Enjoying Ice Cream and Family in Medicine Park
Ice cream and family – two of my favorite things. This weekend I had the chance to partake of both in Medicine Park, Oklahoma. Ice cream obviously doesn’t compare to family in terms of importance, but since this is a food blog, I mention it. And I do love it! My favorite is plain old chocolate, but there’s hardly a flavor I’d turn down. I’m pretty sure my daughter takes after me.
Anyway…back to family. We made the three-hour trip to Medicine Park this weekend to celebrate our new niece, who was adopted into my brother-in-law/sister-in-law’s family this week. Here she is with her “welcome home” cookie cake (which inspires me to experiment with making a cookie cake sometime).
We had lots of fun, as always, just being together. Here we all are:
If you’ve never been to Medicine Park and you live in Oklahoma, I would definitely recommend a visit. It’s a very historic village, located in the foothills of the Wichita Mountains. In the early 1900s, tourists began to frequent the town, to bathe in the Medicine Creek, which runs through it. You can still swim in the river (they actually had a polar bear swim this afternoon) or in Lake Lawtonka, which is right outside Medicine Park. The Wichita Mountains range is one of the oldest in the world.
Bison and other animals can be seen when hiking or driving through the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.
No visit to Medicine Park would be complete without a trip just up the road to Meers. The restaurant has its own herd of longhorn cattle and serves up plate-sized burgers and huge bowls of cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream. Today we didn’t have time to go to Meers because there was a line down the street (which isn’t uncommon) to get in.
We did try out the Medicine Park Ice Cream and Candy Company. Note the cobblestone architecture, which is typical in Medicine Park.
Being an ice cream connoisseur (at least an amateur one), I am not exaggerating when I say that they make amazing ice cream (and it’s very reasonably priced). I sampled chocolate-cherry and lemon, but ended up with chocolate peanut butter. All three were delicious!
I’ve been thinking about making homemade ice cream sometime soon. What’s your favorite flavor? Have you ever made homemade ice cream? If so, tips are appreciated!
