Beaver Dunes state Park

Monday morning, darn, it's cold. But I crawl out and start the coffee making. Neither of us slept well because of being cold. Hopefully tonight will be better. We are going west across Oklahoma on Highway 412 which is supposed to be a scenic road for the first half of our trip. And it is quite nice for a long time. There is a sign saying "Sod House, 5 miles north". We haven't made any turns in quite a while so we head north. But it is closed on Sunday and Monday. It evidently is inside of the building that is there. It has been restored or preserved and it appears that the museum building has been built over it. We browse around looking at the old farm equipment that is in a lean-to building and try and guess what some of it might have been used for. Continuing west on 412 we pass the road for another state park but it is too early to stop. We have one more park left to stop at farther west. By now the road has lost it's scenery and we are in flat prairie land. The turn off to the last park arrives and we head north 15 miles to the town of Beaver where we get a Subway sandwich, a bottle of wine and fill up with gas. We arrive at the park which is below the normal Oklahoma state park standards. Once again we are the only tent in the tent camping area. There is a small lake here with people fishing and they seem to be having a lot of luck catching crappie. There is no hot water for the showers and the bathrooms have not been cleaned for some time. It turns out that the state is no longer going to maintain this as a state park and is turning the park back over to the private owners. This is a 2 part park, we are in the fishing side, the other side is sand dunes for the ATV crowd. The literature we read on the park did not mention that there is also camping on the sand dune side and that their facilities have hot water. It is not as cold as the night before so we are hoping for a better night's sleep. Evidently the birds in this area are nocturnal as they call to each other all night long. There was a big orange moon off to the east so I tried to capture it on a photo. We turn in early and listen to all of the birds. We finally get to sleep but at 11:30 somebody comes flying through the area in their pickup truck. This worries me as we are all alone out here so I cannot get back to sleep. It is at times like this that I understand why some motorcycle campers carry a pistol. It used to be that we camped with a group but we do more riding than the group does and we are often alone now. But the truck never returned and I finally got back to sleep sometime after 1:30.