Shawnee, OK Outdoor Activities

Miles and Jayne Hall opened H&H Shooting Sports Complex to blend community, education, and retail with a commitment to safely developing the sport of shooting, helping them earn a five-star rating from the National Shooting Sports Foundation. At 36 pistol, rifle, and Olympic-grade air-gun lanes, sharpshooters can propel bullets toward paper targets using personal firearms, telekinesis, or rental firearms from manufacturers such as Glock and Smith & Wesson. Instructors lead private and group classes for gunslingers of all levels, which can teach basic firearm safety or advanced pistol techniques that explain why gumballs don't make effective ammunition. The 19-lane archery range mimics real-life conditions with its interactive digital hunting simulator, and the facility also hosts an on-staff gunsmith for repairs and a retail shop that stocks new firearms and accessories every week.

A gorge filled with foam, a mountain made of tires, and a system of endless mud rivers—it’s not the nightmare of a man hoping to pogo stick across America, but a 5K obstacle course. Participants in The Hillbilly Porkchop Roundup start the day by picking up their swag bag stocked with a racing bib, t-shirt, and chip timer before lining up for an individual or team race. They'll then wind their way through 16 muddy obstacles where the object is to not only garner the best time, but to rescue the largest number of plastic pigs scattered throughout the course. After swinging through the hillbilly high bars and navigating the teetering tire bridge, runners dive into the muddy pig crawl before inadvertently hosing off in streams of a super soaker water canon.

Visitors waiting for their own circuit, or toweling off after a run can check on the kid’s in the 1-mile race, critique the eats at the State BBQ Championship, or fix their hair in the reflective chrome of a car show.

In 2011, major renovations transformed Myriad Botanical Gardens, adding a new children’s garden, architectural features, and event plazas. Upon entering, visitors have a tough first choice to make as 17 acres of rolling hills expand before the eyes. Massive sculptures dot the landscape alongside native and non-native trees, including a sycamore-tree-lined path designed in the image of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. Visitors can often be seen relaxing in the shade of these sheltering plants, taking in music at the band shell, or walking around the gardens' 2-acre lake that houses 20-pound goldfish and Japanese koi that show off by bench-pressing them.

Near the lake, the spherical, elevated Crystal Bridge catches the sun with its more than 3,000 translucent windows stretching 224 feet across and 17 feet in diameter. The architectural marvel holds more than 2,000 species of dry and wet tropical plants that cavort with visitors wandering through the lush space. As they walk through the recreated vista, it slowly morphs from a tropical dry zone that imitates a drought to a tropical wet zone that replicates native tropical rain. Realistic rock walls add texture to the indoor environment, and a tropical waterfall pushes gushes of water over the towering Wet Mountain while simultaneously denying visitors the opportunity to kayak down its face.

Water erupts in twin geysers from the tail end of riders' wakeboards as they're pulled around a lake holding a fast-moving cable. In the open water, these riders would be pulled by boats. But here, a complex series of cables runs from the hands of riders to a motor on a steel apparatus above, which drags them on high-speed rides around the lake’s circumference. Onlookers at adjacent picnic benches applaud the spectacular tricks or particularly powerful wipeouts they see, after which the dunked party swims back to shore to hop back in line for the next available cable.

Many days, visitors can find the park’s team of professional cable boarders pushing the envelope and developing new air-defying stunts off semi-submerged ramps and grind rails. The staff sets aside Mondays and Tuesdays exclusively for beginners, reserving all seven cable tows for newbies to practice gliding on the water's surface.

Andy Alligator's Water Park—next to its dry-land counterpart, Andy Alligator's Fun Park—laughs in the face of heat waves with its map of maritime attractions designed for cooling down on a hot day. The Riptide Racer's towering structure sends splish-splashers rocketing down colorful slides on their stomachs, while thrill-seekers cajole their buddies into two-person tubes before shooting through the spirals of the Banzai Pipeline. Island-themed walkways and slides festoon the play space at Cowabunga Cove, and the Paradise River lazily flows in a loop for relaxing tube rides and slow-motion reenactments of Speed 2: Cruise Control. Snorkels Café and Grill serves a menu of burgers, pizza, and sandwiches to replenish the energy spent by drenched diners.