Friday, October 24, 2008

Friday Photos: Red Rock Canyon, Hinton Oklahoma

This is where we went last weekend for my family reunion on my Mom's side.  It started the year I was born so we can kind of guage how long our family has been meeting by counting the lines on my face.  Fortunately we don't actually do that though.  Isn't this a beautiful place?  The sky is always so blue here this time of year, and it plays off the rose colored canyon so nicely.  

Those pointy things are the A-frame cabins we sleep in, boys in these, girls on the other side.  This is about as rough as I tend to get.  They have no bathrooms or heaters!  I usually sleep with one eye open always on the look out for daddy long legs and other spiders that might want to crawl inside my sleeping bag with me. Eek!  Not restful.

Here,  Beck'sboy and Ratchet  are scaring me with their boy antics. And of course Dandy below that, just living the dream.  He is never more content than when at Red Rock. :)
This is a picture of the boys and a couple people in my family that I took from the ground at the low spot in the corner of our area where the young and nimble can scale the foot holes in the canyon. Jamey of course counts in that category.  I always chose a safer way to go up as a young lass and still do.

Here's my cute little mom  standing with me, safely aground below the others.

We rent out this whole area each year.  It's a U-shaped part of the canyon.
Here's where I usually hang out with the lady folk turning out giant pans full of food to a hundred or so extended family members that come through on Saturday.  I don't ever know them all but I always give 'em a good look them in the eye when I ask which casserole they'd like a scoop of.  heh heh

Here are the kiddos again exploring the canyon.  This is Becksboy's third year to join us at R.R!  He is officially a regular.  It will be quite the crew once Dandy starts to bring a friend!  This year he brought dinosaurs instead.
So that's it, the hole in the middle of Oklahoma that nobody ever seems to have heard of.  I know it was quite a shock to the people who found it during the Oklahoma Land Run.  It would have been a treacherous discovery for a covered wagon caravan! My pictures don't show the highest walls but it is really an amazing site in the middle of such flat and windy lands now only a few miles off a major interstate.  
Happy weekend everyone! 

11 comments:

Jamey Clayberg said...

Good post lady-girl, always a good time (despite bad sleep) at ole' Red Rock

Maria said...

Oklahoma and Nebraska skies are so similar this time of year...

But, I still want to beat those Sooners at football...

MmeBenaut said...

Shan dear, what a lovely photo of you with your Mom and what a fantastic get together with family. The boys must really enjoy being able to run around wild out there. For you, I suppose it is an opportunity to let Jamey and the rest of the family look out for the boys, especially while you're in that big ole kitchen.

We have a different version of a big Red Rock down here - it's somewhere in the middle of the country. lol

Wendy said...

Wonderful pictures!! I bet you had a blast, despite the daddy long legs! :-)
Looks beautiful and restful. I hope you got off the ground a did a bit of climbing, too!!

Jenna Jean said...

Looks like a blast! So when are you old enough to bring a friend? hint hint!

AfricaBleu said...

Thanks ever so for including MyBoy in your annual trips--he looks forward to them now! He had fun, as always.

I laughed at your description of you and your mom being "safely aground" because you can so see the boys' legs dangling right over your heads--what? Six feet from the ground? Haha. You are quite the OutdoorsBerg.

I'm glad you had fun; glad that you made it back to civilization in one piece.

AfricaBleu said...

Oh, and the video finally loaded up on my slow system--yipes! I take it back--fraught with danger, that canyon! Our boys are like Spidermen, aren't they? Without the safety of webbing, though . . .

Shan said...

Well yes, Bleu. I was of course joking in my non-adventurous way about being safely aground in that photo. But, that is the place with the footholes where you can climb up if you ARE Spiderman. The whole rest of the U-shape is several stories high and you saw how our boys stumble around near the edge.

Jamey and I certainly give them limits on how close they can get because it is a swift drop off. My brother and a friend had to be rescued midway up on the other even higher side. They were stuck on a little ledge with a spindly tree-cliffhanger style!

I was hoping you would see the video though-teehee.

Fifi said...

That's a wonderful family tradition, BUT .... catering for over 100 people that's something else!
Looks like a lovely spot!

dive said...

What a wonderful place, Shan. I'd have loved to have that to play with when I was a kid.

Your mom's cute!

dean r said...

hello long lost friend.
I am glad to see you getting in that reunion, please next time I'd like pics of ma and her ma too. ha
later .