Road Trip in Pictures

            You may have read that we recently went on a road trip of sorts to Oklahoma for my brother's basic training graduation. While I hadn't expected it to be a super fun trip, I hadn't expected it to be as awful as it was either. I had originally planned on posting about all of the awfulness, but why dwell on the negative, right?
            Although our trip definitely had some rough patches, we were also able to see and do some really neat things! My husband's cousin also happens to be stationed at Fort Sill, so we were able to have dinner with them one night. We had never met his wife plus we hadn't seen him in probably about a year, so that was nice!
            We're also not big plan makers, especially on vacations, so we decided to drive out to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge on a whim while we were waiting for my brother to do his processing crap right after graduation. (It was only about a 20-30 minute drive.) Here are some highlights from there in the pictures below...

Top left: Longhorn cattle rutting

Top right: Bison

Bottom left: Prairie dog

Bottom right: More longhorn cattle

All of the animals are free roaming, but there is a fence around the perimeter as well as another one in the middle of the refuge where some of the animals can't wander where the road is. 

 Some pictures of the scenery

            This whole area was just kind of bizarre for me because I had never seen any scenery like this in real life. Then again, this is also the furthest west I've ever been, sadly. Mostly barren as they may have been, it was nice to see some "mountains" after driving for hours through Oklahoma. John's cousin said there is good hiking out here too. *sigh* Wish we would have known that! We would have come prepared! 

            We had decided ahead of time to take the rather "long way" home and stopped in Eureka Springs, AR for a day. Think of it as a smaller version of Gatlinburg, TN if you've every been there. We found a great little shop called Fain's Herbacy, if I remember correctly, and got some lavender, spearmint, and lavender essential oil from there. I can't wait to use them in our soaps! The lavender and spearmint leaves/flowers smell so freaking good!

            I enjoyed the refuge in Oklahoma so much, that I couldn't help but want to visit the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge that was about 6 miles outside of Eureka Springs as well. It is a sanctuary mostly for big cats: lions, tigers, cougars, etc.

            It was a really neat place, but it was also kind of sad, through no fault of their own. That refuge is a non-profit, so they rely solely on donations, gift shop sales, ticket sales, etc. Because funding is limited, not all animals have their own large enclosures yet, though they are continuously working on it. Most of their almost 130 animals come from private owners who either couldn't take care of them any longer or tried to dump them in the woods. Scary, huh? Many of them were from local areas of Arkansas and Missouri. It was really amazing, sad, and infuriating how many people think it's a good idea to keep large cats as house pets! I could go on and on about this place and their animals, but let's look at some pictures!

-Poor Myka. Little does she know, that tiger is probably thinking she looks like a tasty snack!

-That grizzly bear was freaking huge, and it wasn't even fully grown!

-The silly panther in the very middle picture was playing inside of an inner tube looking toy. lol 

-Neither of us got a very good picture, but I just love the white tigers like in the very bottom right picture. They're so pretty. :)
*Note: All of the animals in the pictures above were in the small enclosures, waiting for larger ones to be built for them.