Touring Lake Murray State in Park Oklahoma

Today was Deb's day off we decided to take a drive around Lake Murray State Park as she hadn't seen it all and it has been many years since I was here. This is Deb's campsite. She has a real nice area all fixed up in front of her trailer. That is her gator for camphost duties.

This is Dawn's camphost spot over at Elephant Rock. It's not a great picture because she has a really nice patio area hidden in the trees on the left. It's very cozy and homey. Paul is in the site to the left of her with another great patio area.

The lake here is very low just like our lakes in Texas. This is one of the few boat ramps still in use.

Lots of new sites along the lake added to the original ones along the lake. You can see the pop up tents people have already put up to hold their place until closer to the weekend but they do still have to pay for them.

This is one of the other campgrounds around the lake. Lake Murray is the oldest and largest state park in Oklahoma. It's unique because the state park surrounds the entire lake and there are no private cabins on the lake.

I missed getting a picture of the lodge itself. There is a large lodge with a restaurant and motel like rooms as well as a lot of separate cabins in this area. This is where they rent canoes and kayaks. Right next to it is a mini-golf course. There is also a swimming pool and a riding stable.

Somehow I also managed to miss getting a picture of the big marina. They have some really large houseboats at the marina because this is a pretty decent size lake. This is Tucker Tower. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) were responsible for all the original work at Lake Murray. In addition to creating the park, they left a wonderful legacy of beautiful natural looking architectural buildings made of logs and stone.

This beautiful Nature Center is only a couple of years old. It's quite impressive inside and out. The egg looking sculpture is actually metal birds with spread wings welded together.

Beautiful views of the lake from the tower. Sad that the lake is so low though. This is a spring-fed lake so the water is very clear.

The marina is across from the tower.

As we were hiking back down from the tower, I heard a rustling noise off to the side of the path. This is a 9 banded armadillo.

His little pointy snout is on the right side digging for grubs.

For my kids and friends who used to camp here with us at the far end of Marietta Landing, this is all that is left of the cove where you used to swim and that was so popular with the scuba divers. The cove is currently land instead of water.

These are supposed to be floating cabins but as you can see, they are beached with the low water level.

It's still a very beautiful lake but I sure hope that the loss of water isn't permanent as the springs must not be filling it like they used to do.