Wichita Mountains

We made one last trip to the mountains this year before it started getting a little cold. 

It was the weekend after they got the fire out. There was a huge fire in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma. When I say huge, I mean, I think it burned over 40,000 acres. That's quite a bit of land. 

After doing a short search I came across this photo, which I did not take.

Credit for this goes to this photosteam. 

Looks like it's the view of a piece of the area from Fort Sill.

Here are a few photos that I did take.

The first few show what most of the ground looked like as we were driving. It's insane how a fire can hit one side of the road, and not the other... or go in a complete circle, but miss a 5x5 patch in the middle. 

This past summer has been fairly bad with fires in the southwest.

Usually we spot lots of buffalo. This trip, we only saw a few.  The rest must have been in hiding!

But, there were plenty of longhorns. 

And you can't forget the prairie dogs!!

I leave you with a photo of me.

Lets ignore the fact that one of my shirts was pulled down oddly too much in the back. hah.

Fair Food

The Texas State Fair is in some ways, just like any other state fair. There are rides, games, exhibits, museums, car shows, vendor booths...The thing that sets this particular state fair apart from the others? The fried food. It is well known for having the craziest fried food. Every year they even have awards handed out for the most creative and best tasting.
Chuck and I spent a weekend in Dallas and headed out on the fairs opening weekend. There was so much to choose from!! What would we want to try a sample of? The award winning fried bubblegum?(Most creative, though others have said it was terrible tasting.) Last years fried beer? Fried chicken skin? Fried salsa? The list goes on...

The first thing we went for won the Best Taste this year. Fried buffalo chicken flapjack. A piece of chicken that was shoved on a stick, and battered in a jalapeno buffalo pancake batter. Maple Syrup on the side for dipping.
Amazing.

We also grabbed up some fried ribs, and a Koolaid pickle.  Fried ribs were an epic fail.  They were pretty terrible. The fries were horrible as well.
The pickle on the other hand was pretty good. I may try to make up a batch myself!

We also had to have a funnel cake. I would show it to you but, well...