ARKANSAS, SPRING IS STARTING TO ARRIVE.
Day 176 – Beginning of Week 26. We got up at 8 a.m. this morning, 49 degrees and still raining off & on. We departed at 10:30 a.m., heading southeast to Merrisach Lake near Tichnor, AR – a campground we stayed at in 2017. But first we stopped at the health food store in Russellville and got some supplies.
191 miles
Old Post Road Park, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1063 Lock and Dam Road, Russellville, AR 72802, (479) 968-7962, to reserve a campsite go to www.recreation.gov or call (877) 444-6777. We’ve had extremely good experiences with Army COE campgrounds in the past & tend to look for those possibilities first when researching campgrounds. This one did not disappoint. Located on the Arkansas River right below the Dardanelle Lock & Dam, near the towns of Dardanelle & Russellville, and just south of the large Lake Dardanelle State Park facilities & recreation areas, it is an excellent place to visit. It was the closest campground to the Holla Bend NWR, which is why we stayed there. They DO take reservations and even in early March the campground was ¾ full. We chose site #8 (after picking site #20 and finding that it had already been reserved). Site #8 was one of the few sites that offered some shade, there was space between campsites, and since it was not on the River, one side was not occupied. Most of the people camping here were older. It was quiet. The playground, boat ramps, pavilions, & day use areas were located away from the campground. We had electricity & water; there was a dump staion. The only down-side was that there was a constant buzzing noise, day & night, which we attributed to the Lock & Dam facility or the electric power facility nearby. With windows closed, it was not a problem. And since we had rain much of the visit, it worked out just fine. $20 for two nights using the 50% discount from the senior card. We would definitely stay here again and were sorry we had to leave so quickly.
The drive to Merrisach Lake Army Corps of Engineers Campground near Tichnor, AR was mostly on I-40E. It began with lots of hills since we were still near the Ozarks, but it did become flat farmland once again. Mostly crops, not cows and horses. And we were happy to see much less trash beside the roads compared to what we found in Oklahoma. As we turned southeast and went beyond Little Rock, we saw some beautifully flowering trees in white, pink, and purple. There was a storm coming and the sky was darkening; it was humid out & very cloudy. The high today reached 75 degrees.
I-40 East heading toward Little Rock, then South
Passing through Stuttgart “Rice and Duck Capital of the World” again
Snow Geese were in the flooded areas by the side of the road, and some of the Blue-Phase Geese, too. The volunteer host at our campground said that the months of February brought more rain to this area of Arkansas that ever before in the history of weather reporting. We’ve certainly seen evidence of that from Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas. Drought? What drought! Maybe there’s been a bad one in Southern California & Arizona, but even New Mexico was getting plenty of rain.
We arrived at Lake Merrisach at 3:05 p.m. after stopping for a lunch break at a gas station off I-40E. The route was 7S to I-40E to exit 193 at Hazen thru Stuttgart to our campground. When we were here last year, we wrote down the best campsites, so when we drove through “casing the joint”, we knew where to look. Our favorite was not occupied, site #D-08 with views of the water on 3 sides, private, electric & water hook-ups, $9.50 per night with senior discount. Oh happy day! We unpacked in the pouring rain, but it only lasted about an hour. Then we went outside and sat in our chairs to watch the sun set.
I know this feels weird to our friends in NY & NJ, but Spring is definitely arriving in Arkansas. There’s hope for everyone! Yet, we read that another Nor’easter is headed your way. Therefore I will rub it in (in a nice way) by letting you know that there were beautiful flowering trees in southeastern Arkansas today. So you should be seeing the beautiful flowers of the Forsythia soon, we hope. Hang in there!