Friday, August 31, 2012

Raining in Eureka Springs

It rained here all day so we ran to the grocery store and stopped by the Thrift Store.
There is only one grocery store here in Eureka Springs. It's not a very large store and the prices are more expensive. Why not, you have to drive a good ways to shop at a chain grocery store.

We did get a good deal at the thrift store. I paid $4.00 for a step.

I know it's meant for exercising but it will come in handy for Miss Short legs when the bottom step isn't close to the ground. She likes it!

We noticed our neighbors spying on us last night.



Wednesday, August 29, 2012

We've Moved to Arkansas


Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Wanderlust RV Park,  
Weather Condition; High 88 Low 62, Sunny

We woke to a beautiful morning at Natural Falls state park. We didn’t get into any hurry to leave. We took our showers, walked the dogs and secured everything. Stopped by the dump station and hit the road about 9:15.

We didn’t get very far before the road construction started and in the middle of that was a fender bender. That slowed us a little but didn’t stop us. We traveled along Hwy 412 through Siloam Springs, Arkansas and Springdale. Springdale is a nice size town with lots of shopping and restaurants.

We continued along Hwy 412 to Hwy 45 and then to Hwy 12 to Hwy 23 to Hwy 62. The drive was slow once we turned onto Hwy 12. Hwy 12 is a very curvy road. My top speed was 50 mph. Hwy 23 was not only curvy it was also hilly. At one point I had a line of cars behind me as far as the eye could see.  We were the only vehicle pulling a 36 foot trailer behind us. I know those people were breathing a sigh of relief when the roadway widened to a three lane to allow for passing! Not all passed, some just wanted to save on fuel and draft off our rear bumper! It took us 2 hour to travel 67 miles!! The drive was beautiful.

We arrived about 11:30 to our new home for a month. We are a little disappointed in our site. They have an area for RV’s staying more than a week.  The area is a near the rear of the park with pull thru site sitting right next to each other. The area is a long strip atop the mountains so there is no one in front or behind you.


The sites are gravel and pretty level. We have water, sewer and 50amp electric. They have 2 social halls, swimming pool, laundry room, 2 bath houses with 3 showers each. You can catch the trolley at the park entrance.

Once we got all set up we ran down the road and grabbed a bite of lunch at Bubba’s Bar B Q.

Lunch was good. For $7.50 you get a piled high sandwich, chips, slaw and pickle. I had Beef and Dawn had pork.


We look forward to exploring tomorrow. Tonight we are relaxing with our fur kids.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Rain and Friends


West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma
Natural Falls State Park, Site 23
Weather Condition; High 77 Low 62, RAIN

Thankfully it rained here today. This area has been hit so hard by drought that many of the mature trees are dead or dying. The ground is covered with leaves as if it is late fall.

We haven’t done anything today but enjoy the sound of the rain falling.

We have enjoyed a pleasant laid back stay here at Natural Falls State Park. We have shared meals with our friends Bud and Bette and visited the Cherokee Casino in Siloam Springs one afternoon. We had lunch at the Buffet restaurant. After lunch, we all went our separate ways to the play the slots.

Dawn left with the same 20 she went in with and I left leaving my 20 behind!

Bud didn’t win but Bette did.
Bud and Bette pull out tomorrow and we pull out on Wednesday.

We are sad to see them leave but we know we will be seeing them again in a few months at Rockport for the winter. 

This is different!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Natural Falls State Park


West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma
Natural Falls State Park, Site 23
Weather Condition; High 97 Low 62, Sunny

We pulled out of Bernice State Park about 9:30 Monday morning and drove about 60 miles to Natural Falls State Park. The drive here was along a winding road with many hills. It is a beautiful drive through the country. It took almost 2 hours to get here due to the many curves in the road.

Bud and Bette decided to make the move with us so they followed along.

We’re loving this State Park. The staff is very friendly and the park is beautiful. They have 45 paved level RV sites. 


Each site has plenty of room between them. 10 of the sites are long pull-thru’s, some have 30amp and some have 50amp. They also have 8 sites they refer to as premium sites, those site have 30amp, water and sewer. The park has a separate area for tent camping. They have a nice playground, community center, covered pavilion, hiking trails and the Falls. This park has a ton of mature tree. The drought has done a number on the trees here. Many of those trees are dead.

There are only 5 RV’s here right now. It’s a quite park.

This morning we walked to the falls area and I shot a few pictures of the area.  


Dawn and Bette on the overlook of the falls



Sunday, August 19, 2012

Fun with Friends in Grove, Oklahoma


Bernice, Oklahoma
Bernice State Park, Site 16
Weather Condition; High 85 Low 65, Sunny

The weather is starting to cool off and we love it. I think it helps that our site is on the lake and we get a nice breeze too.

We’ve been having a great time with our friends (Bud & Bette). Earlier in the week the four of us drove into Grove, Oklahoma (9 miles) and visited Har-Ber Village. It’s a neat place to visit. It’s located in Grove, Oklahoma along the shoreline of Grand Lake O'The Cherokees of Northeastern Oklahoma.  It’s an outdoor walk through village containing 1,000’s of artifacts from the earliest days of our nation's founding. It’s one of the largest antique museums in the United States, complete with 112 buildings housing countless collections of antiques and memorabilia.  It’s really a very interesting place and they have done a great job in replicating an 1800's era town.

 We practically had the place to ourselves and the weather was comfortable when we first go started. A couple of hours later we were a little more than half way through  the village when it started getting hot out and we decided we were hungry.

 We left Har-Ber Village and drove to McDonald’s for buy-one-Big-Mac- Get-one-FREE. Lunch was great. We always have a great tie with Bud & Bette.

We stopped by a local sidewalk farmers market and picked up some sweet corn, tomatoes and okra.

Last night Dawn fixed a big dinner of pork roast, oven chicken, sweet corn, black-eyed peas, new potatoes and Squash casserole. Bette made slaw and a wonderful chocolate cake with ice cream.

Needless to say, we ate like lil pigs!

Tonight we had left overs and it was just as good as it was last night.



Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Har-Ber Village, Grove, Oklahoma

This is a really neat place to visit when in northeastern Oklahoma.













Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Bernice State Park-Bernice, Oklahoma


Bernice State Park, Bernice, Oklahoma – is located on the northwestern corner of Grand Lake.

This park is located in the small town of Bernice, they provide 33 level concrete RV campsites with 30 amp, water hookups, picnic table, grill and fire ring. They have a dump station, 2 comfort stations with showers, 2 playgrounds, a swimming beach, nature center, wildlife feeding area and 2 wildlife watch towers and covered picnic shelter. There is also has a one mile paved walking path.

This is an older park and it does have a worn look to it. Most of the RV sites sit side by side with few small trees except for 7 RV sites. 
The sites are located right along the water’s edge. The camp host “Bud and his wife are very friendly people.
This is not a park we will add to our list of places to stay.

Those 7 sites are spread out and under a few large trees. The water pressure at our site was not very good. The 30amp electrical plug receptacle appeared charred but worked fine.
We have good Verizon signal and 16 TV channels. 

The nearest major city is Tulsa. Grove is the nearest town of a decent size and is about fifteen miles away. Grove has Wal-Mart, Walgreens and a few other major stores.

Today we did follow Bud and Bette into Grove where we had lunch together at Drakes Café. The food was reasonably priced but wasn’t anything special but the company was the best you could ask for. After lunch we drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things.

We're really enjoying our visit with Bud and Bette. We haven’t seen them since they left Rockport.

The road to Grove is curvy and winding for almost the entire fifteen miles.

Luckily the weather here is overcast and in the low 80's. We are loving the chance to be able to sit outside and enjoy the outdoors for a change.

This area really needs the rain. there are many dead trees and most of the grass is dead due to the drought. 

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Diesel Prices and Thunderstorms


Atoka, Oklahoma
McGee Creek State Park
Weather Condition; High 106 Low 72, Sunny

It’s still HOT outside. We are being held hostage by this heat. We feed the dogs first thing in the morning and walk them before 8 A.M. Even at that time of the morning it’s in the 80’s already. We go for a short walk and the dogs tongues are dragging by the time we are finished.

The weather man mentioned that the temperatures may cool down to the high 90’s. That sounds like a real down to me at this point!

We haven’t done much of anything since we arrived here. The heat is part of the reason and the other part is the fact that this park is in a remote location. The nearest town is Atoka and it’s about 16 miles away.

We did go into Atoka yesterday morning to do some laundry and get a few groceries. While we were there we bought diesel too. We filled up our tank at $3.72 per gallon. That was as cheap as we could find it. As we were pulling out of the gas station the attendant was changing the fuel prices on the sign. New price $3.89. How on earth can diesel prices change so drastically in a matter of minutes? I will never understand how these big oil companies can get by with over charging us for fuel. I always love seeing the postings of the fuel companies quarterly profit reports. You already knew their reports would show their making huge profits!

Since I’m ranting, can I mention that some of the people that stay in campgrounds need some etiquette training. We love staying in state parks but we know if we stay in a park that has a lake then you can almost bet that the weekends are going to be loud!

During the week it’s been pretty quiet here until this week. They started pulling in yesterday afternoon. They pull in with trailers, boats and radios blaring. They unhook their boats and back in their trailers all the while their radios can be heard throughout the park. Once they have their boats in the water they turn on the radios in their boats. I like music but I try to keep it low enough not to bother others. I’m turning into a GROUCH!

Last night Dawn was preparing dinner about 6 P.M when the weatherman mentioned that there was a thunderstorm warning for the area. He went on to say that we could expect winds up to 70 mile an hour, hail and flash flooding.

I took a look at the radar on my phone and noticed this storm was heading right for us and was moving fairly quickly. I told Dawn she needed to wrap up what she was doing and prepare to go to the park shelter (restroom).  

While she finished up, I harnessed the dogs and loaded some items into the truck. Dawn then threw together a bag with bottled water, medications, flashlight and a few other items. The sky was getting darker by the minute. We grabbed the dogs and our bag and jumped into the truck just as the wind started to pick up.
The park ranger was making rounds notifying everyone about the weather.

We drove to the top of the hill and backed the truck up to the side of the restroom building and sat in the truck until the wind started blowing so hard that we decided to make a run for it. We weren’t in the restroom very long when the wind started bending the trees and the rain was coming down so hard you couldn’t see across the road.

The restroom is NOT air conditioned. There are a few vents located along the lower area of the wall. It was HOT in the building. I was able to use my phone to keep an eye on the radar. We spent an hour in the HOT restroom before we decided to make a run for the truck in the pouring rain. We were soaked by the time we got back in the truck. The wind had stopped but the rain was still coming down like crazy. The A/C in truck felt good. We remained in the truck for another 20 minutes before we decided to drive by the trailer and see how things looked.

The lightening was striking all around us so we decided not to get out of the truck. We drove around the park for another 20 minutes periodically checking the radar. Finally we could see light in the sky off in the distance and the radar showed the rough stuff was moving passed us. The rain slowed and we returned to the fiver. No damage was done but the ditches were running with water and there were a few limbs down.

Thank goodness the power was still on. We heated up our dinner and watch TV until bed time.

These storms do scare me. Not the rain as much as the HIGH winds and Lightening.