Okie Bucket List: Orr Family Farm offers corn mazes, games

By Monica K. Smith, Fort Sill Public AffairsOctober 20, 2016

OBL pumpkin
1 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
OBL train
2 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – A third-sized replica of the United States' first transcontinental locomotive, the Jupiter, embarks on a 25-minute trip around the farm accommodating up to 100 adult and children riders. Its one-mile loop passes by Hidden Lake dam, the Wedding Garden... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
OBL carts
3 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – A third-sized replica of the United States' first transcontinental locomotive, the Jupiter, embarks on a 25-minute trip around the farm accommodating up to 100 adult and children riders. Its one-mile loop passes by Hidden Lake dam, the Wedding Garden... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT SILL, OKLA. (OCT. 20, 2016) -- My co-worker told me a few years ago a tornado hit Moore, and severely damaged the Orr Family Farm. Despite the wreckage, the family persisted with the help of volunteers and donors and even celebrated their 10th anniversary in 2013.

With that tiny bit of information, and a quick peek at their website, my family and I headed to Orr Family Farm.

We chose to go on a Monday thinking we'd have the place to ourselves, but I completely forgot that it's fall and schools love field trips.

There were at least three groups at the farm when we arrived around noon, which made me suspect we would have to wait in line to do the activities.

However, we arrived at a golden time -- right before the children return to school and before school is out and parents get off work.

For the most part, we didn't wait to anything, and there was a lot to do.

After getting our passes we entered the park greeted by an army of pumpkins. The pumpkins are for sale and have differing prices depending on size and type. We didn't spend too long looking at the pumpkins because we had a different priority the same priority of any family who has just driven with children for more than an hour: the bathroom.

Just so you know there are many clean bathrooms at the farm. A very important fact that you don't know you want to know about it until you need it. So there it is for you.

After we were all ready to go, we made our way to the animal barn. At the animal barn you can get feed to give to the animals and my youngest had a blast feeding the goats one pellet at a time.

We washed our hands at the washing station (genius that they made it low for small children to do on their own) and started to walk around.

We walked on the farm grounds and entered an area full of yard games such as corn hole, giant checkers, chess, a ball-tossing game where you tried to throw a football or a baseball into target holes, and a large clown "Clue"-like game where players tried to find out who the other person had as their clown. Next to it was a gem-mining station where you could pay to get a bag of dirt and then use the water to mine it and see what kinds of treasures you find.

We had a lot of fun at the pedal car races. I got in a pedal car with a seat in the back for my 2-year-old boy and we raced around the track. Then my husband got in and I chased them around the track. Then the two of them chased other children around the track. There were a lot of laughs from us, from the children, and from the parents of the children who sat in the stands with me.

As a note, we got the Farm Pass PLUS which gives you access to unlimited train rides, hayrides, the animal barn, pumpkin patch (with little pie pumpkins), pedal cars, giant jumping pillows, super slides, yard games (like corn hole), playgrounds, carousel rides and the corn maze.

It was the corn maze I was most excited about. Sure, there were a lot of cool things to do, but they're mostly for children and I wanted to have fun too.

The corn maze was for me. We hopped the hayride to the corn field and got our instructions. We received a corn-maze game sheet with a list of characters, "weapons" and locations. We were then tasked with a mission to find stations within the maze.

Each station had an image on it with different characters, weapons and locations. As we found the images we would mark off those that we found. The last remaining character would be the guilty party, the last remaining weapon would be the tool he/she used and the location would be where it happened.

After snapping a quick photo of the maze map (they didn't have any to hand out) we entered the maze. We could hear other adults and children running through it laughing and guessing where they could find the next station.

Occasionally I would let out a yell or a scream, just to add a level of "spookiness" to the maze. It wasn't very spooky. My son would let out a peal of laughter every time I screamed.

I'm a pretty good map reader, if I do say so myself. However as I looked at the maze I realized the poster didn't show the entire map, so at one point we had to rely on our memory to find our way -- but we did it. We found all the stations and were awarded with a sticker indicating our skills as detectives.

The farm also has a zombie apocalypse paintball, zip lining, cannon blasters and pony rides for an additional cost but we decided we had enough fun just with the pass we had.

You can also pay an extra $5 for a "Fall Bounce Back Pass" that allows you return to the farm later in the season. They have fireworks on the weekends along with the occasional movie playing.

There are food and drinks available for purchase and you can eat at one of the many picnic benches or sit waterside and watch the fish splash. The farm is a great all-day event for families.

For more information visit the Orr Family Farm website at www.orrfamilyfarm.com.