this calm water. We're finding that our old state map is out-of-date. Some of the state parks on our map are now ran by other agencies. Spavinaw is the second park we have found that is now owned by the city of Tulsa.
The water from Lake Spavinaw is pouring over the dam in a solid sheet of white into the river below.
That chilly water is making a nice current that a few hardy souls are floating down.
Even though we spent a week camping on Grand Lake, we never put our kayak on the water there. That's because almost all the edges of the lake are filled with houses and private boat docks. That doesn't sound like a fun kayak environment to us. But we couldn't see even one house built on Spavinaw Lake, so we headed into one of the coves across the lake.
We started seeing wildlife almost as soon as we got into the cove. It's a "bonus picture" when we could get a big heron and two turtles in the same frame.
This gander was putting on quite a show for his goose.
It looked like she was trying hard to not even notice all his antics.
We have been chasing bright blue birds that we have spotted a dozen different times in the last two days. These bright little birds are flighty, and we never could catch a picture. We have to be content to call them our un-pictured "blue-bird-of-happiness." So instead, we have a picture of this unnamed bird that we have to be content to call "calmer-bird-that-made-Denisa-happy-because-he-would-pose-for-pictures." (That name seems to be a little lengthy to catch on with the general public.)
We found a blackjack tree that was draped over the edge of the water, and it was in full bloom. We had an old blackjack tree in the back yard of the first house we bought, and Denisa has always loved the sweet smells of those flowers. So Mark guided her right under those blooms for a nice whiff.
She attached a couple of those flower-ladened twigs to the front of the boat to make this an aromatic kayak ride. Denisa thought she was going to have to remove those flowers when she found out that the resident bumblebees were also attracted to that smell and tried to hitch a ride with us.
The cove was a good mile long, and as we neared the end we could see a couple deer standing in the shallow water in the shadows.
Between the low light and the far distance, we couldn't get a crisp picture. But when we looked at the photos later, we saw that several wood ducks were also hiding in that shadowy water. Those beautiful emerald-headed ducks are worth adding a blurry picture.
Spavinaw Lake must have the perfect conditions for shoreline flowers, because we found several areas of these beautiful wild yellow irises.
The sun was low in the sky by the time we headed back across the lake to our car. We took one more picture of a heron balanced on a log, watching for his last meal of the day.
We had a great day of exploring some new-to-us Oklahoma state parks. We found some nice campgrounds that would make great places to stop the next time we're in the area. It was a successful food day as well. We enjoyed the chopped brisket we had for lunch so much, that we circled back through the town of Disney to buy some more from the local food truck. From watching jeep stunts to wildlife sightings, it was another good day of wandering God's wonders!
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