Last week I took a trip to Tanglewood Resort on Lake Texoma on the Texas/Oklahoma border and thought I’d tell you all about it for Travel Tuesday. Since Tanglewood is dog friendly, I even brought my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Henry along for the trip! If you’re looking for a dog-friendly weekend trip that’s just an hour or so away from Dallas, keep reading.

My dear friends purchased Tanglewood Resort recently and have just started a renovation project to revitalize the hotel. Since I do their PR (don’t forget, I’m a publicist by day, foodie by night!), I’ll be spending lots of time up at Tanglewood.

I so appreciated having a real coffee maker and refrigerator so that I could bring coffee and half and half. The villas are also equipped with large TVs and a fairly large balcony with a table and chairs – the perfect spot to play cards and watch the sunset! 

The Bar & Grill serves up lovely salads and sandwiches on buttered, toasted bread. For lunch, we each got a turkey and avocado sandwich. The night before, we split Fish & Chips and the Chicken Poppy Seed Salad with fresh strawberries. I had a delicious Bahama Mama cocktail (not too sweet!) and we ate flourless chocolate cake for dessert, which was a nice portion size for a little something sweet after dinner. 

Also at the Bar & Grill, we picked up breakfast to go on our last day, splitting avocado toast with sprouts, an egg, and radishes, and hashbrowns. Both were delicious! The hashbrowns were super crispy with just the right amount of salt and the toast definitely held up to all that creamy avocado. 

On Friday night, we ate dinner at Lakeview Steakhouse and enjoyed live piano music and a sunset view of Lake Texoma. I loved my trout with almonds, a delicious cream sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Irene’s steak was super tender with a delicious demi glaze.

We split the eggplant dip and seafood platter to start. The latter included shrimp, scallops, crab lakes, and brie – you heard me! – in a mustard cream sauce. What?! So innovative! Who puts brie with seafood? It was incredible. I kept dipping my warm, toasty roll in the brie and mustard sauce. So good!

I also have the highlight the tiramisu. It’s so hard to find a good coffee tiramisu these days, as so many restaurants go heavy with alcohol. This tiramisu had a perfect coffee flavor!

The Activities

Most folks visit the area for Lake Texoma. Tanglewood Resort also has a golf course (designed by famed golfer Arnold Palmer), a spa on site, pools, yoga classes, and a gym. Construction on the pools was already underway when we were there, but the new pools should be done by mid-April. They’re also building a large stage for live music across from the Tiki Bar as well as an indoor pool. Within a ten minute drive there’s also horseback riding and boating.

There are all sorts of boat options on Lake Texoma, from lake history tours to private charters to fishing lessons to dinner cruises. Irene and I had a private charter with Beth from Fasttrac Charters. We went out on Lake Texoma for an hour and saw a bald eagle, Ross Perot’s house, and Eisenhower State Park. Beth told us that there’s over 1,200 miles of shoreline and that we only saw about 10% of the lake in our hour-long tour. 

It was pretty chilly out on the water so we warmed up with hot cocoa by one of Tanglewood’s fire pits. 

One of our last day at Tanglewood, I had a lovely aromatherapy hot stone massage with Kristy at Tranquility Spa. They are known for their mud wraps and sugar scrubs, which I must try next time!