Turner Falls - A much needed break

My sister Priyanka, had a spring break last week. Most of the time we spent in cleaning the house so at the end of the week, we were all in need of a well deserved break..One of her school friend was visiting us during the weekend. Friday evening when I reached home, our friend Nileshbhai, called us if we wanted to go see some movie...Desiring the much needed break, we agreed and went to see last chance Harvey...Its an Ok kind of movie..Too dramatic..I loved hearing the English and Irish accents...After the movie we went to eat at chipotle and finally went home where Disha and Sapan joined us..While sitting, I was telling them, how it would be a good idea to take a break..All of us were probably enough stressed in the week, that the idea of the break sounded tempting and was met with zero resistance except for one of our friends, sunny who could not join us because of his schedule..So there, on a friday night around 11 pm we decided to head to Turner Falls in Oklahoma and stop by Winstar Casino on the way back..Having been to Turner Falls in Nov 2007, I knew it would be a good place for a picnic, but the fun we had outgrew my expectations, because last time when I visited it was cold winter time and this was the spring season... Most of the friends in the group have know each other for atleast couple of years now and we are very compatible group..Friday night after deciding the final plan nileshbhai, bhabhi, disha and sapan departed my place around 1 am..Next day we were on the way to Oklahoma falls around 8 am..Strangely enough, disha was the first one to wake up amongst all of us and also disha and sapan reached on time at nileshbhai's place..The drive was good, about 2 hours from my place...Pretty much most of it on 35ENorth with the last few miles being scenic. Once we reached the area, we went to the scenic overlook, which we had missed last time. It was beautiful seeing the falls, the castle and the surrounding areas from the top...



Seeing the falls from the top, we all knew in our hearts, we had made the right decision to come to this place...
We entered the turners fall park area..drove through the beautiful scenic sites and flooded water bridge....
We parked our car at the parking to go the falls...It was almost 11:30 and most of us were hungry...So being obvious, we decided to cross the river side and picnic on one of the benches overlooking the river..That morning, I had a chance to cook some pulaav rice for all of us, and disha had brought lots of snacks, so we took all the food we were planning to eat from the car trunk and headed towards the picnic tables crossing the river carefully by stepping on the rocks....


I think treading through the moving river made us forget about how hungry we were and start on the adventure ride...Some of us were involved in playing catching with a small tennis ball sapan had brought along..Some of us were busy in posing for photographing...and so that triggered the reaction of messing into each other business which started with all the crazy idea of throwing ball on the people in the group posing for photos and them throwing the unwanted ball into the river and then people trying to rescue the ball from the river waters...The water in general looked quite good, but at the sides there were some moss, which made going to the river edge to get the ball quite yucky and throwing the ball quite entertaining...


After we had enough of the play sessions, our stomachs were hurting with hunger..So finally we decided to eat the yummy pulaav ;)..It was drizzling a little bit while we were eating, but no one cared...Everyone was so hungry, that there was hardly any noise while we were eating...Also it started to get a little bit cold, since the sun was hiding in the clouds and the water drizzles made the air chilly...Once we were done eating, we went our way back crossing the river to drop off the containers as well as the trash..Finally most of us also picked up jackets from our cars. On the way back, we decided to go to the falls, through the river, stepping on the water and the stones and having fun with the splashes. We showed each other way and helped to pass through places which were quite slippery sometimes...



And so finally we reached the destination...heheh..the falls....Amazing and beautiful as always..A regular walk of 10 minutes was extended into an hour and half fun treading through the river for all of us....Seeing the falls,the first thought, disha and I had was the water was less, comparative to what we saw when we went there in Nov 07, but the water has its own beauty and charm...We were mesmerised by the falls...


We enjoyed the view for quite a while and then decided to take the hike for the caves and view of the top..It was a wonderful adventure, not difficult at all, but fun stepping on the rocks and finding the way through the mountains...we reached a beautiful cave on the top, which had some dangerous pathways, which lead to the top of the falls..Sapan was more adventurous than us all and decided to go there..I am sure the view was heavenly from that place as I could judge from the photos he took from there...We decided to move on talking and walking and admiring the nature..The weather was getting better with no sun, but no rain too, so there were more people coming onto the top...We saw the sight of other small falls and the river and then some tents were visible at a our distance which pinched our curiousity and we decided to go to the river...now we had reached the top and to go to the river, it was a downhill climb, and the route was not normal...so we had to find rocks and paths on our own to reach the bottom, most of it was not bad, except the final one, which was a long rock and thus needed a jump or some support from someone at the bottom to actually reach the end...finally all of us did it..yahooooooooooo....The river reminded me of the river bias in manali, which rocks and water treading its way.....the water had not been much since it was still the start of summer and we did not have much rainfall yet, so that enabled us to jump from rock to rock inside the river and keep on going.....finally after about 2 long hours, some of us felt hungry and tired...so we decided we will head back.....and thus came back again to the falls.....the joy of being one step closer with nature was fantastic...finally after reaching the main falls again, we decided to sit at the main rock of the falls and observe the falls..by that time there were lots of people bathing in the water falls..we also saw a tortoise inside from the rock, which was funny since I was out of water on the rock, but would have been scary if I had been inside..hehehe..

Finally Nileshbhai and Sapan, decided to be more adventurous and climb the rocks from where the water was falling...It was a dangerous climb, though lots of kids were already there, but I think the adventure was worth it...

It was around 5 pm and we decided we will start heading home, since we had plans to stopby at the Winstar Casino...Winstar casino is big, I have been there about 3 times now, but this was the first time, i actually saw the other areas past the front region where we normally play on the 25cents machine..They have made the interiors like paris, beijing beautiful...I had put few dollars and had won about 40 dollars till I lost is all again...But isnt that what casinos are meant for?? Loosing?? Did someone actually win something???(Huh, well if that someone is smart enough to cash out before they start loosin yeah.........)

Overall a fantastic trip and I would look forward to more trips like this in future...

XOXO
Bhumika