Aaron and Holly's, then back to Lake of the Arbuckles

After my weekend with Adrion, I headed back to Ardmore for a few days with Aaron and Holly, grandson Gavin, and my other son Sam.

I love their new house, especially the hot tub in the gazebo.  I made good use of  it all week long.

Gavin, picture taken with my new HTC Vivid 8mp phone.  The quality is almost as good as my Canon.  Having a camera this good on my phone sure makes taking pictures convenient.  But I still like my 10x zoom on my canon.

The next weekend was camping with my grandson, Carter.  I took him to the same place as Adrion, Chickasaw National Recreation Area.  Here he is in front of the nature center.  Notice the creek flowing underneath?

He said he wasn't going to swim, but he gave it up and eventually ended up in the creek at Little Niagara.  The ranger says the creek stays at a cool 67 degrees year round.

This guy landed on my foot and was quite happy to let me take as many pictures as I wanted.  

Another one of the picnic tables made out of local materials by the CCC back in the 1930s.  I found out on the ranger led hike this material is called Travertine, a conglomerate of limestone and pebbles and larger rocks.  Some of it looks like manmade concrete.

Carter wanted to travel upstream and meet me at the next bridge.  I think he found a few deep holes along the way.

I also introduced Carter to geocaching.  With a phone/gps that was working, we were able to go after 8 caches.  Found all but 2.  Several were ones I had done with Adrion the previous weekend.  With the phone app I can log my find immediately.

I noticed some crows making a big raucous at a tree in one of the parking lots.  As I got closer I realized they were trying to get this snake out of the tree (maybe they had a nest close by?).  

I made Carter stay behind me as I zoomed in for a closeup shot.  Yep, that looks like a triangular head to me.  I think it was a cottonmouth or water moccasin which is quite common around here, and yes, they are poisonous.  We walked over to the Vendome Well and when we came back by the snake was gone. 

Every evening we had a campfire, marshmellows and even cooked hamburgers over the open fire.
Last weekend with Adrion, I kept thinking I should have potatoes to throw on the coals, so this weekend I made sure I bought potatoes.  And yes, thanks to the teachings of Bob McCourt, never let an opportunity go by to bake some 'mickeys' in the fire.  I cooked several regular potatoes and even a sweet potato.  Yum.