Walking the history of Tahlequah, Oklahoma

After arriving at Cherokee Landing state park in record breaking cold weather, we "enjoyed" another day of rain and record breaking cold the next day. We're still camping under the beautiful tall pine trees at our campground, but the view out our front window looked much like this all day.

These are days to catch up on projects, cook, write blogs. . . and also make a trip to the nearby town of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Since we are in Cherokee county, we learned that this strange town name came from the Cherokee phrase "Tah-Ah-Le-Quah" meaning "two are enough." It seems that there were supposed to be three agents present to select the Cherokee capitol site. When only two showed up, they picked this site and declared "two are enough" to give Tahlequah a special place in Cherokee history. We kept our rain jackets on as we started a two-mile walk down the Tahlequah History Trail.

We followed an on-line map to help us find all the points of interest in this interesting little city. We were disappointed that the sign boards found on the trail were blank, but we found out that this is the Franklin Castle.

Northeastern State University's campus is on the history trail, including this plaza that featured a larger-than-life statue of Sequoyah. He is best known for developing the alphabet for the Cherokee language. If you think keeping up with 26 letters is tough, try learning Cherokee with its 85 different symbols.

The Cherokees had to relocate from their lands in the southeastern United States, in a 1,000-mile forced march that is now called the Trail of Tears. The trail ended here in Tahlequah, where we know that two guys determined this would be the Cherokee capitol. It was here that they built their capitol building . . .

and their jail house . . .

and their girls' seminary. We walked through history as we found all three structures on the trail that runs through town. They were all built in the 1800's and all were closed because of the Covid-19 shut downs. So we could only take pictures from the outside.

While many of the focal points of the historic trail were very old, some were very new. We took a picture of Mark standing beside the larger-than-life statue, "The Monument to Forgiveness." It was gifted to NSU in 2016 to honor Tahlequah as the end of the Trail of Tears.

We finished our tour of Tahlequah with a splurge of take-out pizza from a local cafe. Specializing in pizza rather than chicken, Sam & Ella's Chicken Palace got great reviews. Try saying "Sam & Ella" fast a couple times and you'll figure out the Chicken Palace owners have a good sense of humor.

While we were walking trails in the rain, some of our camping neighbors were busy fishing. We walked by their camp site to see their catch of the day. They had already cleaned at least half of the fish they caught that morning. Denisa was impressed with the size and quantity of half of their harvest, so she asked to take a picture. She put her ultra-stylish croc shoes in the picture just to show the  size of the fish that were pulled out of Lake Tenkiller.

Besides the usual geese that hang out on the shore of Lake Tenkiller, we saw this unusual duck several times during our visit at Cherokee Landing State Park.

With his red mask and his striped red-white-and-black beak, he looks like some character out of a marvel comic book.

But he seems to be a bit of a pet at this state park. We're guessing that he is used to getting hand-outs since he usually walks toward us instead of away from us. We're wondering if he would just walk right up our motor home steps if given the chance.

The rain and chilly weather didn't seem to dampen the spirit of the duck, and we think we can take a lesson from him. We seem to be able to find something to do even if the weather doesn't always cooperate with our original agenda. The rain gave us a chance to pause and learn a little as we walked the history of Tahlequah.