Tuesday, April 9, 2024:
Spending the night at: Mack’s Pines Campground near Dover & Russellville Arkansas
$45.00/night for Site 18 on the end of the row including 50 amp power and water, very long and very narrow, but we won’t have any neighbors here during the week. We’re planning to stay three nights. Sites 19-25 look wide and nice. Darn. Good choice for next time.
Weather- mostly cloudy and a lil humid like it wants to rain: Hi 65, low 58, Humidity Hi 86%, low 60.
It was sprinkling as we pulled out of Chewalla Lake campground. At least it wasn’t pouring and it didn’t soak us as we were getting Nitro hooked up, pumped out and on our way.
Today’s journey was just about 300 miles. We headed north on Hwy 22 towards Memphis. We left Mi’sippi and were soon welcomed into Tennessee, but only for a total of about 14 minutes. The highway goes right through the southwest corner of the state where Memphis is located.
Mid-Memphis we turned left on I-40 and crossed the Mississippi River into West Memphis.
In the middle of the bridge where the Mississippi River draws a natural boundary between the states we were welcomed into Arkansas. Just like that – our visit to Tennessee was over.
It was still sprinkling some rain, but it didn’t rain hard all day long like the forecast predicted. Thank goodness! Henry and Nitro seemed to handle just fine with my professional driver behind the wheel, and many of the roads were like ours in Florida where the rain water just dissipates somehow and there wasn’t a lot of spray off of tires to obscure visibility. Yay!
We arrived at Mack’s Pines campground in the Ozark National Forest just before 3:00. This is a prime location for OHV riding and has some really great reviews from other riders. I subscribe to a variety of facebook pages that give me the inside scoop on all kinds of places to ride and camp.
I went in to register, and Greg the owner is a really fun and talkative fella. When I originally called him the first week of January to make this reservation for April, I was on the phone with him for quite a while. I figured this reservation would be our ‘anchor’ for the whole rest of the trip to be planned around, so it was the first reservation I made. I had requested to arrive on Sunday, but that was a no-go. They were packed to the gills. Really? Already? Why, I asked? Because of the eclipse. What eclipse?? I had no idea. HA! That was the first I had heard of it. So we slid my reservation request to a Tuesday arrival for three nights, and now here we are. When I checked in today, with the forecast for crummy wet weather, I asked if there was a possibility of extending our stay beyond 3 nights. We’re only going to have two days of riding, and it’s supposed to rain all day Wednesday. Greg said he does have a place to put us but we’d have to move on Friday if we wanted to stay longer, or we could just go to that other spot initially. I hadn’t even mentioned this thought to Kenny yet, but thought I’d find out what our options might be. I only have a couple of reservations after here that I’d have to change if we decided to stay longer. hmmmmm.
While registering, Greg asked for my husbands name, and I said Paul – which it is, even though it still seems weird to call him that after knowing him as Ken for 50 years. Once Greg and I were done, he said he’d go out to the sites with us to show us where they are, and because he needed to do some cleanup since a whole gang just left this morning. I told him I’d go let my driver know what’s up. He laughed, and in his best Mrs. Thurston Howell the Third impersonation, said “oh driver…..James….bring the transport around… Paul James.” Ha! And he called Kenny “Paul James” that the whole rest of the day. What a funny guy.
We decided to take our initial spot and we’ll play it by ear and see if we get enough riding in. Tomorrow is supposed to rain all day, but so was today, and it only sprinkled. Thursday is going to be clear and amazing so we can do a big all-day ride then and maybe that’ll be enough. Or maybe it’ll be so muddy from rain that we won’t enjoy it and won’t want to stay longer anyway? We’ll see.
After we got settled, we took Sami (the Samsung tablet with our riding map apps) to the office and Greg helped show me and Paul James the maps for the area and he described several areas for fun rides. Right across the street from here is an area called Moccasin Gap, which looks like an area with challenging trails and loops, but not a lot of scenic stuff. It’s very popular on the riding pages, but lots of people like riding for the challenge, where we’d rather go see viewpoints, waterfalls, caves, scenery and that kind of stuff. Greg gave us lots of good info and familiarized us with an app called Maprika that has the Forest Service color maps available and shows what roads and trails we can and cannot ride on. That will be helpful.
Oh – The campground has cabins and a huge horse barn as well as RV sites.
HA! This is what I’m talking about when I say our spot isn’t very wide, but at least we’re on the end of the row. It’s like a grocery store parking lot where the rigs cram in together. I’m not sure some rigs would have enough room to even get their slides out if they were all full! You can see the power pedestal over to the left, and two rigs should fit between us and it. We do not have sewer in this spot, but there is a tank dump available for when we leave.
We just spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out. I fixed a beef stew in the instant pot for dinner that turned out good, and I played with map apps. We have really sketchy cell service, but there is wi-fi available at the office/store/cafe. Unfortunately the cafe is only open on the weekends, and I’ve read that they have real good food. We have a couple of channels on the TV for when we’re bored with being inside due to rain, but I did remember to bring some movies on DVD’s this year, so we watched a movie and ate popcorn which was different for us. I can only work on the blog if I go sit in the store or at the picnic tables outside under cover. Another vote for the Starklink gizmo.