When we first started traveling together, our time was extremely limited. There were kids at home, work obligations and school schedules. Free weekends were few and far between, and on the rare occasion there was one, we had a tendency to simply zone out and recover from life. Planning trips was a challenge. Not just because there was so much going on at home, but accounting for the travel time, the trip expenses, the reliability of vehicles – it was a monumental task.

One year prior, we had explored east Texas, which included several ghost towns, abandoned buildings, and some creepy graveyards. It was fun, educational and as required, allowed minds to unplug from life obligations. When we were planning our trip to Oklahoma a year later, we were hoping for a similar getaway. Instead of southeast, we looked our neighbor state to the north. We stumbled on an isolated farmhouse about an hour south of Oklahoma City. This would allow for time to decompress away from home while exploring an otherwise unknown area. A remote destination; we thought surely it would be similar to the east Texas trip – full of off-the-beaten-path exploration items.

Friday 2012 08 31

Instead of traveling to Oklahoma on I-35, we opted for the longer option of 377, taking us through Denton, then into the more rural areas – Whitesboro, Gordonville and Madill.  Somewhere in the nothingness of north Texas, we decided it was time for a break from the car, and unloaded bikes off the back, riding up this hill to a hidden cemetery. In the dark, of course. You would think we would bring flashlights or appropriate clothes for this type of exploring, but we just weren’t that good at the preparation part of our trips back then.

We thought there might be creepy things at the end of that road, and we were right. Getting into the graveyard was a challenge involving clambering over a tall chain-link fence, which luckily only involved a torn pair of shorts and not an emergency room visit. We captured a quick out-of-focus shot before we headed back down the hill:

Arrival at the remote farmhouse was late, as we failed to budget our time while wandering (this motif will repeat itself quite a bit). While we couldn’t see the plethera of bugs that surrounded us at the house, we could hear them. Noisy crickets, frogs, owls filled up the empty Oklahoma air with their night sounds. We closed the front door, and blocked out the noise, hoping for some sleep.

Saturday 2012 09 01

Morning arrived and we slept through, recovering from the previous night’s late arrival. Even the blinding sunlight coming through the floor-to-ceiling farmhouse windows wasn’t enough to drive us out of bed. When we finally emerged into the land of living due to hunger and caffeine withdrawal, we found ourselves surrounded with wildlife.

There was much more wildlife, including farm animals in the pens outside. We could have spent all day at the farmhouse pretending we were nature photographers, but we were hungry, and determined we could find food within riding distance of the house. The nearby town of Davis would surely have establishments which would be serving food and hopefully drinks.

We unattached bikes and headed to town, which meant a few miles down farm roads, then a detour through the high school parking lot, where a lonely child’s doll was left to keep an eye the traffic.

Ride to town and breakfast at the local greasy spoon diner completed, we checked the map for a park or hiking area, preferably a place where water was available to jump into. Late summer in Oklahoma brings relentless heat, so any destination would have to include cooling options. Not too far away there was the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, which according to their website offered miles of hiking trails along with a large lake. One of our party had visited decades prior, and remembered jumping into icy cold spring water in beautifully clear pools. Seemed to fit the requirements. We packed the car with water bottles and snacks, put on bathing suits under clothes, and headed over.

While the area around Davis had been lacking in other human presence, this was not the case at Chickasaw. We pulled into an overflowing parking lot, packed with cars full of coolers and swimming gear. There were families walking around everywhere, dragging food and children toward the trails. We considered our options. This is not what we had in mind, but there weren’t many other parks in the area. We found a spot, and followed the crowd into the park.

We managed to navigate through the chaos and found a trail which appeared to be a little less traveled, and set out on a hike, hoping to find somewhere to swim on the way.

Fighting off bugs, we walked through dense brush and eventually the crowd noise faded away. It was hot and sticky, and the air was full of bugs. But, at least for the moment it was quiet. And then… water! But not really the kind of water one would want to jump in.

We admired the shallow, weedy, and cool-looking stream and wondered where all the water had gone. Maybe further down the trail …

This state is full of bright grasshoppers. Here’s an orange one attempting to blend into his bright green surroundings. Maybe he doesn’t know he is orange. Years later, a certain president comes to mind…

More water, but jumping in here would likely lead to a broken ankle …

We stopped to check this damaged tree, wondering sort of trauma it had experienced recently.

We came to the end of our trail, the multi-mile hike completed and zero swimming accomplished. Sorely disappointed by the difference between the remembered park and the reality of a drought-stricken natural springs, we considered joining the hordes of families splashing around in the main part of the park. After some consideration, it was agreed that’s just not why we came to Oklahoma. Isolation, we reminded ourselves, is what we really wanted to accomplish. And intoxication. So we went off in search of the latter. Our search was unsuccessful, as it seemed restaurants with bars in this area are not in high demand. We ended up back at the farmhouse, with our reliable bottle of vodka, our lime Starbucks refresher mixes, and made our beverages to enjoy on the expansive porch while listening to the busy bugs doing their things in the dark.

Sunday 2012 09 02

When we woke up on Sunday, the colorful spider from the previous day was still in the yard, but it was much busier this morning, wrapping and preparing its lunch.

We spent some time lounging around the farmhouse this morning, one of us completing homework for a college course (not completely an obligation free weekend) the other making breakfast, brewing coffee and observing bugs. We weren’t sure what would do with our day. We didn’t want to go back to Chickasaw. We did want to explore the area, memories of the awesome ghost towns and graveyards we had explored in east Texas still lingering. Unfortunately, the day was headed towards incredibly hot, so we opted to postpone the tour of the dead and find a lake. We had better luck than the prior day. We took a quick hike along the shore and enjoyed the quiet – the water however did not look like much fun given moss, sticks, and lack of anything resembling a beach.

Returning to the farmhouse as the temperature climbed, we decided a nap would be the proper response to Oklahoma weather. After a long afternoon nap, we set off for some exploration time on Sunday evening. We wandered through a few local graveyards, but it was still broiling hot. We just weren’t finding the same atmosphere as the historic east Texas cemeteries and ghost towns. Oklahoma graveyards just aren’t that interesting.

Dougherty Cemetery, just south of the Chickasaw Recreation area, sits just outside the small town of Dougherty, once known as Henderson Flat. The new name changed in 1887 to honor one William Dougherty, a banker from Gainesville, Texas, although it is unclear what his ties are to the area. The town of Dougherty thrived in the early 1900s, during the years when asphalt could be extracted from the local mines. As with many other towns in the area, the population declined through the second half of the 20th century, and today, it appears the population of the cemetery exceeds that of the town. A Bumpass is buried there, which made us think of The Christmas Story. In this grave lies an actual former human, not a turkey eating hound.

By now we were aware that dining options (other than gas station chips and cookies) were scarce. Barbecue sounded really good this evening – we were probably thinking back to amazing food from our Buffalo River explorations. Multiple restaurants on Google claimed to offer barbecue, but we were greeted at each one with a CLOSED sign. We took note of this for future trips: Oklahoma shuts down on Sundays. On this day of the Lord, citizens shalt not consume barbecue. Or anything else. We were down to just a few options, and most of them looked something like this. Stepping inside, we found some vaguely edible food, not accompanied by beverages – Oklahoma was rapidly moving down the ladder of places we’d want to visit frequently.

Monday 2012 09 03

On Monday we packed up and got ready for our trip home, ready to get out of this food desert and inferno of a state. We planned for a few more exploration stops, despite the fact that getting out of the car and walking around in the heat sounded pretty miserable.

We managed to get over our aversion to the heat, as we recorded several spots of interest while heading toward the border.

Graves date back to the mid 1800s in the Oil Spring cemetery, which is located near the town of Tatums. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, Tatums is one of 13 all-black towns that still exist in the state and was an important center of rural black life in the early 20th century. The town once supported a hotel, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin and sawmill. However, the Great Depression took it’s toll on the area, and Tatums doesn’t seem to have recovered in the intervening years.

A few miles down the road, there’s another all-black cemetery that sits next to a peaceful creek. The Old Five Mile Cemetery is considered one of the most historically significant; buried here are previously enslaved African Americans and their descendants. Most found themselves in Oklahoma when the Indian tribes that owned them were forced out of the southeastern states by the US government.

Slavery wasn’t practiced within all the tribes. Some Indian communities incorporated blacks as free people, while some followed the lead of the Europeans, and purchased slaves to assist with working the land. Several towns in the area, like Tatums, were formed by the previously enslaved, shortly after the Civil War when they were freed by law and finally released by the tribes. They constructed farms and ranches which would equal any in the Chickasaw Nation, forming communities and towns that thrived until the Great Depression.

There’s a rumor that the town of Loco was named for the Latin word meaning “being in this place” as the small town was a well-known gathering place in its early days. Those days are long gone, as Loco has seen its glory days come and go. It’s a small town of less than 200 people now. Even the schools have closed, with students transported to a larger district nearby.

There are a lot of specific instructions for visitors here:

We did not open graves or throw flowers over the fence, retaining our status as respectable tourists. It was getting late in the afternoon and our brains were overflowing with history. Time to head back to Texas, where food, beverages, and the weather might be more amenable. Another visit to Oklahoma wouldn’t happen unless we had a compelling reason to do so …