Charon Gardens

On Tuesday, October 17th, I took the day off and drove down to the Wichita Mountains and hiked to the top of Elk Mountain. At the summit awaits a collection of huge boulders that I believe is called the Charon Gardens. It was one of those incredible October days where the sun shone brilliantly through a deep blue autumn sky and the hike was very enjoyable. It took me about 45 minutes to reach the top and it was a fairly tough vertical climb across a mostly rock-lined path. At one time the Wichita Mountains, which lie in southwest Oklahoma near Lawton (and Medicine Park I should add) were as majestic as the Rockies but over time have eroded and left primarily an impressive array or boulder-encrusted hills that no amount of wind and water could ever hope to dent. As tough as it was going up, I believe it was more difficult coming down, certainly on my ankle joints, as every step required careful selection of the right rock to step upon. In fact, one time I almost sprung an ankle (my right gouty one), but was lucky to catch it before it really went.

One aside: as I was driving along the road in the wildlife refuge I came over a hill and saw a large beastly figure awaiting me toward the bottom about fifty yards away squarely in the middle of the road. I'll be damned if my first thought wasn't "Big Foot" and it took a few more seconds for the reality of this figure to be revealed to me. Turns out it was a wayward buffalo that was positioned in such a manner that I had been viewing it head-on and thus saw only the two feet and a beastly mane. I slowed down and it cotinued on its slow meandering way across the road taking its own sweet time.

Question: why did the buffalo cross the road?

Answer: uh, becasue it wanted to?