Sardis Lake to Hot Springs

Friday, October 28, 2011

We were up this morning and ready to leave John Kyle State Park, on Sardis Lake, near Sardis, MS at about 8:00 am.   It had been a fairly unusual night.   When we pulled into the park last evening it was clouding up and had started to rain a little.   We had gotten pretty well settled in for the night and it started to rain reasonably hard.   It continued to rain throughout the night, sometimes really hard, and the wind blew.   The trees we were parked under shed acorns and cones/seeds which smacked the roof of the campers and sounded like someone was throwing rocks at us.  This morning, there was water, water everywhere, running between the camp sites and puddles in low spots in the drives.  

The campground was pretty wet in the morning

A small stream to cross on the way to the restrooms

When we checked in we asked about the laundry facility. We were told “it is what it is.” And that was no understatement. After checking it out, we decided to wait. The showers looked okay, but remember looks can be deceiving!  It served us okay, and we’ll have a lot of fun memories from our trip!

We made it out of camp and only had to drive through a few light showers this morning.   Are our angels working overtime, or what?

We headed west on route 315 from Sardis to route 49 and crossed the Arkansas River into Helena, AR.  Mississippi made a lasting impression on us! The last ten miles we drove before crossing the Mississippi River was old concrete, and we really bounced across it. Clack, bounce, clack, bounce at each seam.

Crossing into Arkansas

A large barge on the Arkansas River

We made a stop at the tourist information center in Helena.   We were finally able to escape without Pam and Bill giving us one of everything in the center.   They were very nice and very helpful.   When we told them we had been on the Natchez Trace and that the fall colors were beautiful, Pam said “You ain’t seen nothing yet, wait till you see central Arkansas” and gave us a copy of the Arkansas fall color report.  They mentioned the area around Hot Springs would be really pretty.

We asked about somewhere to get some breakfast, and Ray’s Dairy Maid was the choice. Well, it turns out it was the only choice along our route, and although we did turn in to the parking lot, we left just as quickly. Some of the small town places serve great food, but we just couldn’t accept it.

We continued west on route 49 to Marvell where Wilma and Betty spotted a laundromat, so we pulled in and they did laundry and cooked breakfast/brunch of biscuits, hash browns and salmon, from our last trip to Astoria, OR.

Our multipurpose stop in Mississippi

After the stop we were back on the road headed south on routes 1 and 195 to the Arkansas Post National Historic Site.   This site was an early trading post at the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers.  The post was originally an Indian village then, starting around 1670, it was controlled by the French and Spanish at various times then the United States.    Of course there were a couple of cancellation stamps to be had.

Wilma and Barney at the site

We viewed the video and looked around for a while then struck off for Pine Bluff then on to Hot Springs, AR.

Large bales of cotton recently harvested

After a quick fuel stop in Hot Springs we continued on to Lake Ouachita, where we are now camped at the Army Corps of Engineers Crystal Springs Campground, just out of Crystal Springs, AR.  We plan to hole up in the rolling caves and have a down day tomorrow.  We’ll see how it turns out. According to what we’ve seen so far, the Natchez Trace Parkway wins hands down with the spectacular fall colors.

Catch you later---The Bedrock Bunch.