After Christmas Day, but before New Year's Day this last week, David and I took a little overnighter to Lawton, Oklahoma to visit the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. It's home to bison, elk, longhorn sheep (which we never did find) and Texas Longhorn cattle. It comprises 65,000 acres, with hiking trails ranging from easy to hard (and something that will give us an excuse to go back to the park), lakes and beautiful views. The landscape looks a bit like what I'd imagine the surface of the moon might look like, or as David described the mountains: "It looks like a giant kid dribbled wet sand all over the place". There were rocks that were perfectly round and smooth, pretty large and tannish in color, laying about the fields as we drove along. We stopped in front of old homestead that had been refurbished to read the historic marker that had been placed in front of it and explained what these giant cobblestones were called: "cannonball rock" and the description fit to to a "T" , because that was exactly what the rocks looked like, cannonballs just laying around in vast prairie lands. The homeowners that had built the house and outbuildings that we were standing in front of had used these rocks and I bet that house was pretty well insulated from those harsh Oklahoma winds coming in from the prairies.
The town of Lawton is also home to Fort Sill, an army base . . . that just happens to have polo grounds AND polo ponies corralled next to it. I couldn't believe it, but here's a link to an article I found after falling down an Internet rabbit hole trying to track down whether or not my eyes deceived me. The fort has museums that are open to the public explaining its history, and I wish we could've visited them, but I guess that'll be another excuse to go back and explore Lawton.
These are just a few of the pictures I took during that afternoon and morning we spent in the park. Like I said, I'd love to go back and stay a little bit longer.
