VACATIONING DURING THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

I took vacation this year from July 21 to July 27.  My daughter and grand daughter flew in from Florida and my other daughter and grandson came down from Tulsa. The title of my blog came due to the extremely hot and muggy days we were having.

Ever wonder what "dog days" means? Well, I did so I had to look it up.  Here's what it had to say.

The brightest of the stars in Canis Major (the big dog) is Sirius, which also happens to be the brightest star in the night sky. In fact, it is so bright that the ancient Romans thought that the earth received heat from it. Look for it in the southern sky (viewed from northern latitudes) during January. 

In the summer, however, Sirius, the “dog star,” rises and sets with the sun. During late July Sirius is in conjunction with the sun, and the ancients believed that its heat added to the heat of the sun, creating a stretch of hot and sultry weather. They named this period of time, from 20 days before the conjunction to 20 days after, “dog days” after the dog star.

Thought that was rather interesting!  Yet I could definitely say Oklahoma and Texas are having a wee bit more than dog days.  We're having a drought!! But that is subject to change!! We finally got a small cool front with some rain last night and today!! YEA!!  We'll see what the rest of the week brings.  I pray we'll be out of  this blasted 105-113 heat soon because I'm not fond of having to stay in the house all the time!   

On to the reason for this blog.  I had a wonderful time with my girls.  We didn't do much but we decided to go to a favorite place we all really enjoy. Little Niagara in the Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Sulpher, OK.


Now here is a picture of the falls last year.  

When we arrived this year the place was crowded,but we were still able to find a picnic table close to the falls.  This is how the falls looked this year.

Barely a trickle went over the falls.  The creek water was dirty not crystal clear as it usually is.

My oldest daughter and grand kids went in and took their usual walk up to another small fall and back down to the large fall.  See the girls in the background?  That's the small fall. It was barely trickling down the rocks.  


We all had fun but it didn't last very long since it was hot and crowded.  Here are some more pics I took.

After we ate our picnic lunch my youngest DD put down a couple towels over the plastic tablecloth so she could lay down and read.  I was in sitting in my lounge chair taking pictures and watching people.  I love to watch people!!  You see some very interesting things.

This is a little fall just below the big (LOL) Little Niagara fall.  I was wanting to take a picture of a small cave I saw down at the  bottom of these rocks.  I wasn't watching where I was walking so of course I slipped on some moss and landed on my rear. When I fell I tried to catch my self with my hands and jammed my thumb on my left hand.  I sat there rather stunned that it had happened.  A teenager did ask if I needed help, but I said no.  Took my a bit to get up.  I felt like an idiot for not taking into consideration there being moss on the rocks that was still wet.

I just thought this little pool of water was kinda cool looking.

My granddaughter so graciously took the camera and went down to take this picture for me.  I never even realized there was a small opening in these rocks.  Course you never really saw it due to the water flowing over the rocks.  Or maybe you could and I just never noticed it.


The only other interesting thing we did was take the grand kids to a splash pad not too far from my house.  They enjoyed it until too many people started coming there, so we decide to go home. On Tuesday night we went to see  the "Green Lantern" movie.  It was better than what I thought it would be.  My niece ask if I would babysit her dog on Saturday.  Her  Mom was having to study for her sermon Sunday so she really did need to be watching little Lucy. I'll tell you all bout that in another post I'll share this weekend. Other than that the only exciting thing we did was watch movies at home, sleep and eat take out food my daughter from Florida wanted. Hey, there were things here she did not have in Florida so we let her do most of the choosing.   Not the most exciting vacation, but I did enjoy being with my daughters and grand children. Oh, I forgot my youngest DD and I did some thrift shopping one day, but I'll post about that one later.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!