TISHOMINGO NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE.
Day 171 – The rain on the roof was very soothing; we slept till after 8:00 this morning. It was warm & humid and still raining. Fog hovered over the Creek which had risen during the night. We made egg salad for sandwiches and headed out for the Wildlife Refuge, getting gas on the way out.
It rained lightly most of the day; the high was 67 degrees & humid. Tishomingo National Refuge was only a few miles from our campsite. It is a fisherman’s paradise & there are many lakes, rivers, and creeks. The lakes & creeks were swollen and running rapidly; some roads were flooded and a dock or two were under water. We stopped at the Wildlife Refuge Headquarters to get more information. The Ranger was very helpful, giving us maps & brochures and explaining the history of the Refuge. The Headquarters were housed in a crowded trailer. This was because the previous HQ were destroyed by flooding in 2015 and they are currently planning to rebuild. Originally the lands which encompass the Refuge belonged to the Chapman family. These were very fertile farmlands and the area was well-known for its progressive methods of farming. All was destroyed when the Denison Dam was constructed and the area was flooded in 1943. The farmland and the many buildings were submerged. Now the Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge uses some of the concrete roofs of the submerged buildings as viewing platforms. The many lakes offer refuge to birds and animals. Roads run through the refuge and camping is allowed at the refuge at a small, six-site campground near the Headquarters, plus six single sites at six lakes. There is hunting, fishing, boating, and hiking. We drove through most of the open roads at the Refuge. Many were muddy and the ends of some were flooded. There were supposedly many bald eagles but we didn’t see any. With all the rain, it wasn’t the best day to be birdwatching.
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
We got back to the RV mid-afternoon. While sitting around, we noticed that cars were still driving by our campsite, slowing down and staring as they went by. We wondered if it was just because this was a Park and people always drive by, or were they coming to see how high the Creek was running, did we have food in our teeth, or what? The campground host stopped by later to tell us that he’d had a visit from the City today and was told that no one should be camping on the sites where we were camped and that no one should be dumping tanks there. Even the campground host was unaware of this. Is this why folks were gawking at us? I guess we’ll never know. But I couldn’t help but be reminded of when my sister & I were kids and we visited Marysville, KS with our dad & stepmother, Donna, who had been born & raised there. Marysville was a very small farming town & our visit to the local ice cream store actually made the front pages of the local newspaper. Hopefully our visit to the campground in Tishomingo did not create news here. At 9 p.m. it was still raining steadily. We’re leaving tomorrow; maybe it’ll have stopped raining by then.