Autumn Camping--and other family activities

We got home from our two-month RV trip right after Labor Day, but we still had plenty of warm autumn weather to do some fun family activities. That would include a camping trip with some of our favorite people to celebrate our grandson's fifth birthday.

We left the RV at home this time, because we were staying at a tent-only campground at Chickasaw National Recreation Area near Sulphur, Oklahoma. Their web site said that the camp sites were too small for RVs, but we found several that we could have fit into comfortably with our little trailer.

We can't express enough  how much we missed our trailer during that two-night camping trip. We might be too old to sleep in a tent. We also found that our borrowed tent had a little leak during a deluge one afternoon.

We left that campground for the six-hour drive to Houston. We have made it an autumn tradition to watch our favorite band members perform in the Texas regional competition. We visited our nephew and his family in The Woodlands in October to watch the band sew up another first place finish.

The large Texas high schools have impressive bands that march hundreds of talented musicians. It's some of our favorite entertainment enjoyed with another group of our favorite people.

We had to rush home to go trick-or-treating with our son's family.

You can tell that we are cool grandparents because we recognize that Carter is dressed up as Rumi, one of the lead characters in the animated hit movie "The Huntrix." That braided purple hair was a work of art that her mother got up extra-early to blend with her natural hair before school that morning.

Our son and grandson were also characters from another famous kid movie--Space Jam.

Autumn Major league baseball was in full swing, and we were home for some games at the Kansas City Royals field.

We were also home in time for the beginning of football season, where our son took our granddaughter to her first University of Oklahoma football game.

Our son is a proud alumni of OU with his B.S. and M.D. degrees. He took Carter on a campus tour that included one of his favorite places--the library. He's doing some early recruiting to sway her to consider the University of Oklahoma as her college ten years from now.

Before we had to winterize the RV, we wanted to go on one more camping trip. We made the trip to Missouri's Weston Bend State Park, where that big golden tree made our little trailer look even smaller.

Our special guest for this camping trip was our grandson, Eli. He and Grandude did some tree-climbing . . 

and we all hiked through the golden forest.

Grandude is known for his dare-devil hiking, and Gram was happy to have help to keep him from getting too close to that steep edge. A careless misstep on this trail could result in a bad tumble all the way down into the Missouri River.

Maybe Grandude was a bad influence on Eli, as he seemed to climb a lot of trees during our trip.

When we weren't hiking, we were hanging out at the playground, fighting dinosaurs, or competing at an exciting game of "splat" at our campsite.

When the sun went down, we cooked hot dogs for dinner with a hearty dessert of smores.

During fall break, we had some beautiful weather for a family trip to Tulsa. We spent a day with Mark's brother and sister-in-law at their home in the country.

They have go-carts for their grandchildren, and we had a great time driving them too.

A good time was had by the little kids and the big kids too!

Tulsa was a great place to visit because our youngest son and his wife live there.

Besides go-carts, we used their kayaks for a spin around their pond.

They also have three horses, and these three cowgirls took a ride around the pasture.

Carter loved the big and little farm animals during this trip.

Thanksgiving brought more family time, where we all made the trip to the Oklahoma panhandle to spend the holiday with our mothers--and many of our younger relatives.

Again, the horses and pony at this ranch were a favorite form of transportation.

While we are no longer traveling full-time in our RV, this autumn found us traveling 370 miles to Chickasaw National Recreation Area, 352 miles to Houston, and 690 miles to get home for Halloween before driving 227 miles to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and 269 miles back home for a camping trip at Weston State Park. Then it was 392 miles to the Oklahoma Panhandle for Thanksgiving, and another 392 miles to get back to our house. While we are no longer traveling full-time in our RV, that total of 2,692 proves that we are still traveling many miles!