Free Range

We were the great free rangers...the free rangers of legend.

Or at least we felt that way.

We felt that way last weekend while walking the grasslands and mountains of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in southern Oklahoma.

Ten students.  Three teachers.  59,000 acres.  Cold nights.  Warm days.  Camp fires.  S'mores.  Tall tales.  Fresh air.

The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is one of my favorite places.  It was established in 1905 by President Theodore Roosevelt and conservationist William Temple Hornaday in order to reintroduce buffalo to the plains and save them from extinction.

One of my favorite writers, N. Scott Momaday, was born in 1934 just a few miles north of the refuge on the banks of Rainy Mountain Creek.   Momaday was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for House Made of Dawn and received the National Medal for the Arts in 2007 for his work that celebrated and preserved Native American oral and art tradition.

Though we only spent three days in the Wichitas, we experienced American bison (Bison bison), Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni), whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus), coyotes (Canis latrans), Blacktail Prairie Dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus, a Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), a Red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus), Mississippi kites (Ictinia mississippiensis), Canada geese (Branta canadensis), a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea), and a very agitated Lark Sparrow (Chondestes grammacus).

If you haven't been there, I recommend it.  I think it's the most exotic outdoor experience within three hours of Fort Worth.  Take Hwy 287 to Wichita Falls, head north on interstate 44, then head west on OK Hwy 49.

Three hours, door to door.

You too can range freely...