Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge and Meers

We woke up bright and early this morning and drove with some friends from our ward out the the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Lawton (about an hour and a half southwest of Norman).  Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of any bison or longhorn cattle that were on the refuge because we saw them from the car while driving through and the combination of driving with a low quality zoom feature means pictures of wildlife from a distance are few and far between.

 

 We started at Lost Lake (above) and hiked for a little while.  (I'm glad that we left Norman around 6:30am so we were able to do our hike before the heat and humidity were too bad.)

 

 Our crew (starting closest to the camera): Bryan & Sarah, Erica & Ben, Ammon & Lindsey (her head is somewhat visible between Erica's head and Ben's head) 

 

 First up close and personal wildlife encounter:  Erica spotted a lizard, which Ammon thought would really enjoy being held.  Ammon's thinking was quickly dispelled when the lizard tried to bite him.  Undeterred, Ammon successfully held the little guy long enough for a short photo shoot.  Other wildlife highlights along the trail included watching a wild rabbit run in front of us, Ben picking up a frog, and Bryan being mocked for his lack of affinity towards holding woodland creatures.

Our hike followed this little creek, which is called the West Cache Creek if I identified the correct creek on Google Maps.

  

  

 We then came to our resting point, where the ladies found a shady spot to visit and the men found rocks to throw into the creek.  Since I was in more of an adventurous hiking mood than a rock-throwing mood, I decided to hike down a little closer to the creek.  Since it was cooler down there, I decided to stay down there while the ladies joined in on the rock throwing action.  (Luckily, I was not harmed by any thrown rocks.)

  

 

  

 

 To prove that I hiked down there, I took this selfie.

  

 Sarah said the picture on the left looks better.  Personally, I prefer the one on the right.

(I've included both for you to decide.)

 

 And here we all are, finishing up our hike back at Lost Lake.

(If you're wondering what happened to Ammon, we now have a better idea how the lake got its name.)

From there we headed to Meers, a restaurant many people have told us we needed to try.  (Typically the conversations went a little like this:  

"What fun things are there to do in Oklahoma?"

"You should eat at Meers?"

"Where's that?"

"Out near Lawton, but it's totally worth the drive.")

People had told me it kind of looked like a dive, but I didn't really know what to expect.  Then, there it was, along the highway, at a T in the road.

 

I know that it looks like multiple buildings from the outside, and that's because of the additions that have been made over time.  Parts of the building date back to the 1920's when Meers was a mining town and the building was a grocery store, a print shop and later a post office.  It became a restaurant in the 1970s, serving hamburgers made with longhorn beef.  (If anyone cares to know more about it, you can check out their website.)

The decor inside was a hodgepodge of wild game, license plates from most states, old soda bottles and anything else you could think of to decorate an old store/restaurant.  Unfortunately, my attempt to get a picture of the decor along with the ladies ended up only capturing the ladies.

 

We only had to wait about an hour before we were seated.  Sarah and I shared a Seismic Meersburger (served in a pie tin) along with some fried peaches, fried onions and jalapenos followed by peach cobbler topped in homemade ice cream for dessert.  It was really good, but I'm not sure how often it will be worth the trip all the way out there.

 

 If we thought the hour wait was bad, it must have been much worse after we left since the line was going out the building and probably twice as long as when we got there.

(I tried to capture both the long line coming out the door and the interesting location of Meers in the picture below.)

 

 With our stomachs now full, we decided to go to the top of the highest mountain in the Wichitas - Mount Scott.  Luckily for us, you can drive to the top.  Here are some of the views from the top.

  

  

 There isn't much of a peak on the top of Mount Scott (probably mostly due to the fact that there is a parking lot up there).  However, I was able to find the highest point (hence the metal marker at my feet), so now I can say that I've been to the very top of Mount Scott (elevation 2,424 feet, or in other words, not nearly as high as most of you sitting at your computers).