On Mother’s Day we drove up into Oklahoma and visited Turner Falls Park. It’s about an hour and a half trip up I-35 for us, and while the traffic usually sucks a good bit of the way (I-35 traffic is the pits no matter when you drive it), getting out of the city and seeing some country is well worth the trip.
Turner Falls is advertised as Oklahoma’s Largest Waterfall and is owned by the City of Davis. It’s a very popular destination. In fact, on peak summer days they actually close the park at times due to the number of visitors they can accept. We don’t usually go during the busy summer months.
Honey Creek flows through the park, creating the many falls. The many natural (& some man-made) pools at Turner Falls Park are very popular swimming holes. We thought the water was just a tad bit cold, but then we like our swimming water more like bath water!
I love this close-up of one of the smaller falls. Above the falling water you can see the green reflection of the over-hanging trees and below the green is all the algae growing underneath the water. So cool.
Look at this – you can’t even tell you are looking through water. I’m glad our swimming pool doesn’t have this growing in it!
There are many times a year when Turner Falls Park is closed due to high waters. You have to drive through “low water” crossings twice to travel very far into the park and to the multiple camping areas.
As you can see from these exposed tree roots, the high rushing waters can cause a lot of damage. Sometimes the park is closed for extensive rebuilding of the roadways and even some of the man-made falls areas after torrential rains.
We have yet to do any actual hiking there. The trails are not built up and it bothers Bill’s knees to walk very far on uneven ground. But it’s still a pleasant place to go and a good place to take wildflower photos. I took several, which I will share in the near future.