Short Vacation

My wedding anniversary was this past Thursday, October 19th. To celebrate, my wife and I took Thursday and Friday, the 12th and 13th off and went on a little get-away trip to southeastern Oklahoma. We wanted to take the Talimena Scenic Drive which runs through the Ouachita mountains between Talihina Oklahoma and Mena Arkansas. It is supposed to have some of the best fall foliage in the state (which has large areas where most of the trees go directly from green to brown to bare in the fall), so we thought it would be an enjoyable trip.

Unfortunately we were probably about two weeks too early for the autumn colors to really be on display, but the area was still really beautiful and you could see the beginnings of fall; lots of green with splashes of yellow and red here and there. The Oachita mountains are mere foothills if compared to "real" mountains like the Rockies or Sierra Nevadas or other mountain ranges around the U.S. but they're pretty good for Oklahoma and the terrain and scenery is quite different than much of the state.

Here are a couple of photos snapped on the way there:


Heading South, somewhere between Sallisaw and Poteau Oklahoma.



It was cloudy most of Thursday, but the sun was trying to break through as we neared Poteau.


We're really bad about planning trips (we like to think we're "spontaneous"). We usually form a very general idea of where we want to go then head out and plan out the details as we go along. At the last minute, we decided to jump off Highway 259 where it intersects the Talimena Scenic Drive (about in the middle of the 54 mile drive) and follow it East to Mena, Arkansas where we would find a place to spend the night.

We planned to take the entire "drive" the next day, from Mena back to Talahina, but we really enjoyed the "preview" of it as we drove to Mena. We stopped at a couple of the many scenic turnouts along the way to take in the view. At the Sunset Vista turnout, I shot a few photos as it was, appropriately, around sunset. Here are a couple of them.




It wasn't as dark as it looks in the photos. The golden light from the setting sun, just peeking under the clouds made for a spetacular view here. These photos give a taste of the atmosphere, but can't really capture it.

After a brief stop at the Queen Wilhelmena Lodge to check on room availability (there weren't any... there's that damn planning thing) we continued on into Mena. Now here's one of the really cool things about living in the U.S. in the year 2006 (yeah there are a lot of not nice things about living here these days too, not the least of which is a government administration bent on turning the U.S. into a police state). In the (relatively) small town of Mena, we cruise slowly down the streets open our laptop and check for wireless networks. Shortly, a message pops up asking if we want to join the wireless network "whatever". We say yes, and pull over then browse the Mena Chamber of Commerce website to check out the town's lodging. From there, we check out the likely candidate's web sites to determine which one we want to stay at (all this in some gas station parking lot). Who needs planning and reservations when you can wing it like this?

We spent the night then got up the next morning and ate breakfast at the Skyline Cafe, an old diner on one of the town's main streets. After breakfast, Peggy dropped me off at a used book store we had spotted the previous evening and she went to check out some of the antique stores around town. The used book store was fairly large and had a pretty good selection so I spent a while in there and came away with 8 or 9 books. After Peggy picked me up, we checked out a couple more antique stores then headed on back to the Talimena Scenic Drive.

We followed it back up to the Queen Wilhelmena Lodge and stopped there to check out the hiking trails. We chose a relatively short one (about 2/3 mile down the mountain) and followed it down to its end at an old cistern that had been constructed in 1898 (if I remember correctly) to provide water for the lodge. It was a pleasant hike down the heavily wooded mountainside. Temperatures in the mid-70's with the shade provided by the forest made for comfortable hiking weather.


A shot of Peggy and me on the hiking trail. Sorry for the bad composition with the sun behind us.


A picture of the trail as we hiked back up to the beginning.


Hiking up the trail I noticed this small splash of sunlight thru the shadows. It had the shadows of a couple of leaves in the middle of it and presented an interesting picture.

We ate a small, late lunch at the lodge then headed west on the drive again. We really enjoyed the scenery and pulled over at several of the scenic turnouts to admire the view and snap some photos.


At one of the turnouts this roadrunner came walking up. He was pretty fearless and came to within 10 or 12 feet of us.


I shot this inside the car. It captures much of the feel of the road. Yes, those are some steep hills.


Photoshop CS2 includes a HDR image feature. HDR images are made by shooting several shots of the same scene at differing exposures. These are then combined into one image that gives you a much better range than any individual shot. The results can really be stunning, but they depend on the lighting in the original scene. This wasn't really the best candidate for such a photo because it was pretty bright out and the lighting was fairly uniform. Never the less, this is my first attempt at using this technique. It's a nice picture, but pretty so-so as far as taking advantage of HDR.

When we reached the end of the drive, we headed on back to Poteau to get a hotel for the night. The next morning we began the drive back to Oklahoma City. We stopped at Robber's Cave State Park and hiked up around the cave for a little while.


We came across a group that was rapelling down one of the cliffs. You can see one of them (in blue) a bit right of center here. Click on the photo to see a larger, 800 x 600 version.

Nearing McAlester we stopped in the small town of Krebs (I think) because they were having some sort of Fall festival. We walked up and down the main street checking out the festival. I shot this photo of an old woman sitting at a table where she was selling homemade fudge.


And, just to get completely off the topic of this post for a moment, here's the original, unretouched photo. I used a technique I learned in Dan Margulis' Photoshop LAB Color book to remove the horrific blue cast that is in the left 2/3rds of the photo. Pretty impressive if I say so myself!


We drove on into McAlester and stopped at a couple of antique stores there, then finished our drive back to OKC. Cleaned out the rental car and returned it then fianlly got home and relaxed for the night. It was an enjoyable trip and we recommend the Talimena Scenic Drive to anyone who finds themselves in the area looking for a nice way to kill an afternoon.