The Road Life BIG Summer Adventure!

Part 1 of (hopefully) many!

We took off on a new summer adventure recently and we have some pretty epic plans for the summer. The crazy thing is, there may be a big change to the plan and we’re only a couple weeks in. haha! But that’s okay because if it all works out - it’s a VERY good change. More on that later as the story unfolds for us. ;)

But for now we’re following an epic itinerary that I put together for the summer and we’re enjoying it so much! One of the things we like to do is be a bit of an open book. Sometimes we’ll read about travels or watch some YouTube videos of some other nomads and while we enjoy their stories, sometimes it seems like they keep some of the info to themselves - info that could be helpful to those of us who might want to visit places they’ve visited. So we want to be transparent and share as much as we can.

A little over a year ago we purchased a rooftop tent for our Chevy Silverado and we’ve enjoyed adding in some camping trips in addition to our stays at hotels, resorts, and our timeshare locations. This makes our dollars go a little further and also opens up a whole new way of traveling. It’s been a blast so far!

After we bought it last year, we did camp out several times but the weather kind of worked against us on many of the days we were out and we ended up grabbing hotel rooms. But this year we’re hoping to find the good weather and have it work in our favor.

Since it gets so hot in the south in the summer, we are working our way west and then north so that by the time we’re in the middle of the season, we’re (hopefully) far enough north that we escape some of the heat. We realize it can get hot anywhere in the country but hopefully our plan will work. 🤣

We started out in Oklahoma and worked our way into the Texas and New Mexico and up into Colorado so far. We’ve had so many epic adventures already just through the little bit of ground we’ve covered. For this post, we’ll be covering the sites in Oklahoma and Texas that we visited.

One of our main focuses of this summer adventure is to hit a lot of National Park Service sites - National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, Recreation Areas, National Monuments, and more. There are so many amazing NPS places out there and by creating an itinerary around those we’ve created what we believe to be a pretty fun summer!

So with that being said, here are the things we’ve done so far and the places we recommend checking out.

(One caveat - some NPS sites charge an entry fee and some do not. We have a National Park pass so we don’t pay a fee at any of the sites. If you’re going to be visiting more than a couple of parks within a year, it’s definitely worth getting the pass. If you’re prior military you can even get a lifetime pass for free!)

Oklahoma

Washita Wildlife Refuge

We took off from Oklahoma City and traveled out west to our first stop - Washita Wildlife Refuge. This is an area around Foss Reservoir and it’s a beautiful area. We weren’t really stopping to spend a lot of time here but, being from Oklahoma City, we’ve driven past this area north of I-40 so many times and never stopped that we decided it was time.

We went to the Owl Cove area first, then the visitor center, then we did the scenic drive around the northern part of the refuge just to take in the view and see if we could spot any wildlife. Sadly there was none to be seen that day but the views were definitely nice!

You can learn more about the refuge here: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/washita

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site

We also stopped in to visit Washita Battlefield National Historic Site. That was a very somber experience.

It’s heartbreaking to read how the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes were treated in the late 1800s. Not only did the US Army invade their village in a surprise attack and kill people, but many of the people they didn’t kill were captured and forced into boarding schools to basically learn how to eliminate their culture and customs.

It’s hard to learn about things like this and see how people were treated but I think it’s so important that we do learn about it. And we need to never let things like this happen again.

Learn more about this area here: https://www.nps.gov/waba/index.htm

Texas

Lake Meredith National Recreation Area

As we left Oklahoma, we drove through the Black Kettle National Grasslands and on into the Texas Panhandle to Highway 152 over to Lake Meredith National Recreation Area. Wow! This was a very pleasant surprise!

Lake Meredith was a beautiful area. We first headed over to the Sanford-Yake campground where we spent most of the evening. We made some dinner, charged our power bank with our solar panels, and enjoyed some amazing views of the lake. I even found some beautiful flowers, some cacti, and even saw a bunch of roadrunners in the area. Such a fun evening!

We decided to check out the other campground that was near there, Fritch Fortress Campground, before deciding where we wanted to camp for the night. We liked this campground a little bit more and decided this one was it.

The super exciting thing about this NPS area, the campgrounds are FREE! Yep, we camped right next to the lake with beautiful views, a nice covered picnic area, and bathrooms with flush toilets and showers within walking distance of our camp all for nothing.

One of the best things about this camping experience - the sunset and the sunrise. Both were absolutely beautiful!

If you’re interested in checking out the camping options - click here: https://www.nps.gov/lamr/planyourvisit/camping.htm

Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument

After we camped out for the night, we made the short drive (about 24 minutes) over to Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument. Just the drive itself was a beautiful drive but the NM was a nice place to visit. I wasn’t really sure what to expect as I didn’t really research it before heading over there but it was a nice little spot.

They have a visitor center with a little museum with great information about the area and how they’ve found so much flint. They also have a beautiful garden area outside with some walking paths so you can roam around and see the beauty of the area.

Check out AFQNM here: https://www.nps.gov/alfl/index.htm

Stay tuned for more of our summer adventures! Next up are New Mexico and Colorado.

We’ve also been working on some YouTube videos so we’d love for you to check that out - give it a thumbs up if you like it and click subscribe to follow the journey.

Have you visited any of the places before? We’d love to hear about your experiences!