Adler's Midwest Meandering Spring 2021

 Today is Friday, and we wanted to do some caching close by, as they threatened with rain today, but it didn't materialize.  We did have storm warning alerts tonight with 50 mph winds but those storms are in Grady Co., northeast of us.  We always highlight the counties the counties on a map, that surround our campgrounds, wherever we are, so if we get storms we just have to look at our map. It is plenty windy here yet tonight after a very warm day.  We soon found out that the country roads in Oklahoma are gravel and very dusty!  Ugh. We didn't stay out long, as it just wasn't fun!  We ran into damp log sheets, or no log sheet, or no cache at all.  Or we just couldn't find it!  We did find one that some people before us filed a DNF on.  We even know them!  We camped in the same campground a few years ago at Hillsdale State Park in Kansas, and they are from Abilene TX.  They wanted to 'befriend' us through Geo-caching, so we can keep in contact with them.  It's a small world.  So, we found a few caches today and I will tell you about one of them.  It was a missile site from the Altus AFB and it was activated on June 1, 1961.  There were 12 sites that were built and formed a ring around Altus with 11 missiles in OK and the other one in TX. They were manned 24-7 during the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis and were always on high alert. Each missile was housed in a 'silo launcher' style complex and the range was 6,000 miles.  The project was inactivated on March 25, 1965 when the threat was over.  Another thing that happens in the area this weekend is the Waurika Rattlesnake Festival!  I am assuming that the rattlesnake is not protected in Oklahoma, like they are in Arizona.  One more thing that I should have mentioned back when I talked about Old Laguna and the Pueblo Mission there.  President Biden has appointed Deb Haaland to the Secretary of Interior and she has been approved.  She is the first Native American and woman to hold that office.  She lived in the Old Laguna Pueblo and Mission area.  Jim's sister, Virginia has passed away but I'm sure she knew her as she was living there since 1993 until 2006.  So, now I will post a few pictures that I didn't do at the time and feel they belong here.  

                                             This was an arch that we saw in the Bisti area.

  

                                               This is another shot in the Bisti area.

  We saw this pretty little Shamrock-like plant on top of the highest point in the Wichita Mountains. 

One of us had to climb this rock at the highest point to get a number off a survey marker up there.  Jim was elected! 

This geo-cache took us to this little cubby hole in the mountain.  We think it was a bunker, and it was pretty solid!  It was thick wall cement and had a steel door. 

Another geo-cache took us to the largest picnic table in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.  It was huge!  It is constructed with cement and rocks for pedestals for the table and benches.  We have one more day here and we are ready to get out of the wind!  It's been a good stay, and we did see a lot of new country here, but we didn't get all the caches in the preserve because of the wind.  One always has to keep something for next time.