Turner Falls

It's 8:30 on a Saturday morning.
I"ve got my walking in and laundry started.  I conned talked Jim into taking the youngest two boys into work with him to deliver some goodies.  The older two are still sleeping.
The house is a disaster, laundry is piled high and we've got to get the garage and storm shelters hoed out today because there will be some severe weather coming through tonight with the risk of tornadoes.
Yup - we're the noobs in Tornado Alley, but if it gets our butts in gear and helps us get at least one car in the garage - I'll go with it.

The kids are on Fall Break.  The weather has been gorgeous and it has been good to have a couple days just to be.
We ran around on Thursday doing errands and then had some neighborhood kids over in the afternoon.  It made my heart happy to have extra urchins around.

The kids have been struggling with the concept of "home" recently.  When they're sad and missing things, we've been hearing "I want to go home" a lot.
I get that.  I really do - I miss my friends keenly.
We really want the kids to start to understand the concept that home is where we are now AND where the people we love are.  They are blessed to have more than one home.
So we printed out maps of the places we have lived, marked up the maps and hung them in our entryway.  We have maps of NY, VA and NH to get frames for.
I realize that the current layout looks like a big smiley face and will fix that - but it's a good start.
 I really love it.    

Yesterday we ventured down into the heart of Chickasaw Nation to see what we could see.
We drove about 75 miles south of Oklahoma City into a landscape consisting of less prairie and more rolling hills.  We saw what we think was a buffalo wallow and a herd of Mustangs.  The soil was decidedly red and then almost instantly, about 70 miles into the dive, the ground became a grey color, trees were abundant and we saw  mountains!
Okay - they would be hills in most other places - but in Oklahoma they are mountains!
Who knew?
It's already considered "winter" here by the locals - at least enough to change the admission price for entrance into parks - but it was 80 degrees and we needed to get out of the car to get some wiggles out.
Look what we found.
Turner Falls.
Never in my life have I seen water like this.  Crystal clear - like the Caribbean.
It was amazing.
The facilities are poorly kept, but the scenery made up for that.
Thank goodness we brought our standard Adventure Kit -  life jackets, water shoes, lunch and an extra set of clothes for everyone.

See the sign that says "Do Not go beyond this point"?  Nate had to get as close to that sign as humanly possible without going past it. 

The proprietary fees to use this picture would be way less for Christmas cards, as Pops pointed out.  But since the cards are already printed...I just have to stick with the plan. 

I totally needed a beer when we got home. 

"Mama!  Take a picture of silly me!"   See Nate trying to sneak up to go past the sign when he thought I wasn't looking?

Glad I brought the life vests.  The water was very shallow in some places but then would 5 feet deep with the next step.  The water was so clear that it was easy to see where the drop offs were, but with so many kids it was impossible for me to be within arm's reach of everyone at the same time.  Life vests will be standard adventure fare in the car from now on. 

Nate would go up to the top of a part of the stream, lie on his back and float down as far as he could.  He would then get up, walk to the top and do it again.  Didn't matter that the water was 50 degrees.  He did say, "My penis is so cold it has icicles on it," once - then he sat in a shallow, warmer pool for 5 minutes, announced he was sufficiently defrosted and resumed his previous pattern of floating. 

See how different the landscape is?  The soil isn't clay and the rocks are granite.  We spotted a couple fossils embedded in the stones.  I foresee some geology lessons and field trips in our future.   

Bathing suits?  Who needs those?

Sam got in the water!  He stumbled once he was in and got wet up to his neck.  After that there was no getting him out. 

There were 6-8" long fish in the stream.  They didn't swim away from the kids.  Sam was in awe. 

In the process of developing icicles in regions unspeakable. 

The kids were jumping off the ledges and into the water. 

It was a great day.
Everyone is a bit hung-over from it this morning.
Many people I've spoken to that have lived here their whole lives haven't seen or done what we did today.
There are advantages to being a tourist where you live.