Hiking Oklahoma Style

We are really missing our daily hikes! So when we visited our good friends, Connie and Steven, we were thrilled that our trip included a stop at Quartz Mountain State Park for some hiking!

Oklahoma State Parks are free and open to the public. Even though we took that for granted all our lives, we now realize that is not the case in most states. We parked their pick-up at the trail head, and took off on the Baldy Mountain trail. We also now realize that most states wouldn't call this quartz hill a "mountain."

We were blessed with beautiful weather, and the blue skies that we love. Our trail got narrower and less defined as we curved around Baldy Mountain. Since we wanted to get to the summit, Mark took off toward the top without a trail. Denisa is used to this, but we're not sure that our hosts appreciate his style so much. No pictures of the hike down, because we were sliding down tiny roll-ders and scrambling across huge boulders. Again, Connie and Steven weren't so impressed with Mark's trail guide skills.

Several years ago we visited this state park's lake, where the drought had shrunk it to a muddy pond. We took another hike on the trail along the water and were glad to see the lake looked healthy and full after a good year of rain.

This is southwestern Oklahoma, where cotton is king. This has been a banner harvest, and it was fun to see all the bales of cotton dotting the horizon. Steven was raised on a cotton farm, so he could answer all our questions about the harvest process that was going on right now. He explained that each one of those bales held enough cotton to make over 6,000 cotton shirts.

He even drove us to the cotton gin in Altus, to explain the process of turning that field cotton into a more purified product that will be transported to the next step to becoming those cotton shirts. It looked like it could be a great factory tour, but Steven pointed out it was a very dusty process.

We enjoyed our time with special friends. We have planned weekend trips to see friends and family while we are in Oklahoma. Besides playing cards, and getting to see their children, we also enjoyed this opportunity to do a little hiking "Oklahoma style" at Quartz Mountain State Park.