COMMENT ON TUESDAY’S POST FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A GREAT DOG TREAT!
Happy This’n’That Thursday, hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs! It’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I’m using the opportunity to tell y’all a little bit about an Oklahoma watering hole that we visited on Monday.
I homeschool the youngest of my three kids, Sasquatch (that’s his Boy Scout name). His new homeschool group sent out a message that they were going to meet at Blue Hole, out east of Salina, OK, on Monday. Sure. We could do that. We could even take the dogs, since every body of water we’ve taken them to so far in Oklahoma has been dog friendly. Let’s do it! The dogs were uber excited.
I had a bag of treats (Sausage Sticks) in my purse, cash for fried pickles at the concessions stand (mmmmm), and a full tank of gas. Our destination was an hour away. We picked up a friend and drove. And drove. And drove. Why does driving someplace new always take twice as long as getting home?
If you’re going to visit beautiful Blue Hole, keep two things in mind:
- Parking is ten dollars per vehicle – it would have been nice to know that before I left home. Fortunately I still had enough cash for fried pickles. Priorities are important.
- Dogs aren’t allowed in the swimming hole.
Don’t get all riled up. Blue Hole is a big pool, or pond, or something, that is fed by three ice cold springs, so the water is always chilly, which is fantastic in the heat of summer. But a river runs through it, making for a nice stream east and west of the hole. Dogs are allowed in the stream bed, so all we had to do was walk over the rocks and into a stream bed.
The dogs had an amazing time in the water. Patches is a delicate lady and only likes to go in to her knees and elbows.
Flash, however, loves the full immersion experience. He loves to fetch rocks. We started with fetching sticks, but you run out of sticks after awhile. Flash doesn’t bring sticks all the way back, but drops them mid-stream, so now he fetches rocks.
That lasted all of about thirty minutes. Then we went back to the watering hole. Opened a camp chair, sat under a tree in the shade, watched all the kids playing in the water. For several hours.
Honestly? It’s an amazing watering hole. One of the moms tells me that it’s a great place to hang out Monday through Thursday, but that the weekends are insane, which I believe. The kids all had a great time. Sasquatch spent an hour at the concession stand, flirting with the girl behind the counter. Which is totally why we drove an hour to hang out with his new classmates, so he could flirt with a stranger.
I didn’t get to spend much time with the other moms (my thanks to the moms who came to me), since the dogs have thick black coats and the hot sun would have been a bad place for them, as well as for a redhead. Next time the dogs stay home and I wear sunscreen. But I’m thankful for my boy, who took the dogs down to the water a second time and let them play. He was probably flirting with girls in the stream while I wasn’t looking, too. He’s 16, after all, and 6’3″.
All in all, on a weekday, without dogs, I give Blue Hole four stars. It was a nice experience, perfect for kids on a hot summer day.
Until I write again …
Flea
