We hadn’t been able to get Daisy out since the spring so we took a chance that the late August weekend wouldn’t be sweltering and we were right. Thanks to an weak early afternoon front blowing through. The skies cleared and the sunset was pretty great. Also, it seems that the weekend after the first week of school is a great time to beat the crowds. Only two other campsites were occupied in the loop we stayed in.
A couple weeks ago we made a last-minute decision to camp out at Mt. Magazine State Park, home of the highest point in Arkansas. We shot the sunset at the old WPA built amphitheater.
Prior to that we ate supper in the enormous dining room at the Mt. Magazine Lodge.
Abby, Gina and I embarked on our annual fall foliage expedition a couple of weeks ago. He set up our camper, Daisy, at the Buffalo Point campground as our base of operations for the weekend. The fall colors weren’t quite at their peak overall, but it was close. The dogwoods put on a vivid display of red.
We toured the Rush ghost town, home to a few historic buildings. The former blacksmith shop is my favorite for the great colors in the weathered wood siding. Rush was a Zinc mining center in the early 1900’s and was evidently a classic boom-bust town.
We dropped by the Collier Homestead at Tyler Bend to check out the historic structures and hike down to the river overlook.
Abby and I posed for a pic at the overlook.
I tried to do some fancy-schmancy flash photography, but my models were fairly divaish and I really didn’t get very far.
We’ve replaced Ol’ Leaky with a new pop-up camper. Abby christened it Daisy. Daisy has a number of improvements over OL, namely she doesn’t leak. And she has an air conditioner, a refrigerator and she doesn’t have that odd smell that OL had. Because Abby named the thing Daisy we thought it would be clever to take her to Daisy State Park on Lake Greeson for her maiden voyage. The temperature was approaching Hell levels so we knew it would be a stern test for the air conditioner. I didn’t have high hopes, but I was pleasantly surprised. The camper stayed quite cool, probably in the high 70’s while it was 100 outside. I even had to turn it down during the night.
For the second week in a row, and the third time in a month, we took Ol’ Leaky out for some camping action. It rained. Ol’ Leaky, as you might expect, leaked. It wasn’t too bad though. The rain was quite heavy but it didn’t last long. We stayed dry and warm and caught the leaks with a towel and a bucket.
We went to Lake Ouachita State Park on the eastern end of Lake Ouachita, Arkansas’ largest lake. I’d never been to the lake before, so we got to see a new-to-us area. The campground itself was excellent, complete with electric, water and sewer, though we didn’t use the sewer.
We set sail in Ol’ Leaky again over the weekend. We tested its water tightness last time (she failed) and we decided to test her cold tightness this time. We headed up to Greers Ferry Lake near Heber Springs and camped at the Dam Site Campground. It was my first trip ever to the lake and the campground was excellent. We got a spot on a bluff overlooking the lake. It was our first kinda cold snap of the fall and temperatures were forecast for the high 20s. It didn’t get that cold but we probably found the bottom of our cold tolerance in the pop-up. The space heater ran all night and the electric blanket and double sleeping bag arrangement kept us just warm enough. Ol Leaky made a good star trails subject. The red-orange light on the trees is from the campfire on the other side of the camper.
This is Ol’ Leaky. We bought this thing in July for $1,500 and thought we either got a good deal or something was wrong with it. What was wrong was the roof leaked like a sieve. It had a big air conditioner on top and the roof sagged noticeably. After doing some research on the Internets I found out that this particular model requires special braces from the manufacturer when installing one of those aftermarket air units. It had no special braces. So I removed the air conditioner and sold it on Craigslist. Then I installed a roof vent and patched up some other stray holes and replaced the weather proofing on the roof seams. The seat and bed cushions had also been wet in the past so they were pretty stinky. We tossed out the big bed cushions and washed the upholstery and replaced the foam in the bench seats, which helped with the smell.
For those of you interested in Yampa war stories, I found this trip report this morning: Desolation Dory Blog. Lots of great pics and narrative.
I also found a new YouTube video of a raft flipping in Warm Springs on May 30.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQNnFYJJffM&hl=en]
Dale in Warm Springs rapid.
When I saw the gaping maw of the hole near the bottom of Warm Springs rapid, it occurred to me that I might be better off not being in any boat that had even a slight chance of going in there.
When the two park rangers recommended we portage two of the boats, watching the carnage from the shore became even more attractive.
When the second boat down the rapid flipped in the hole and the upside-down raft and its captain disappeared around the bend, I knew I would be walking around the beast.
It was day three of rafting the Yampa River in northwestern Colorado. I had taken a brief swim in the chilly, brown water the day before and didn’t want to repeat that experience.
We launched from Deerlodge Park on the eastern tip of Dinosaur National Monument into a river barely contained in its banks. The silty water was the color of heavily creamed coffee and carried trash, lumber, brush, and whole trees even. And dead animals: goats, cows, deer, etc. We had 18 people in 8 boats and would be out five days and four nights, May 21-25.
We spent a day and half in the Deerlodge campground rigging boats and running the shuttle under glorious skies and temperatures in the 70s and 80s. We left the comfy weather and luxurious pit toilets behind when we hit the river.
I took the day off to watch Abby while Gina went to an all-day job interview. I dragged out all my camping equipment to take stock and decide what to take on my float trip to Colorado later this month. Abby and I went Wal-Mart and got a new air mattress, a headlamp and some other stuff.
When we got home, Abby helped me set up the good tent. (The one on the right.) But it took a long time to set up (about 20 minutes) and it looks way big for one person. So I went back up in the attic and got out the 17-year-old 14-year-old dome tent we bought for our honeymoon to Arches National Park. The last time the tent was used was in a west Texas sandstorm in Big Bend National Park. It’s actually only been used five or six times, so it’s still in good shape. Plus it’s smaller and it only took about five minutes to set up. The only drawback is that the queen-size air mattress I bought won’t fit in it. I’ll have to get a twin size.
I thought Abby would get a big kick out of the tents, but she didn’t seem very impressed.