Thankfully we didn't have to swim out of the campground this morning. The water did rise about 2 feet more towards the camper, but we were still in the dry. I am not too sure if I mentioned yesterday, but one man across from us was completely penned in by the water. Surely he saw it coming, yet he didn't move his lawnchairs, grill or trailer-they were all partially submerged.
We didn't stick around too long there this morning. We didn't really have much of a plan, but knew we didn't want to risk the lake rising anymore. So we pulled out around 10 or maybe even a bit before. Grannymom had mentioned The Gathering Place in Tulsa. We looked it up and after seeing that he had a big parking lot, we headed there.
We had no trouble finding it and the parking lot was indeed big. That was a sign for us so we were pulled in and spent the day there. As soon as we did pull in, Robby had to register for a campground in October. While he was doing that, I was locating the big kids.
Soon Robby and I had unhooked the car, and he was leaving to go and get Reagan, Anderson, Graham, Caroline and Alyssa. He was gone for maybe 30 minutes which gave me time to straighten for a few minutes. When they arrived, we had some cookies for a snack before heading to the park.
Robby stayed back since he was heading to the laundry mat with our one load of laundry. Candice had already taken the kids laundry with her to the laundry mat that she was at. I walked with the kids, and we walked and walked. We passed basketball courts, a bike track, a skateboard track, but still couldn't get to the park where we could play.
I finally had to ask a security guard. He was very gracious and even walked us there-we ended up walking at least a half mile before arriving. The Gathering Place is a 500 million dollar park in the middle of Tulsa. And I will say that it is amazing. We are really almost past the playground stage, however, this place was neat. So neat that I offered to bring Whitman back for his birthday.
The reason that he loved it so much was because he loved the water section. It was all kinds of water things that you could twist and turn and make the water go, splash and stop. The kids did really well and din't get soaked though they easily could have. We needed the water to cool us off after our walk. That was the warmest part of the day, because not too long after we made it to the park, the clouds came out which made the rest of the day very pleasant.
We left the water area and arrived at the main playground part. It was at least an acre maybe two. It was large enough that I felt like I needed to sit at one designated point so everyone could know where I was. This meant that I couldn't get many pictures. The place was also large enough that the buddy system was enforced-well, mandatory.
Anderson followed Whitman around for a long time, until he deemed it too exhausting. Then Graham claimed the Whitman job. Around this time the Fergusons showed up. The had parked by us in the huge parking lot, and Robby had chauffeured them to the nearest parking lot.
After another good while, Robby showed up with Sonic drinks for everyone along with bread, meat and cheeses for us to make sandwiches for the crew. That hit the spot for sure and everyone had energy to carry on.
The Heltz joined us while we were eating our lunch. After a bit more playing, we then walked across the park to the slide area. They had some neat slides there which we stayed out for a bit. By this time, it was nearing check in at our campsite so we walked back towards the car.
Robby took the Fergusons back to their camper while Whitman got in a few more minutes of play at the water area. Then we went back to our spot-on our way back, we did stop at Weber's Root Beer stand since we were right nearby.
They were out of root beer bottles, but Graham and I did have root beer floats. We enjoyed our drinks on the way back to the parking lot. There we hooked up the car, straightened the camper before getting gas and driving to our next spot.
We were the last of the buddies to arrive-just barely. Andrew helped Robby unhook the car and back in-we didn't set too much stuff up since the kids had their minds on swimming. Actually, we left the camper in a huge disarray, but the kids had a blasts.
We made it to the other side of the campground around 5 today. They have a pool and slides over there, but the main attraction is the huge blow up playground that is on the lake. You have to life jacket up and swim out there so it takes a while...and a lot of energy.
As soon as we arrived the kids started swimming out there. You could use canoes and paddleboards too for no charge. Basically, the kids played on all of this until it closed at 7:30. Robby and I set up a tent and were perfectly pleasant. We were in the shade and had drinks and snacks so what more could we want. I have a feeling that we will be sitting there a lot tomorrow as well.
When everyone finished, we all shuttled back to the campers. We started on getting this place back in order before starting on supper. Everyone else was having burgers so that is what we had as well-though we probably should have saved that for the 4th.
As we were eating, Candice found out that across the lake they were having a fireworks show. So we cleaned up and headed over. It was just a short walk from our camper-Robby put the chairs in the wagon. I did think to bring Bentley some snacks since she had never seen or heard fireworks before.
We didn't have to wait too long for the fireworks to start. When they did, Bentley was a wee bit hysterical at first. I had to get Robby to hold her. He put her in a bear hug and soon she calmed down. I helped probably a lot that I was feeding her hot dog pieces as fast as I could. By the end, she tolerated all of the fireworks-though it did seem that she hid her head a few times in Robby's legs.
We then went back to the camper and stayed by ours chatting until 11. So it is now midnight, and my kids are just about ready to put up their devices. Bentley is giving me the stink eye since I just did ear drops in one ear. She just gets them in one ear a night because that is all I can do without waking her up too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment