Sunday, September 25, 2011

Mammoth visits the Choctaw Indian Nation


Friday,  September 23

Tony didn’t have a H.S. football game this Friday, so I took off work  a little early  and we headed to Durant, Oklahoma, and the Choctaw KOA Resort, across the street from the Choctaw Casino. Tony’s folks had taken him along on a trip there a month or so ago, and he had scoped out the park. They also took a route through the country, rather than over to Dallas and up I-75, so that was the same route we took… a much less stressful drive!  As always, we had a bit of adventure. Tony noticed that the speedometer on the truck was not syncing with the speed that our GPS was telling us. After a while of driving, we noticed the speedometer said we were going 10mph FASTER than we were going. Then, 20mph… then 30mph! As we came to a stoplight, the speedometer did go down, but standing still, it said we were going 30mph!!!  Tony said it was very disturbing to look down and see that we are going 90mph, when people were passing us like we are standing still.  Trust me, Mammoths don’t go THAT fast! We’ll have to look into it further, but for this trip, the GPS is what we’ll trust. We arrived about 7:30, and got finished setting up just as dark was falling. The view was striking as the sunset fell onto the multi-story metallic casino hotel, the tallest building around. This park is not far from I-75, but you really don’t hear the traffic. You do hear a train air horn every so often as we are not too far from the tracks, but we’re used to that, it’s just like home. The park has really nice amenities, with free wifi, long, level sites, a nice pool, a game room and lounge, as well as laundry and showers.  They also have a good sized meeting area, and a small selection of commonly needed RV supplies. We  relaxed and enjoyed being “away.”




Saturday,  September 24

This morning we got up and ate breakfast, and then headed over to the Casino. The Casino has regularly scheduled shuttles that take you to the Casino or the Choctaw Convention Center nearby, but you can also call them at any time for a ride. Tony gave me a walking tour of the Casino. It’s as grand as many we saw in Las Vegas.



We even toured the outdoor tropical gardens and pool areas of the hotel. They have some interesting furniture.


Then we played a little. I chose the 5 cent slots, and did pretty well right off the bat, so I stopped. Tony decided to keep playing for a while, so I went souvenir shopping and back to the Mammoth for a bit.

When Tony got back, we decided to take an excursion over to Eisenhower State Park, on the Texas side of Lake Texoma. It was about a 30 min drive over. Using our Texas State Parks Pass, we get into any State Park, free.





We drove around and realized how empty it was! The park has warning signs regarding the burn ban in effect, as well as warnings to boaters and swimmers about cyanobacteria,  also known as blue-green algae, in the water that is very toxic if ingested. There are also warnings about zebra mussels, which are very destructive because they reproduce rapidly and completely cover  the substrate, clogging pipelines, covering buoys, boats, motors, etc. Much of the vegetation in the park looked dead or dying, as well.
We saw very few folks camping. Probably less than 30 sites occupied, with close to 200 available! However, we did see some great wildlife, more than usual in a busy state park. We saw a roadrunner run across the road, and then fly up into a tree as we passed. Beep Beep! I said. Then a little later, we saw a rabbit run across the road. And finally, as we pulled into a parking lot, we saw a deer standing at the edge of the woods. We were probably about 20 feet away from her! I was really surprised she didn’t take off as soon as she heard the rumbling truck, but she stopped and stood perfectly still. Finally, she heard something that startled her and she took off. But wow, that was amazing.



After returning to Durant, we decided to eat dinner out, at Naifeh’s Steakhouse, right by the RV park. We had a really good meal. As we left the restaurant, the sunset was gorgeous!




We got back to the Mammoth and I thought I’d catch up on the blog, so Tony took the shuttle back to the Casino for a bit.
All in all, a fun day!







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