The day threatened rain, so we changed our plans to go hiking and drove up to the Joseph Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, a 29,000 acre nature preserve and the largest contiguous area of tall grass prairie in the United States. Despite the rain and general dreariness, there was plenty to see:

Fields of Black-Eyed Susans

But the main attraction, of course, is the chance to see some of their over 1,100 bison roaming freely throughout the preserve. And we saw bison!

Lots of bison!

Even MORE bison!

And best of all, baby bison!

A park ranger told us that calving peaks in April and May, and that the lighter-colored red calves are less than two months old. As they age, they gradually darken to the dark brown of the adults.

We even got a private tour of the original 1910s bunkhouse and kitchen, and were told that actor Ben Johnson, Jr. grew up here while his father was ranch foreman. His first introduction to Hollywood was as a horse wrangler and stunt man, but he went on to act in many films with John Wayne and others.

All in all, an unexpected treat!

When we got back to camp (after a stop at Sonic to inhale some much-overdue lunch) the rain had stopped, and since neither of us were ready for dinner, we decided to hike to the remains of the CCC camp that housed the men who built all of the original camp buildings, roads and trails.

First, we stopped at Lookout Lake:

Then we headed up past the primitive campsites, where we found a CCC-built lookout point:

While there wasn’t as much to see of the camp as we’d hoped, that’s not to say there wasn’t anything to see:

While it wasn’t a long hike, I was almost undone by one other thing I discovered on the trail—a tarantula! For a person terrified of spiders, that is a nightmare come true. I insisted Russ walk in front of me the rest of the way, as I made whimpering noises behind him. Who knew tarantulas lived in Oklahoma?

I’m done for today.