My parents love live theater and they’ve instilled this in me. My dad has an amazing voice and when I was a kid, he participated in numerous local plays and musicals. My mom is a great dancer and a good singer (even though she won’t ever admit to it). She often helped my dad learn lines and did behind-the-scenes work for the local theater. In our house, my sister and I learned all the songs to “Jesus Christ Superstar” as it was not unusual to hear this on a Sunday morning. We’ve watched “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”, “The Sound of Music”, “Pirates of Penzance”, and “My Fair Lady” more times than we can count. We know the words to the songs from “Phantom of the Opera”, “West Side Story”, and “Oklahoma”…where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain…which is probably why it shocked me when we travelled from long stretches of Oklahoma flat grasslands and farms into Red Rock Canyon Adventure Park to camp.
I was even more surprised when reached Lawton and I could see hills (some might say mountains) off in the distance.
Medicine Park, Oklahoma sits between Lake Lawtonka and Elmer Thomas Lake and is filled with historic homes, buildings, and retaining walls made of round yellow-orange-red cobblestones prevalent in the Wichita Mountains.
We then entered the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Indiahoma, Oklahoma, where longhorn cattle roam alongside deer, elk and large herds of bison in the thick brown stick-like grasslands and heavy undergrowth. Where there are tress, the Cross Timbers are so impenetrable that during early settlement of the west, Washington Irving once describe travel “like struggling through a forest of cast iron.” The tallest mountain, Mt. Scott, is only 2,464 ft by comparison towers against the relatively flat, wide open spaces that make up this 59,000+ acre park. Apparently, the Wichita Mountains that are visible today are merely the tops of a much larger mountain range that this hidden beneath the surface. The underground range spans 200 miles from Lawton, Oklahoma to Amarillo, Texas. There are also several lakes within the refuge.
Seeing longhorns in the refuge is weird but we found information that in the early 1900s the U.S. government realized the original longhorns were disappearing due to slaughter and crossbreeding. Less than 30 longhorns were gathered to preserve bloodlines and shipped to the Bronx Zoo, which was ill equipped to handle them. They ended up in the Wichita Mountains Refuge in 1927 and the herd thrives at over 300 today.
Something else that’s odd within the refuge is the Holy City. The stone structures of the “city” were closed the day we arrived as preparation for the large Easter celebration was in process. In 1926, Reverend Anthony Mark Wallock initiated an Easter service and dramatic production with a case of five in the Wichita Mountains. The play, generally depicting Jesus’ life from birth through crucifixion and resurrection, quickly grew into a large traditional gathering attracting thousands of spectators. It was so popular that in 1935, the WPA used a $74,000 grant to complete the current structures on site today. At its peak in the 1940s, the event drew more than 100,000 visitors. There are even newsreels and movies made about it!
Bison frequent the Visitor Center and can be viewed through large windows from inside it, providing safe and up-close encounters for visitors.
We enjoyed driving through the park where we saw numerous bison, deer, longhorns and near the water some turtles. We camped within it at Doris Campground. There’s an easy walk called Little Baldy Loop from here. We also did a 5-mile, 700ft elevation gain hike up Elk Mountain and took the Crab Eyes spur. All of the hikes resulted in wonderful views above the plains and lakes and included some fun bouldering.
Once again, travel has surprised us. It’s so funny that until we started this journey, we pictured New York as simply a concrete jungle with gigantic skyscrapers and Broadway lights and yes, this is New York City, but upstate New York is dotted with lakes, pretty canyons, waterfalls, and lush green grasses and trees. We pictured Florida being all beach and pastel colored Art-Deco buildings like Miami, but it is also home to the Everglades with its river of grasses, gigantic birds, manatee, alligators, and crocodiles. So we shouldn’t have been surprised by the Wichita Mountains, but they shattered our Oklahoma images of flat, tall, dry, grassland farms. One more reminder that the U.S. is so large, and every state is more diverse than we’d ever imagined before starting this crazy, wonderful journey we’ve been on.
