Broken Bow, Oklahoma

Do you ever get the “new year blues” after the holidays end? I definitely do. The hustle and bustle of the end of the year is always full of excitement, many family gatherings, and a lot of junk food. After the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, it’s back to the daily grind for all of us. The Christmas decor comes down, a busy work schedule is reignited, and we start shopping for healthy food again. What a let down!

Last year, I had a really bad case of the new year blues. I just couldn’t pull myself together to get excited about the start of a new year. I think Donovan felt it, too. We both just needed to get away for a weekend and have some time for ourselves. Donovan took it upon himself to surprise me with a weekend getaway in Broken Bow, Oklahoma.

Broken Bow is in the very southeast corner of Oklahoma – just about a 2.5 to 3 hour drive from us in Dallas – which is fairly easy for us to get to. I’m not sure why we’ve never made it up there before!

Both of us worked from home that Friday, and Donovan told me to pack my overnight bag with comfy (and warm!) clothes and he’d handle the rest. While I finished working, he loaded up the car with the cooler, our overnight bags, and patiently waited until I was ready. He was so excited and anxious to get on the road, that he made me take my last conference call from the car! It wound up being a good thing though because traffic getting out of town was terrible – even at 3pm!

We took the back roads to Broken Brow, admiring the farm land and how far a part the houses were in the country. We eventually made it to our cabin about 6pm – just in time for dinner. When we pulled up, I just about fell out of the car. For a moment, I thought we had misjudged and drove to the beach!

Donovan booked SeaEsta In the Pines through AirB&B — and it was gorgeous! When he said cabin, I thought it was going to be something rickety with no heating or air conditioning. Boy, was I wrong! This gives glamping a whole new meaning!

We carried our bags inside and quickly ran around to each room exploring! SeaEsta in the Pines has 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a massive open floor plan, hot tub, gas fireplace, and an oversized covered patio looking out into the woods. No level of detail was overlooked!

Donovan came prepared and had filled the cooler with all of our favorites from Trader Joe’s so we could make homemade pizza and wine for dinner. We brought the Apple TV from home, so we could finish binge watching one of our favorite shows. Needless to say – it was one of the most relaxing nights we’d had in a long time!

The next morning, we slept in until almost 9am. Fortunately, Donovan had thought ahead and packed us breakfast foods, too, so we wouldn’t have to feel rushed to get ready and go somewhere. We enjoyed a cup of coffee in the hot tub before snacking on bacon, eggs, and biscuits. While Donovan showered, I sat in front of the gas fireplace to warm up and search on my phone for things to do.

We finally left the cabin about 11am and headed towards De Queen, Arkansas – about a 30 minute drive from Broken Bow. My grandfather’s family was from De Queen, and our family still owns some land in the area. It had been several years since I had been to De Queen, so we thought if we were this close we might as well go check it out!

As we were driving, I was trying to locate the family land on a map, but of course, I couldn’t find it easily. We had to call my mom to give us directions. You know it’s going to be a good spot when she ends with “…and it’s right across the street from the guys who have toilets in their front yard.”

On our family land, there is a natural spring. It’s only about 200 feet off the main road, but you have to know what you’re looking for, otherwise it just looks like a flooded ditch.

We stopped at the Dollar Tree in De Queen to pick up some clear containers to scoop up spring water to bring home. If you’ve never had natural spring water straight out of the ground, you don’t know what you’re missing! …nevermind the folks driving by who yelled at us out of their car window that we were going to get “brain amoebas” from drinking the water!

Across the street from the spring is one of the oldest cemeteries in the state – Norwoodville Cemetery. It’s a small cemetery with gravestones that date back to to the early 1800s. I really wanted to go walk through, however, the cemetery is also in someone’s backyard. We thought that might get a little weird.

After exploring the family land (and almost breaking and entering into multiple properties), we decided to take a drive north and make the loop back to Broken Bow. We took Highway 71 north towards Mena, AR. We were hoping to find some neat antique stores, but honestly, there really wasn’t much along Hwy 71.

By the time we got to Mena, we were starving and stopped for lunch at the Branding Iron BBQ and Steak House. It wasn’t anything super fancy, but for how hungry we were, it was delicious!

From Mena, we took Highway 88 (also known as Talimena Scenic Drive) back towards Oklahoma. This drive was absolutely gorgeous, and we highly recommend it! Since it was “off season” there really weren’t a lot of cars on the road, so we were able to take our time, stop whenever we wanted, and take the drive at our own leisure. This drive also takes you through the Queen Wilhelmina State Park. There are a few things to do in the park, including a hotel, but unfortunately we didn’t have a ton of time to do a lot of exploring, as we wanted to get back into town before it got dark.

By the time we made it back in town, we really weren’t super hungry, so we decided to stop for an ice cream cone at Okie Girls Coffee & Ice Cream. We considered going next door and doing the escape room at Hochatown Escape Games, but ultimately decided we’d rather go “dethaw” in the hot tub and enjoy the cabin for one last night.

On Sunday morning, we were super sad to leave. We enjoyed one last cup of coffee from the hot tub before packing up our bags and cleaning up, as we needed to check out by 10am.

Overall, we really enjoyed our trip to Broken Bow and DeQueen. While we didn’t do as much exploring on this trip as we would have done normally, it was really nice to simply relax and unwind.

The SeaEsta in the Pines cabin was definitely a splurge for us, however, there are literally hundreds of vacation cabins in Broken Bow, so you can’t really go wrong. I would have loved to spend more time in the state park as well as wandering around our family land, however, I think I’d need a machete or weed whacker to be able to do so. Donovan would have loved to go during prime season and spend some time on the lake – perhaps even rent a boat or kayaks.

Have you been to Broken Bow or De Queen? What places would you recommend?