Where’s Nico?

Okay… This may be the last Talking Heads song I go with for a title. I love this little tune off “Speaking in Tongues”, but I realize we’re well past where anyone outside of pretty big fans will know what the heck I’m referring to.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re curious what “must be the place”? Time to answer the question on all of America’s mind… Where’s Nico?

This week’s answer is Wichita Mountain National Refuge!

So, we’re on a six month adventure that is going to have a TON of highlights, but Wichita Mountain is a highlight that I want to focus on for a bit here.

A lot of the folks reading this blog are from the finest city in the world, the City of Fountains, Kansas City. Wichita Mountain is about six and a half hours from KC, which means this place is a very doable weekend trip. I want to take a moment to sell you on why you should make this effort.

I’m a huge national park fan – but I must say, if you’re focused on the 63 national parks in the U.S., you’re probably missing some amazing opportunities. The national parks in this country are incredible. But, especially in recent years, they can be a bit crowded. That’s not to say you shouldn’t visit them – you absolutely should! But if you have an opportunity to visit a national forest, a national monument, a national refuge, etc. – you can see some amazing sights in this country with a small fraction of the crowds. I would recommend Colorado National Monument or Grand Mesa National Forest WAY ahead of a place like Hot Springs National Park or even Rocky Mountain National Park, and you’ll find you often have the trails almost all to yourselves.

Wichita Mountain National Refuge was set up over a hundred years ago, initially to serve as a refuge for bison, which had been hunted to near extinction. At this point, there are hundreds of bison there to greet you, along with hundreds of longhorn steers, elk and deer. We also saw wild turkey and these awesome blue green lizards called collared lizards:

We also got to meet a very well fed raccoon that would get stuck in the dumpster near our trailer on almost a daily basis. I don’t have a great pic of him, but I’ll share it – he would get stuck in the bottom of the dumpster and just wait for a large branch to be put into the dumpster for him to escape.

Once a tree branch was placed in there, he would scoot out and run for his chunky life into the woods. And yet, he’d be back there again by the next day.

So… I mentioned the wildlife, but there are many other selling points to Wichita Mountain. It has a wonderful visitor’s center, and a ton of wildflowers (at least at the time I’m writing this, in mid April). There’s a very nice campground in the park, Doris Campground, and if that’s all full (as it was when we decided to extend our stay over the weekend), there’s a campground just outside the park at Lake Lawtonka that you can crash at too. I will say, I recommend Doris, but here’s a photo of our sunset at Lake Lawtonka – our second choice of the two:

So, what I’m saying is – you’re going to dig this, even if it’s the second choice.

There are a couple of small towns near Wichita Mountains National Refuge – Cache and Medicine Park. We only skirted a bit into Medicine Park, but I think it looks like a fun place to explore – it’s just that our thing is more hitting the trails than visiting the towns. But there’s an aquarium in Medicine Park and it looked like some neat stuff around the river that runs through it.

But the thing we loved, even more than the campground and the wildlife, was the hiking in the area. We did a number of hikes in Wichita Mountain, and I’d highly recommend all of them, as would Nico, as you can see from this picture:

I’ll discuss a couple of the trails, in case you’re interested in coming to check this place out.

My favorite trail was the Bison Loop. It was about six and a half miles, with a small amount (under 500 feet) of climb. As we hiked into it from the Longhorn Trail, we let Nico choose the direction, which was counter-clockwise. That took us by some beautiful views and a wonderful canyon, before hooking around and taking us by a series of dams on the way back.

If that distance sounds a bit much for you, or if you have a few days to explore, I’d recommend the Kite Trail. It’s an out-and-back trail that takes you on the other side of the same canyon as the Bison Loop. It’s under three miles, and a great chance to see the canyon and probably also spot some of those collared lizards.

My next recommendation is the Narrows Trail. This isn’t to be confused with the amazing Narrows Trail at Zion National Park, but it’s beautiful! There are several water crossings, and if you’re with kids who love to climb around on jungle gyms (or if you’re an adult who still loves to climb on jungle gyms!), it’s a blast! There are a ton of ways to approach it as you follow along the stream, and it’s just plain fun. The pic at the top of this post was from that hike.

This is a just a short jaunt, but if you camp at Doris Park, I recommend a short hike towards Little Baldy, bringing a beer or two along to watch the sunsets. Overall, this park had a great mix of wildlife, flora, and natural beauty, all with almost no one around you to get in the way.

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So… I’ve spent several weeks telling you about all the beauty of taking a trailer out for an exploration of this amazing country. “But Ken…”, you’re probably thinking, “there must be some downsides….”. Well, let me tell you about a doozie that we had this week!

We own a 26″ Flagstaff trailer, which has been awesome – overall… It was built in 2019, and as you’d expect, they include a lot of equipment included in a trailer is built by other manufacturers. One of the leading manufacturers of RV toilets is a company called Dometic.

Are you a bit worried as I type this? Are you thinking “Ken… uh, why are we talking RV toilets?”

Well, your fears are well justified, dear reader! It turns out, there was a manufacturer’s defect with the Dometic 300. RV toilets are very self contained, and as a result, you don’t really address individual issues within a RV toilet, as you would at home – you usually just replace it. The unfortunate manufacturer’s defect involved a cavity within the unit where some substances could seep in, and get quite aromatic.

It made for a very aromatic trailer overall! But probably not in the best way. In the end, we ordered a Dometic 310 – a very nice porcelain upgrade to our poop-filled plastic original – to be delivered to a Home Depot in Lawton, OK, near Wichita Mountain. It arrived this week, and WOW! What an improvement!

As Cousin Eddie would say:

Well, I’m happy to say, now the shitter is a whole lot more pleasant to be around!

– Ken 4/14/24