Road Trip!!! Days 5-6 -- Woodward and Freedom, Oklahoma

After 1,385 miles of driving Tuesday through Friday, Bliss and I were ready for a weekend with Hallie and Sloane at their new place in Oklahoma. Northern Oklahoma is surprisingly pretty — lots of red dirt and rolling hills. Just like the country songs.

We had made very few plans for the weekend. Living somewhere with tons of outdoor recreation, I think, in the back of my mind, I had convinced myself that we could walk, find hiking trails, etc. — basically the same thing we’d do in Wyoming on a weekend, minus the mountains.

Well, not exactly… When I asked Hallie (keep in mind, she’s only lived in Woodward for two weeks), she said, giggling, that she had recommendations for bowling and ROLLER SKATING (which I was completely into, but no one else was down!) Sloane had heard about the escape room (run by the people who have the most terrifying haunted house ever, from what we heard). I was terrified. Thankfully, we went anyway and learned it wasn’t one of those “horror” escape rooms. And we escaped — Finding Bobby Gene was tough, but Bobby’s jeans are right back where they belong. :)

We just chilled the rest of the afternoon, had a delicious Italian dinner and a low-key night. That escape room wore us out. Plus, we had an adventure planned for Sunday!

After lots of strong coffee — only me (the rest of the crew drinks warm milk with coffee flavoring) — we headed out of Woodward. We saw Sloane’s high school in Moreland — GO BEARCATS! — and then continued on to the Frontier Rodeo Company ranch near Freedom, Okla. Sloane splits her time between her mom’s house in Woodward and her dad’s place on the ranch.

Lucky for us, we got the grand tour guided by Uncle Tom, Sloane and LEFTY!!!

Tom mentioned, when we got in the ATV, “It’s a little windy and pretty dusty!” We’re Wyoming girls… Please.

On our 4+ hour tour, we saw some beautiful country. We admired some beautiful saddle horses and some grouchy bucking bulls, hand-fed some of the best bucking horses in the world, and got up-close-and-personal with Wilbur (the brahma who doesn’t buck!). And we tried to fish. Not successfully.

It was super fun and SUPER dusty. We were wiped out and covered with powdery red dirt at the end of day.

We drove home, tired and happy, to eat pork loin and peach/plum galette before falling into bed. Heading north tomorrow!

With love and dust, from Oklahoma.