Category Archives: Arkansas

Heading back west

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Yes, we were happy to get to the monument at the end of the boardwalk, but remember we weren’t going to be happy in a little bit? As we were driving back to Wynne on a 2-lane Arkansas road, just minding our business. The next thing I see a red truck drifting into our lane! I did not have any time to react as the red truck hit my driver’s side rearview mirror. It made a terrible sound and I immediately pulled over.

A car that was following us also pulled over and gave us their info as witnesses to the incident. I did a u-turn and exchanged information. A passenger in their vehicle started questioning their fault, saying we just clipped mirrors and no one was at fault. I told them I had a dashcam that shows otherwise. Here is the footage:

https://youtu.be/gwT9XGSY3kg

We picked up all the remnants of our mirror and headed back to Wynne, stopping for a bite at a Waffle House. The mirror was pretty much unusable:

I got in touch with the local Ford dealer (thankfully they had one there) and ordered a new mirror assembly, knowing the insurance would reimburse me. It was only about $2100! However, it did not arrive until the day we were leaving so we delayed a bit to get it installed. In the interim we did a jury-rig on it:

We said goodbye to our traveling companions, the Chens, as they were continuing east but we were heading back west to get to our grandson’s birthday. We were also trying to get away from this oppressive, humid heat so we were taking a northerly track.

We started heading NW and ended up in Mansfield MO for the first night. We stayed at the Laura Ingalls Wilder RV Park, which is across the street from the Laura Ingalls Wilder house. We will visit that another time. Our next stop was supposed to be a bit further north and west but Roxie saw something about Branson MO and it was pretty close, so we decided to go see it. We stayed at an Escapee’s park there. We got to see a town full of touristy attractions. We saw the water display on the waterfront (including flames!):

We also went to the butterfly palace and got to make some new friends.

We got back on our path after leaving Branson, cutting through a corner of Kansas and into Nebraska. We stopped in Wamego KS. They have a museum dedicated to the Wizard of Oz and have OztoberFest every year, but we were too early.

After we left Wamego, I noticed a vibration in the truck. Stopping and looking at the tires, I found a bulge starting on one of the truck tires. I was able to find a tire store in the next town that was still open and had the old guy (older than me!) put on our spare.

Bulge on tire
Nice looking spare!

I have noticed in Nebraska that many of the small towns will have city RV parks for travelers. We stayed in Diller, NE that was $14 normally but they also took Passport America which brought it to $7 for full hookups! Amazing, but why else would we have stopped in Diller?

After leaving Diller it was a short drive to Fairbury. We stopped to see Roxie’s brother’s ex-wife and she was very surprised to see Roxie but it was a good visit. We headed on to our next night’s stay, eating at a Runza on the way. The overnight stay was in a good RV park for the night, but only one night. We did get a nice thunder and lightning display that night though.

We continued our western path, stopping in Ogallala for a night and taking 4 nights in Cheyenne. Cheyenne doesn’t seem to have very many nice RV parks and we found one not-so-nice one, the Restaway Travel Park. We didn’t get full hookups there (no sewer) and there were many long-termers there. Oh well, we were just there for a break and to get trailer tires. We had almost 48K miles on the current tires and could have gone more but it is hard to put a dollar amount on safety. Now we needed a truck tire. Since the tires were originals and we were very close to 50K on those, we got a new set on the truck also. We only had to pay for 3 since the one with the bulge was covered under the extended coverage I had.

Cheyenne is not somewhere I would like to live but they did have a nice locomotive on display:

My father was a very big train fan, and it rubbed off on me to a degree. It is always nice to see the old iron!

Keep heading west! We stopped for a night in Rawlins WY and then a night at Lyman WY. The Lyman stop was a KOA that reminded me a lot of my parent’s KOA in Redding when I lived/worked there. This one was a family operation also and it was fun talking to them.

A few nights in Brigham City UT, then 2 stops in NV before a week just past Reno. We were still looking around for places to move. However, in the Reno area, we fought very bad smoke from wildfires, something the take into consideration.

One thing we found in the Reno area, that I found interesting was this:

What I find interesting are the names. These names are my last name and my sister’s last name after marriage (or both the last names she has used in her life).

We made it to our westerly destination (San Francisco) in time to celebrate our grandson’s 5th birthday. We then returned to our son’s house before we take off again.

Eastbound leg #2

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Leaving our camp spot in Texola, OK, I noticed there was a minor attraction in this itty-bitty town. Marcia found it also so we had to go by it! We drove down a road like this to get there:

We ended up at the one-room jail:

We continued eastbound but this time on some actual Route 66 road top. We had not been able to divert too much from running on I-40 until now! My trip routing took us on primarily state and county highways, bypassing the bulk of Oklahoma City. Out on these roads, you get to see small towns and all kinds of things traveling along:

Courthouses in the middle of the road!
A farm implement that you need to give a WIDE berth.
And wind turbine blades.

We spent that night in Henryetta OK at one of the worst RV parks I have ever stayed in. Almost worse than the one in Fort Stockton, TX.

Leaving the next day would get us to Arkansas. A state we have not been to with this trailer before so we can put another sticker on our map. We again got on a back highway, saw some great scenery, and ended up in…..Toad Suck!

This is just outside of Conway AR and it was an Army Corps of Engineers campground that was put in next to the dam and locks on the Arkansas River.

A closer view of the locks. You can see the bridge of a barge near the red signs.

This campground is tremendous, with lots of grassy areas, with full hookups but it was SOOO humid! If anyone happens to go there and finds a pair of binoculars, let me know because I think I lost them there.

Conway is close to Little Rock and we were here for 2 nights so we took a day trip down to look around. We first headed to the Capitol Building:

To the north of the capital is a memorial to the “Little Rock Nine“. This was the group of nine black students that were enrolled in the all-white Central High School in Little Rock. It was very controversial. After our capitol visit, we went to the National Historical Site regarding Central High School and learned all about this incident.

As we were looking around we talked to a man that actually went to Central High about 10 years after the ‘nine’ did. He said it wasn’t any better then, which is too bad. In light of all that is going on in this country, I found a plaque and statement that I think sums up how it should be:

Exactly!

The next stop in Little Rock (North) was Marcia’s recommendation for a stop at the Old Mill. This building was used in the opening shots of Gone with the Wind. You can walk all through it and around the grounds. It was a great find, way to go Marcia!

The next day was the short leg to Wynne AR. This is where Roxie’s mom was born so we were going to do some research and it was where we would part ways with the Chens. They would continue on to the east coast and we would return back west. We hit Wynne right around lunch so we had to eat and found a southern food restaurant (Johnson’s Fish House and Diner). We parked in the back:

We stayed at Village Creek State Park near Wynne. A wonderful park with great amenities and scenery. We saw deer and fox from our site in a grassy area across from us.

We were there for multiple days and we did a bit of research about Roxie’s mom but there weren’t too many records, at least we got a feel for the area. We all did go around and investigate the area. One day we went to Memphis to go to the National Civil Rights Museum. We had to get tickets for an afternoon visit so decided to eat somewhere. We ended up at Gus’ World Famous Fried Chicken. Not sure how world-famous it is but it was pretty good.

The National Civil Rights Museum is on the site of the Lorraine Motel. This is where Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. It was very informative as I am not old enough to remember the happenings.

The room where MLK was standing.
The view from the building where the shooter was.

Another day we took a day trip to another location of historical significance. However, on the way I found some curious train tracks that crossed each other:

The place we were heading to was the Louisiana Purchase State Park. This park marks “the initial point from which all surveys of property acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 originated”. It was all swampy with an elevated boardwalk to the marker:

The happy group at the marker:

We were happy to get there but the sweating was real! And we wouldn’t be very happy soon after this picture. More about that in the next installment…