Well, that was disappointing.

This week I packed my suitcase (the hubby filled his Walmart sack), and we headed down south to Sulphur, OK. I planned this short, little trip a couple of weeks ago when it was announced that the children would be going to Branson with Grandma and Grandpa.

Finding a destination upon which Aaron and I can agree is nearly impossible. He wants to stay in a remote cabin, and I want to stay in a thriving metropolis. It's hard to find a middle-ground that pleases us both. However, I stumbled upon the website for Echo Canyon Resort and Spa in Sulphur, OK which offered the benefit of comfort (for her) and wildlife (for him). What more could you ask for? I'll tell you what! One of the rooms available was named "Marilyn Monroe's Boudoir," and the room photographs displayed life-sized cardboard cutouts of Marilyn. As you can imagine, I submitted payment immediately, and the room was booked.

Every person I encountered between the time the reservation was made and the moment we arrived at the resort was aware of my excitement. I planned to do so many ridiculous things involving Marilyn. The hilarity I imagined was endless.


But I was disappointed.  The room was beautiful. Despite an extraordinary number of Marilyn art pieces, the furniture, the jacuzzi, the balcony, THE FOOD (!!!), everything was amazing. How could I document ridiculousness in such an amazing atmosphere? I couldn't. Sigh.

Here is a shameless plug for the resort. If you need company, please take me.
Echo Canyon Resort and Spa 

Don't be uncomfortable. I have clothes on, I swear.

There is an on-site peach orchard!

Anyhoo--after relaxing and unwinding, it was time to people watch at Turner Falls. Wow. Admission to enter to park for two adults is $24 total, and the experience was worth every penny. Yes, the waterfalls and scenery are beautiful. The real entertainment, however, came from truly experiencing Oklahoma through the eyes of "an outsider," my spouse.

We have determined that we are not people who will ever be comfortable camping near the communal Port-A-John. Oh, and as a special surprise I think our visit coincided with septic clean out day. There are a lot of people who enjoy this type of thing, and my hat is off to those people...but I'm not one of them. My definition of vacation is not walking around with a t-shirt tied around my nose because of the overwhelming stench exuding from the septic pump. People were really doing that! Anyway, that's just me. There were hoards of camping people! Where did they all come from!? I wanted to take pictures, but Aaron wouldn't let me. I believe his reasoning was something along the lines of "a group of wild kids like the ones in the movie Hook might jump out of the woods and kill you."

Once we drove through the community of campers, we made it to a sign declaring "Caves ahead." So, being the spelunkers that we are, we decided to hop out of the car and explore some caves. Bad idea. Firstly, I was wearing my $0.98 Walmart flip flops, and Aaron was wearing khaki shorts...because, why wouldn't he be? We realized that we were not equipped for our journey approximately 10 feet into the trail. I believe the quote from this neck of the journey was "Eww, this trail is, like, nature-y." Yet we pressed on. I wish we would have planned ahead and organized a scavenger hunt. We spied a 1980's style orange-cicle wrapper and a dirty pair of underwear. Believe it or not, we made it to the first (of I don't know how many) caves on the trail. The entrance to the cave was smaller than either of my children could have squeezed into. At this point, red-faced and out of breath, we did a 180 degree turn and walked back to the comfort of our air conditioned car. I am perfectly content saying that I saw the exterior of 1 cave during my vacation.


So, during our three days away from the city we verified that we are not hikers, and we require permanent housing facilities. Give us indoor plumbing, and we'll be good to go.

That's what I have to say about that.

H