Quartz Mountain Inspiration

I went on a virtual little vacation this week. My son and his bride of two years slipped over the border into Oklahoma for a few days stay at Quartz Mountain Lodge. They sent pictures of their days thanks to her iPhone. What fun. I’ve made that trip several times and felt like I was along for the ride with them as they climbed and listened to the sounds of the water.


Quartz Mountain is really only a hill in southwest Oklahoma but it was the seed planted, thanks to Kirkland family reunions in my childhood, of a mountain that would later be the spark for Whispering Mountain—a five book series I will be finished writing this year.

When people ask me where my ideas come from, I’m usually clueless, but sometimes I know where the spark started. I remember climbing that hill and setting on top with Tom and thinking I could see forever from that spot.

Maybe it’s because I write historicals. Maybe it’s because I love history, but sometimes I feel like the past walks beside me.

The kids also visited Quanah Parker’s and Geronimo’s graves at Fort Sill.
A touch of my history: I had an Uncle named Dolan Parker who’s ancestors came from Parker’s Fort, the place where Cynthia Ann Parker (mother to Quanah) was captured.

In the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, a walk across campus from my office, Quanah Parker’s headdress is on display. I’ve heard people who visit it say they can still feel the power of the last great Comanche chief coming from his war bonnet.