Our Oklahoma Odyssey

Last Saturday morning, I drove along a small two-lane road in my neighborhood and watched the sun rise pink in the east--there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and, although the weather was a little brisk, it promised to warm up.

I had some errands to run that day, but such a beautiful morning helped me decide: It was the day I was going to take Ryan for his first camping trip.

I normally like to plan pretty far in advance, but the opportunity to take off and leave town presented itself and I just had to go with it. We had originally scheduled to go the previous week, but we had record rainfall here in the area so we had to postpone our plans--the backpacks sat out in the garage, waiting for another day.

Ryan scored his first goal ever during his soccer game that day, so it really started things off right for us. We came home from the game, elated, and packed in a whirlwind, throwing our packs and sacks of food into the back of the car and getting out the door as quickly as possible--we had a 250-mile drive to the mountains in southeastern Oklahoma, and my goal was to get there before dark if possible.

On the way, we stopped at a grocery store deep into the rural section of the state, over 100 miles from the nearest interstate highway. It ended up being the Store That Time Forgot--about 1/10 the size of our grocery megastores in the big city, everything seemed to be $1. Box of oatmeal: $1. Can of coffee: $1. 1985 Subaru hatchback: $1. I got a couple of the things that I didn't have prepared and was thrilled to hand over $10 to get them--they loaded it up in one of those thick paper sacks with little paper handles that strangely seem charming these days in light of the mass of plastic I normally end up lugging around and we went on our way.

In the last 10 miles as Ryan and I sped along the road before we got to the campsite, a couple of deer walked across the highway. Dark was coming, and everything around us was soaked in blue light--it was a little difficult to focus on our surroundings.

We got to the site right on the trailhead for our hike the next day, and I could see that it was taken--could see that there were at least a few people standing around a huge bonfire--it made me a little nervous to see that, but we picked a nearby campsite and started setting up camp.

Being Ryan's first campout, I expected him, like most kids, to be obsessed with the camp fire, and want to play around, putting a stick in it, taking it out while it's flaming up--kid's stuff. A friend of his in first grade went camping for the first time with his family and ended up falling into the fire hands-first. He had to go to the hospital with 2nd degree burns, so that was a poignant example to Ryan that I could refer to if I caught him messing around (naturally, it happened a few times). I would say, "Johnny, oh, I mean Ryan, stop playing with the fire!"

It just so happens that I am the undisputed king of toasting marshmallows over a campfire--one of my superpowers. Fran had tucked some graham crackers and a couple of Hershey bars into our groceries, so we made s'mores. Just a couple of these gooey sandwiches was all Ryan could take--he doesn't have a sweet tooth like I do--plus the fact that he seemed pretty tired from the days' events.

The temperature dropped down into the 30's that night--Ryan had on warm pajamas and a stocking cap (you lose almost all of your body heat through your head). He seemed to sleep soundly--I know that there's nothing more miserable than being cold in the middle of the night, just lying there in a sleeping bag waiting for sunrise, and I didn't want him to dread camping for the rest of his life because I wasn't taking proper care of him--the next day he woke up happy and ready for the day--I unzipped the outer door of the tent and we watched the sunrise through the pencil-straight oak trees--it peeked in a yellow-orange, diffuse cloud over the mountains of Oklahoma--a beautiful sight on a chilly dawn.

The next morning, I got the fire going quickly and we sat together and warmed up with hot chocolate, coffee, and oatmeal.

Then the adventure really started.

I have a guidebook that we followed for the Ouichita (pronounced wash' it ah) trail back in the fall when I went on a hike with my brothers. The trail is well marked and extends for 200 miles or so through Oklahoma and Arkansas. There was a line that intrigued me in the guide when I was here before, though. The author writes that there is a small, unmaintained game trail that extends north from the Pashubbe Trailhead where we were camped and runs approximately a mile, which is rumored (the author had never taken this trail) to end at a waterfall down the mountain.

We packed up our tent and all of our gear and I put together a daypack with our lunch and a few other "just in case" items...

Our neighbors were camped right on the trailhead itself, so we had to go through their camp to get going. I could hear them the previous night breaking wood against a tree very loudly--they must have broken enough wood for a week's worth of fire. They were really surprised to see Ryan and me walk up to their camp. It was an older guy with two teenage boys, his sons.

The dad came over to talk to me--I asked him if he had seen a second trail that originated in his camp (I didn't want to have to look around for it in the middle of their campsite)--he looked very surprised and pointed toward the north, saying it looked like a tiny trail and he didn't know it was significant at all. I don't know if he spotted the bear spray in my outside pocket or not, but he mentioned, glancing at Ryan, that he and his sons had come upon a bear the previous year at the 3-sticks monument, about 12 miles away. It was a black bear and it had turned and run away immediately. It actually made me feel a little less neurotic about having bear spray on me. He had no way of knowing that I would have used bear spray on his ass last night if I had to--they had been acting pretty rowdy and making lots of noise--I wasn't sure what they were doing and it made me a little nervous having a "bunch" of guys (sounded like a bunch, anyway) and it was just me and my 7-year-old.

We took off down the trail, which was completely unmaintained and only about 12-18 inches wide. Going in, I kind of felt like the baseball players walking into the corn in Field of Dreams--the woods just swallowed us up and the camp disappeared within 200 yards. Normally, the hiking trails I am used to are about 3-4 feet wide and marked with a spray-painted patch on a tree about every 30 yards or so. Ryan and I were wading through high grass and woody vegetation--we even lost the trail a couple of times and had to backtrack (look at the picture and you can see that you kind of have to imagine where the trail is...).

It was kind of a fun adventure--I hope that Ryan grows up to feel at home in the woods--we made a game out of it--practiced walking quietly by picking your feet up and putting them down straight (seems like all kids like to shuffle their feet in the leaves, which makes a sound like a cow having an epileptic seizure in a styrofoam factory).

It was after about a mile or so, when we were in the middle of the woods with no sign of other people, that it hit me that I was leading my young son, on his first campout, on a poorly marked trail with a very simple map--maybe not the smartest move. I even put a whistle around his neck just in case we got separated somehow.

We had gone so deep into the woods that our perceptions started to become altered-- openings in the trees felt like rooms in a house. We were hiking along a ridge of the mountain, so I felt pretty confident that we wouldn't get lost. Every once in a while we would see a fluorescent pink marker on a tree, probably put there by the forest service, but otherwise no sign that anyone had been on the trail in a long time. We rounded a corner and I was surprised to hear water roaring very loudly. It rained very hard last week, so all the water levels have probably risen considerably. All around us were surreal slides of glacial boulders, great hiding places for snakes (it is still too cold in the year, but there are copperheads, rattlesnakes, water moccasins, and non-poisonous but creepy snakes). Since I freakin' hate snakes, it just was on my mind to be careful where I put my hands on these rocks if we needed to climb them.

I saw a flash of water through the trees, and knew that we were very close. About another quarter mile down the trail, I saw the white foam from a small waterfall to my right and knew that we had found what we were looking for.

I wanted a good shot of the waterfall, since we had come all this way. Maybe it was a little obsessive or proud to want to do that, especially with my little guy with me--he had to come with me and I may have freaked him out by telling him not to put his hands inside the rocks because he could get snakebitten and die (okay, maybe I didn't say it that way exactly...)

I felt like Ponce de Leon in his quest for the rumored Fountain of Youth--except we actually had succeeded. The waterfall cascaded down against the rock in a stair-step fashion, probably 7 or 8 stairs over one to two hundred yards. It was truly a hidden treasure, not a beautiful showcase--relatively impossible to get close to and difficult to even get a picture of--impossible to see the whole thing at once.

Ryan got a little cranky about having to climb down the side of the hill dodging all the rocks, and was ready to go back. We turned around and headed toward the trailhead...we had only been gone a little over two hours or so, and when the man and his boys saw our pictures of the waterfall, they immediately started talking about hiking the trail to go see it. They were burning trash in the campfire, and a box then blew out and started a fire about thirty yards away in a pile of leaves. They went and put it out and I guess lost interest in going anywhere, or were embarrassed--they packed up and left pretty quickly afterward.

Ryan was hungry, so even though it was only 10:45 AM he was ready for lunch. We had a picnic lunch in the woods and went for another hike--this time down a nicely marked trail but with no end in mind. At some point we just stopped, turned around, and headed back. The earliest signs of spring were showing--trees were budding, the air smelled especially fresh--tiny purple flowers were popping up along the trail, and Ryan was excited to chase down an occasional butterfly which was stopping in the woods momentarily. No large animals in sight, thankfully.

By this time, we had endured our fill of good times, and were ready for the long drive home. Ryan watched a DVD and we munched on barbecue chips and M&M's. About an hour before we got home, Ryan made my day: He said "Dad, don't forget--we gotta do this again next year!"