Camping at Natural Falls

Camping! Well, I fulfilled my duties as a Girl Scout Leader again. I cheated a bit though. We couldn’t get the Girl Scout campsite at Tallchief in October, so I asked Amy and Matt if they’d be up for a family campout. They agreed and even scheduled it for Matt’s birthday! They took us to Natural Falls State Park. It was beautiful! Reasonably close to Tulsa and with several nice trails, which was perfect since the girls wanted to earn their Trail Adventure badges. Kenzi and Cathy came too, so we had three families and three Juniors, plus Maia the Daisy Scout. We were worried because the weather was cold and wet, but it turned out fine! We started out a little later on Saturday, and by the time we got there the rain had stopped and the temperature wasn’t bad. We got a little damp overnight since we squeezed five of us into a four-person tent, but I brought so much bedding DZ sat up in the middle of the night, incoherently said he was too hot, and threw off the covers. ;) Mission accomplished! We made hot dogs over the fire, s’mores and sandwiches. Easy food. We had no trouble lighting the fire(thanks to a years supply of lint, six boxes of matches, and some dura-logs), and we bought the wood there, which is what State and National parks prefer, so it was actually really easy! (I didn’t end up needing all six boxes of matches ;) We lucked into a Trick-or-Treat event at the RV park next to our tent campground. They went all out! Busloads of people showed up to walk around the campground. Everyone had cool decorations and inflatables! The kids loved it and got tons of candy in beautiful weather. The second day it was the exact kind of fall weather I love best. Crisp and cool jacket weather, perfect for another hike! We hiked down the Dripping Springs trail the first day and got to see the falls. They are beautiful and were full of water! We came back by the Bear trail which was a bit of a challenge, short and steep. The second day we took the Fox Den Trail. Kenzi and Cathy had headed back early since Kenzi bruised her foot and didn’t feel up to hiking. We made it back to the creek, the other side than we’d visited the day before. After we hung out there for a while, floating twigs in the creek, we kept going down the trail. However, we must have missed a trail marker because we got lost! We ended up going over barbed wire fences and using Google Maps to point us back to the campground. We didn’t miss it by much, when we got out of the trees we were only like twenty feet from the actual trailhead, but it was a crazy adventure! We met up with another couple who were walking their dogs and made the same mistake we did. They said we deserved an extra badge for saving them! The kids loved it! I had brought several activities, but we ended up just doing one that was a big hit! We made Jack-O-Lantern buckets! I bought 5 gallon white buckets, duct tape, remote controlled LED puck lights, and my magic duct tape scissors. The kids cut out faces, taped it to the bucket, and put the puck light inside. They were perfect! They give nice light to the campsite after dark, the kids used them as sit-upons, and we used them to hold dirty clothes when we were ready to go to bed. I think they’re great fun! Plus, they are so light the kids could easily carry them around. I did finally bring flashlights for everyone but we didn’t even need them. The kids used them as night lights when we got home until the battery ran out. We will definitely use them again!