We also found that the native stone has been used to build elaborate sets made to look like Israel during biblical times. An Easter Pageant has been taking place here since 1926. That makes it the longest continually running Easter Pageant in North America.
We're here not long after Easter, and we can see signs of the crowds that have visited recently. This large set of building facades was built by the WPA in the 1930's, and is leased from the federal government by a private organization to make the Easter pageant possible. It's quite a view from the top as Denisa is standing on the upper level of the town square on this beautiful afternoon.
Crowds bring their own chairs and blankets to cover the surrounding hillsides to watch the pageant on the two Saturday evenings closest to Easter Sunday. Local actors portray the story of the life and death of Christ . . .
and of course His resurrection.
This Sunday afternoon we're also meeting a friend for a little snack. Steven and his kids ran the half-marathon together at the Oklahoma City Memorial run this morning. They were four of the 28,000 runners that make this one of the biggest events in the state.
After running 13.1 miles that morning, Steven deserved that heaping bowl of cobbler and homemade ice cream that the Meers Restaurant is famous for. We did not deserve that much cobbler, so we shared our dessert.
The Meers Store and Restaurant is a famous landmark just a few miles from the north gate of the wildlife refuge. We came here earlier in the week for lunch.
That day we ordered the "Seismic Burger." The menu describes it as one pound of 97% lean longhorn beef topped with jalapeno peppers, bacon, cheese, sweet relish, mustard, dill pickles, tomatoes, purple onions, and leaf lettuce. We shared it, and still had half a burger to take home. We were stuffed after our burger meal, so that's why we had to make the return trip for dessert on another day.
To make ourselves feel better about our over-indulging food habits, we went on another hike on our way back to our campground. Our destination is Jeb Johnson Tower, peeking out between the trees in the picture below.
We could see the tower as we continued our hike towards this landmark. We're happy to report that we are still seeing wildflowers that the bison haven't mowed yet.
We were disappointed that we couldn't climb to the top of the tower. But standing at the base still allowed for some good views of its namesake, Jed Johnson Lake.
After five days, this is our last evening camping at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Most of the evenings we have been at Quanah Parker lake, just behind our campground, to watch the sunset. This last night we got the best show of the week. That's Denisa's silhouette standing at the edge of the water in awe of the splendor stretching over the sky.
The colors in the sky were mirrored in the edge of the water as our Sabbath came to an end. We have continued our commitment to find a local church to worship every Sunday morning. This Sunday we started at church, but we also got to worship God's wonders as we wandered through other parts of Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge on a beautiful sabbath.
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