Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Oklahoma
May 4, 2026
We spent three days skirting around some fiesty, seasonal weather (not entirely unexpected this time of the year in these parts), but it somehow felt like 40 years of wandering in the desert. It was a relief to finally arrive at the "Promised Land"--Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Oklahoma.
Originally, we had planned for two easy-ish days of driving from northern Alabama through Arkansas and into Oklahoma. After looking at the weather map on Monday morning while getting two of our wheels replaced, we decided it would be more prudent to veer south of our original route to dodge some of the punishment that was headed toward Arkansas.
Our original first night's destination was between Memphis and Little Rock. An "enhanced" risk is not too bad in the greater scheme of things, but we are just in a trailer that's not anchored down at all and that can be easily crushed/punctured by a falling tree or very large chunks of ice.
So, on Monday we set course for Jackson, Mississippi, which was just south of the anticipated weather system. We encountered no weather at all (not even rain), and we spent a peaceful night in a Bass Pro Shops parking lot there. We figured the next day, we would just head west through Shreveport and make another stop near there for the night.
Pretty Alabama countryside
Mississippi is just as pretty
Well, the bad weather wasn't finished yet on Tuesday. In fact, it was gearing up to be worse than Monday. So, southward was the name of the game again. Tuesday night's destination was an okay-ish Walmart in Alexandria, Louisiana. At least Julie thought it was okay-ish. Rick never likes sleeping in a Walmart parking lot. But we survived, and Julie entertained herself by reading weather reports of baseball-sized hail and tornado warnings that were happening safely to the north of us.
We had actually visited historic Natchez a couple of years ago
By Wednesday, the worst had passed, and we only had one section of our trip that routed us through some severe thunderstorm action to the east of Dallas. It felt a little like driving through an asteroid field, but we managed to dodge the storms entirely, only experiencing a few sprinkles along the way.
We got an early start on Wednesday because we had a fairly long drive ahead of us
It may seem hard to imagine a city in Texas being a sister to a city in France, but it's true
A state that neither of us have ever been to before--exciting!
Our campground was quite nice, and it was a joy to be back in nature after a week plus in an RV park and various retail parking lot establishments. On the weekend, we got to enjoy the sounds of families having fun camping experiences, a not-too-common thing for us this time of year. Being retired, we often end up near other retired people who, like us, don't have to go to work or to school, and aside from the occasionally yappy dog, are more or less quiet and uninteresting.
A path behind our campsite led to the Lake of the Arbuckles (BTW, "Arbuckles" refers to the mountains of the same name that are, in turn, named after one General Matthew Arbuckle)
Chickasaw National Recreation Area is certainly a pleasant place, but it was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration to call it the "Promised Land". The area began its life in the spotlight as a national park in 1902, but after additional land acquisitions, it got "demoted" to a National Recreation Area. The fact that many of the original springs dried up might have also contributed to the demotion. In its heyday, millions of visitors came to "take in the waters" by drinking and bathing in the many springs in the area. Doctors in the day even wrote prescriptions for people to drink the water. It's not such a thing anymore now that you can get any kind of water you want in little plastic bottles these days.
Our visit was pretty low-key, with walks around the campground, a trip to the Nature Center, and a couple of bike rides.
Not too far from our campsite, we found access to a pretty nice multi-use trail where we took a bike ride one day.
We encountered some oddities along the trail that made us feel like we were in a "Lost" episode.
We thought this was a water tank, but maybe not?
Things like this in the middle of the forest just make you go hmmm.
Lake of the Arbuckles
Most of the sights to be seen in the park were in the historic original national park district. On one of the days, we visited the Nature Center and walked the trails behind it...
The Nature Center was kind of lame, so no pictures of the inside.
Beaver Pond
Antelope Springs is the water bubbling up under the pile of rocks.
The CCC built this stone surround for Buffalo Springs back in the day.
Little Niagara Falls ("Little" being the operative word here)
Downstream from Little Niagara
We re-visited the historic district on our bicycles on Monday, after the weekenders had left...
One trail we rode switch-backed up a tall hill (or old mountain or whatever).
Julie got a little nervous riding her bike along the edge.
Rick had to stop every now and then to wait for Julie to catch up.
The trail around Veterans Lake
The first of several historic, but now-defunct, spring houses we passed
The next spring house was dry as well, as were most of them.
In its day, this was a well-visited park with lots of flowers and landscaping.
Some remnants of "furniture" from the old CCC days
Little Niagara Falls without the crowds
Looking downstream from the falls
Hillside Spring was still actually flowing!
And that's a wrap for this week!
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