Sunday started out as a drive day,
meaning we had no destination picked out. Leaving Cherokee Landing Campground we just meandered the
local roads in the general direction we wanted to go. Sometimes these
days are just a long drive and sometimes we find something
interesting and stop for a while. Today's treat would come at the end of our travels.
We crossed the Mississippi River on the lower bridge
out of Memphis Tennessee. We stopped for fuel at
the Flying J Travel Center in West Memphis Arkansas. This area is a
big trucking and shipping area as both railroads and interstates are
funneled together at the river crossing. Not wanting to share I-40
with all the trucks we elected to take route 64. We've never gone
that way and it was generally going west, so what more could we ask for!
The landscape is the same as along I-40 in this part of the state
with lots of cultivated fields, but we did get to pass thru several
small towns and villages.
In the town of Wynne we stopped at a
convenient Walmart parking lot for lunch. Wondering what the scenery
looked like in the northern part of the state we decided to change
directions, at Bald Knob we turned north on route 167.
The terrain gradually changed to forest
covered mountains and other than in the towns we saw
little housing or signs of any commercial activity. Several times the
road would crest over the top of a mountain and we would be treated
to a panoramic view that probably looked the same to early explorers.
At Ash Flat we turned west once again
and drove the roller coaster like route 62. About 4:30pm as we passed a large lake we decided
we had been on the road long enough and thought this might be a good place to spend the night. A search on the database in our
GPS pointed us to a Corp of Engineer campground on the lake and just 2
miles from where we had stopped. Turns out the campground is a gem of
a park located on a small island on Lake Norfork.
They let us drive in and pick our site
before registering and after driving thru we were so pleased with the
campground and its environs, we decided to stay for two days. The
lake around the campground recently was overfilled and they have been
slowly drawing it down. We could see where the high water mark was
about 6-8 feet above it's present level and they still have a good
8-10 feet to go before the swimming beach will be exposed.
Every time we take Maggie outdoors she
wants to go to the waters edge and play. She doesn't go swimming,
just wades at the edge and bites at wavelets and bubbles. The side walk in the picture goes down to the swimming beach.
We drove into the nearby town of
Mountain Home (pop. 15000+/-) this morning. It is a populated with
big box stores you wouldn't expect in such a small out of the way
place, I'm assuming the population swells during the summer boating
months. We enjoyed some down home cooking in a restaurant on the old
town square, it was there that we saw a couple anonymously pay for
the meal of an old crumpled man. Kind of warms the heart, I hate to
say it but in our town he would have been invisible to most people,
such is city life nowadays.
We shopped for a few provisions and
then found the post office before heading back to the campground for
an afternoon of quiet contemplation. It is one of the great joys in
life, to gaze out over the water and just be.............there are
no fancy words coming..........to just be, is a state of mind.
Miles driven Sunday=300 +/-
Fuel= 36.4 gallons, $2.09 per gallon,
total= $74.68
Sunday meals eaten onboard MH, cost= $0
Monday lunch in town, $21.00
Corp of Engineers Federal Campground= $10. a night with Senior America the Beautiful Pass.
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