Willow Beach Campground – Scott, Arkansas – May 21 – 29, 2023

SPECIAL NOTE: The way my blogging software is supposed to work is that if someone leaves a comment and I approve it and make a reply to the comment then the software will send my reply to the email address the original commenter used. I love it when people read and comment so I have replied to EVERY comment (even if just to say “Thanks for reading and commenting” because I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and comment) that has been left on this blog since I started posting. But it was brought to my attention the other day that at least one person never received my reply to their comment. If you have left a comment and did not receive my reply to your comment in your email please accept my sincerest apologies. I do not want you to think I ignored your comment, that is the last thing I would want folks to feel after making the effort to leave a comment. If you go to the post you commented on, you will see that I did leave a reply, I promise. It just seems for some reason the software may not be operating the way it is supposed to by sending the reply to the email address you used when commenting.

And looking into the guts of the program I cannot see WHY it is not doing so.

I’m seriously considering going back in to all the comments, copying my reply and sending it manually to the commenters email address. If you commented and DID receive my reply to your email it would save me some time if you’d let me know by, of all things, commenting below. If you commented and didn’t receive my reply…well you probably already stopped even reading from someone you thought didn’t reply to you. But if you’re still here reading (THANK YOU!) please let me know that too and I’ll be sure to copy my reply to your email.

Again, my sincerest apologies.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post:

We left Strayhorn Landing Recreational Area on Tenkiller Ferry Lake in Gore, Oklahoma on Sunday, May 21, 2023 to drive 221 miles to Willow Beach Campground in Scott, Arkansas which is about 8 miles away from Little Rock. This is a fairly large day-use, boat ramp and campground area, though the campground area is probably the smallest part of the entire complex.

Our site was pretty spacious, though I can always use more room between us and our neighbors, lol. Sometimes I read reviews where a person says, “We were the only RV in the entire campground” and I am so full of envy.

The site was asphalt and very level with plenty of length for both Nomad and Voyager. There was also a nice grassy area between us and the bank of the Arkansas River that made a great spot for our screen room. All three were under a large canopy of trees which made for some nice shady times outside, though it also meant I had to wash bird droppings off the roof of the screen room and then move it out into the sun to dry before I could pack it away at the end of our stay.

Trade-offs, always trade-offs.

We plugged our EMS into the 50 amp side of the power pedestal and the EMS proceeded to block the power flow. I put the 30 amp dog-bone on, Cindy plugged it in and was immediately swarmed by a gazillion fire ants coming out of the box, but at least it worked. This is the second time in our last three stays that the 50 amp outlet wasn’t working when we arrived. It was too far the walk up and back in the time I had, so I had to drive back up to the entrance office to ask that someone come out to repair it. Thankfully two workers arrived in short order and installed a new 50 amp outlet, so we were good to go as far as running the A/C concurrent with other appliances is concerned.

One good thing about being close to a large metropolitan area is the ability to pick up Over The Air TV stations. Specifically for us it means we can watch the evening news while having a light dinner. We’ll catch the local news to see how the weather will be (though we have apps that we use as well) and then catch the national news and/or PBS Newshour.

But the local news can be amusing in ways that national news never is. We were watching a local report on the tragic death of a couple of teenagers who were run over by a train in Little Rock. Now, I get that the Public Relations/Spokespeople for law enforcement have to be careful not to assign blame or responsibility before an investigation is completed. I really do. But when the Police spokesman is standing there saying, and I quote, “…the train caused the juveniles to be deceased” my jaw dropped to the floor. Maybe they were new on the job, I don’t know.

Monday and Tuesday we were inundated with Mayflies. I mean the white portions on people’s trailers was covered by black Mayflies so you could not see it was white underneath. We made the mistake of walking through a field and they came flying up out of the grass, filling our ears, nostrils and mouths. We probably looked like we were having a fit as we swatted, waved, ducked, jumped and ran trying to get them off of and away from us.

On Tuesday we went to Camping World to pick up a few things we needed, then to a restaurant called Hideaway Pizza for lunch which was good, then to a needlepoint store Cindy had been to the last time we were in Little Rock, filled up Voyager for $2.89 gallon; the lowest price we could find and finally went grocery shopping. If we didn’t need to eat and have gas to travel, we’d be rich!

Wednesday one of the camp workers was using their riding mower to mow the grass on our loop. I went out and took down the screen room so he could mow unobstructed AND so he didn’t damage our screen room. Some places have maintenance men who are considerate of your property when they mowing or weed eating and some couldn’t give a flying…so I try to err on the side of protecting our stuff.

Plus, the mowing seemed to almost eliminate the Mayflies, so that was REALLY good!

Saturday we drove into Little Rock to go to the Farmers Market at Riverside Park, picking up some nice fresh produce and fruit. Then I took a walk on the nearby Junction Bridge. This bridge was first constructed as a railroad bridge in 1884, then converted to a pedestrian bridge in 2008. If you look at one of the photos I’ve posted you’ll see hundreds and hundreds of padlocks attached to the railing. This is done in the spirit of the “Locks of Love” that began in Paris. Usually, after the lock is closed, the key is thrown into the Arkansas River below. In 2017 the city stated they were going to remove all the locks and would not allow any more locks to be attached, but as you can see from the photo, they have not been successful in enforcing that decree.

Then, the highlight of this trip and the day was meeting up with a my friend and former colleague Holly and her daughter Katie. It’s been years since I’ve seen Holly (because, even though we worked together, in our line of work you didn’t always get to be deployed to the same disaster, city, state or even region of the country) and almost 4 years since I last saw Katie. That was at her 4th birthday party in Austin, Texas when I was working there. She’s about to turn 8 in July! Holly was kind enough to treat Cindy and I to lunch and we treated Katie to ice cream afterward for dessert. It was really great getting to see Holly and catching up on the intervening years. I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 1/2 hours we got to spend together.

But our day wasn’t over. We still had to go pick up some prescriptions, look for a special torx screwdriver, and pick up a couple of things Cindy ordered from Amazon at one of their nearby lockers.

The prescription part was easy. The other two were not. Cindy has some nice Ryobi portable battery-powered fans she got when she was CEO of Mountain Creek Candles that she would use when she was at craft shows and farmers markets where there was no electrical power available. We have also put them to great use during our travels the past 2 years. But now they are getting dirty and need to be cleaned; something you can’t do unless you take them apart or at least remove the front grill. Not really a problem, right?

Wrong!

For whatever reason the engineers who designed these things decided that, instead of using slotted or Phillips head screws like normal people use, they would use Torx screws that are usually limited to electronic devices such as PlayStations, phones, etc. But not just Torx screws; they elected to use Torx secure screws. These are the traditional star-shaped screw heads BUT they also have a raised area in the middle. This means you have to use a Torx screwdriver that has a tiny indentation in the head so it fits securely into the screw head to unscrew it. Otherwise, it just turns and turns and turns.

Then, Cindy had three items she had ordered from Amazon and used the address of the nearby Amazon locker at a gas station/convenience store. First, the driver didn’t put them in the locker but for some reason gave them to one of the clerks at the counter. Second, they only had two of the three items. No one could find the third. The clerk on duty when Cindy went gave her the name and phone number of the store manager who was on duty when the items were delivered. Cindy called an left her a message saying we were leaving in a couple of days and needed to find out what happened to the delivery. A few hours later the manager texted Cindy and said to come by the next day and she would have the item.

We went back the next day (Sunday) and the manager gave her the OPENED package saying it was addressed to the store and not the locker so she had opened it to see what it was then locked it in a closet only the manager had a key for. Amazon and/or the store manager really messed up on this one. Cindy could only use the locker address that Amazon provided on their page (something we’ve done several time with no problems) and would have no way of knowing what the physical address of the gas station/convenience store might be. I can’t help but wonder if, because they know its usually people passing through that use the locker service rather than locals, they take advantage of the possibility that someone will not have the time to remain in the area to collect something that wasn’t “delivered properly”.

But she ended up getting all of her order, finally, and not without extra effort that shouldn’t have had to be made.

The rest of our Sunday was spent getting ready to leave the next day and relaxing by watching the series finale of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD. With 173 episodes, that means we watched an average of 4 episodes a day from when we started on April 16 to when we ended on May 28th. Then we watched the 2-hour documentary about DS9 “What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” by Ira Steven Behr.

Now Cindy wants to get Star Trek: Voyager. We started watching that when we first got married, but then stopped. Now she’d like to watch it all from the beginning and since it’s been more than 26 years since I’ve seen it I just might be on board with her, lol!

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