Paul & Heather

Heather and I spent last weekend at lake Tenkiller with my Dad and Susan.  We weren’t camping unfortunately so we ended up making two trips from BA down to Tahlequah but it was well worth it.  Saturday was overcast and a little bit chilly on the lake which is the main reason we made a return visit on Sunday and Sunday is the main reason for this blog so I’ll get to the funny part.

A little back story to set everything up.  Most lakes allow you to make reservations for camping spots in advance.  We had made reservations on Ft. Gibson lake for the 4th of July, but with all of the rain we’ve had Ft. Gibson has been a little less desirable than other surrounding lakes.  So the opinion was we’d like to camp at Tenkiller if we were able to find one of the few spots that are first come first serve.  Sunday’s mission was simple find one of those spots at one of the many campsites around the lake.

As Heather and I are arriving at the lake we pass David and Susan who are just leaving on a reconnaissance mission by car to stake our claim.  We pull up to the current campsite and start relaxing for the day.  A short while later we get a phone call from Susan telling us they just found a great spot but they’re in a standoff with some other people for the spot.  The apparent campsite rule is you can’t pay for a spot until you have a tent setup.  So Susan instructs us to grab a tent throw it in the boat and get it to the new spot ASAP.  She also tells us that the people they are in a standoff with have people bringing a tent by boat as well.  My Dad, Heather and I look like we’re doing some crazy Chinese fire drill by securing everything at the campsite and running down to the boat holding ice chests, towels, a wiener dog and a tent.  We load the boat in record time, pull anchor and prepare for hyperdrive.  We had a general idea of where the new campsite was from the water but weren’t 100% sure as we pull up to one site we ask some swimmers where we are and they tell us “Cookson” which is the wrong spot.  Back to hyperdrive and on to the next site which was luckily the right site as we see David coming out to meet us and get the tent.

I don’t have any pictures of any of this because we were so rushed getting everything finished up.  The good news is that we secured a great spot for the 4th of July and will be headed out there sometime this weekend.  We hope everybody has a great holiday weekend and be safe!