I DROPPED THE BALL! Continuing Our Vacation Posts - Carter Cove COE

Oh my gosh, I'm so very very sorry!

I DROPPED THE BALL!

We just got so busy busy busy on the rest of our vacation and then once we got home, things just speeded up. I totally neglected this blog and didn't get around to finishing up the last two weeks of our vacation down in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Please forgive me?

I will now do post by post just as if we were on the road... And pick up right where I left off.

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I ended the last blog on Sunday March 10th leaving Maumelle Corps of Engineers Park near Little Rock Arkansas. 

Was also spring forward for daylight savings. We felt like we were missing an hour, and it really goofs up the dogs feeding schedules.

We headed on further North and West to another Corps of Engineers Park that we found on Campendium. The review sounded pretty good, and it was called Quarry Cove near Plainview, Arkansas. Well, the place was really, really busy! We were kind of surprised to see this many campers in March? Especially on a Sunday late afternoon/evening. 

The campground is kind of on a loop of a peninsula that's very steep. Kind of like a pointy tall island jutting out into a lake. Some of the sites are short and a little difficult to get into. We drove around the loop twice, trying to figure out what might work out for us. The only site that really seemed to work had a gathering next door of about 6 to 8 young fishermen. They looked like they were out for having a good time all week and had quite the spread out of equipment. And plenty of coolers and beer cases and a big looking stereo on a tailgate. We really didn't find any other sites away from there that were level enough to our liking or what we wanted. 

So we decided to drive on down the road a little further west to the next Corps of Engineers Park.  Both are located on Nimrod Lake. 

We hit the jackpot!

It was called Carter's Cove. We had to drive through a little area of about six or eight blocks of little seasonal cottages and homes. Some seemed a little rundown, some seemed okay, but we really had no idea what we were going to find at the end of the road. 

We pulled into a very nice campground comprised of two loops set into a hillside overlooking a gorgeous lake. One side of the loops were a little more seasonal looking with four or five campers that stay longer than 14 days. There is a brand new shower building and a big parking lot for the fisherman and boat trailers. Through that parking lot and up the other side was another loop of terraced campsites. Each one was level with landscaped timbered areas holding back the dirt from erosion down into the site next to it.

Each site has electric and water, and there are two very nice bathrooms and shower buildings. The price is $20 a night but with our Federal America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass we get it for only $10 a night.

We were extremely happy to see there were only a few campers in this loop and most of them were getting ready to leave after the weekend.

We picked out a really nice site, number 18, and decided to pay for the entire week online. It really looked peaceful and the tall pines around us gave such a feeling of serenity and rustic appeal. 

We laud back in our lawn chairs and looked up at the bright blue sky. For some reason all the sounds seemed to be muffled because of the pine trees. Even the fisherman coming in with their boats down below in the parking lot made very little sound. For some reason the woods just absorbed it all and things were totally peaceful and quiet. 

We kicked back with the dogs in our lawn chairs and really made the best of the remaining part of our day. There was something serene and quiet about this place, I just can't really put my finger on it. The sites weren't any further apart or any closer than any of the other Corps of engineer parks. So it wasn't that. There was nobody camped right next to us so it was nice and open. Two sites over there was a fifth wheel but the people were not there. If the fifth wheel was moved, our view down to the Lake would be even better. 

In the far corner there was one other camper with a couple of older fisherman and a boat. They had come off the water and were very quiet. They headed to bed early. We were pleased to see that they weren't going to crank up some music or make a bunch of noise. It was just us and them and the empty fifth wheel by the end of the evening. No complaints! 

The next day, the people in the fifth wheel came and hooked up and took it away. Yay! Now we were really almost the only ones in this side of the campground. We only saw the host drive through twice to check on the site that was vacated to make sure that it was clean and ready for whomever was going to come next. But nobody did. 

The days started blending one into another. We relaxed and enjoyed ourselves and really didn't do much of anything. At each campsite there was a very nice sturdy metal fish cleaning table. It was the perfect height to stack up our Blackstone griddle and our Camp Chef oven. It was our own wonderful outdoor kitchen!

One evening we decided to cook up a delicious meal with some baked potatoes in the oven and I was going to try roasting brussel sprouts. Usually I just make them in a fry pan and caramelize them along with onions and garlic. But I thought I would try a new recipe about roasting them on a sheet of parchment in the oven. 

Steve threw this big slab of Alaskan wild salmon that we had brought in the freezer from home. The picture doesn't look like it's very big, but believe me it was huge. We split a slab like this in half between the two of us. 

When the potatoes were done, I pulled them out to just keep them warm on the side. Then I put in the brussel sprouts according to the recipe. I'm not much for recipes, but I followed this one anyhow. They came out okay, but I really do like the caramelized ones I do in the fry pan better. 

When I make them MY way, I first steam them a little bit with water till they're slightly tenderized. Then I pour out the water, drizzle them with olive oil and some dabs of butter and seasoning and onion and garlic bits. Then I cook them on medium heat until the bottoms just get caramelized perfectly brown. The top still stay a little firm and the edges of the leaves are even somewhat crunchy the way I do them in the fry pan. But nevertheless, these still got done and they were good. 

So here was our evening meal of a big slab of salmon and all the fixings. Yum yum! 

Three of our evenings in a row were just absolutely perfect weather! We were treated to spectacular sunsets over the lake as the fisherman were slowly coming in. We sat up on our hill in our terraced campsite, overlooking the rest of the quiet campground. Temps were in the 70s, nights in the 50s. Perfect. 

The dogs, of course, were totally relaxed. We took walks around and they had a lot of birds and squirrels to sniff at and look and chase. We are quite cozy in our little motorhome and really have gotten used to making the best use out of all of our space that we have. It was an adjustment moving down from the 38 ft Safari, but we don't regret it at all by going smaller. I like that we kind of have three separate little areas, the front being the living area, the middle being the bathroom and galley kitchen, and then of course in the back is the big queen size bed that we can walk around either side. The dogs seem to think the bed belongs to them! But at night they get down and sleep on their own beds on each side on the floor. 

I happened to pick up my phone and Googled businesses in the area because we had seen a little gas station up on the main road before we pulled in. They sold bait and some little grocery items. We were also told that the gal in there cooks up some wonderful food. Especially breakfast for the fishermen. It was just a tiny little place. She had pizzas to grab by the slice, and a variety of items available in a deli case too.

But what to my wondering eyes should appear???? A quilt shop??? In the middle of this little teeny tiny burg of about four blocks wide by six blocks long? Three blocks wide actually... It said there's a shop called Sew N Quilt!! 

I looked up the information and gave her a call. I had to leave a message and she got back to me. She had just started getting her shop going and really wasn't technically open for business yet. She had inventory and was doing trade shows and booths at sales events. But she said sure, come on over and she would let me shop in her inventory totes!!! 

We peddled our bikes on over there at the appointed time and got to meet a really nice couple. ---along with their neighbor and a couple of their dogs. After I was done shopping, we sat around on some lawn chairs and jibber jabbed with them until almost dark. Then it was time to get back because we were on the bicycles and needed to get back into the campground before dark. What nice people and I got some wonderful treasures and quilting tools to add to my array of implements. 

Each morning we woke up to absolute peace and quiet. If you look through all these neighboring campsites on the far right corner you can see the fisherman. They were so quiet they left every morning early and didn't come back until almost dark. Now if there have been other campers all in these sites, it might have been a different story. But in the meantime, while we had the place to ourselves, we were going to make the most of it. 

We took walks each day down around the swimming area that is cordoned off for safety. The park also has a cute little playground setup in the first loop. Both loops have nice flush toilet bathrooms and shower buildings. Each site has electrical and water. 

The afternoons were so warm and sunny. We would sit back in our lawn chairs and admire the view. And yes, the dogs each have their own lawn chairs 

It was so quiet in these woods, and I don't understand really why. Other than the pine trees that muffled the sounds? As we sat there, a straggling fly would buzz on around us and land near the dogs. Little Nicholas is on duty for flies. He is our little canine fly swatter! I posted a video a few blogs back of him snapping at flies as Steve lifts him up to catch them. Of course, he eats them. Ugh! 

Since we were here for a whole week, I hung up some of my little rotating doodads. Normally we hang these on the ends of the awning. But because the Corps of Engineer parks in this area of Arkansas each have these wonderful wooden roofed over pergolas over the picnic tables. I found a hook right in the middle that was perfect to hang one over our table as a centerpiece. I hung a second one on the end of the pergola. One is a gift from our oldest daughter Erin's family, the other is a gift from friends Roz and Gary. 

They rotate on little battery-powered packs, (the black cylinder things), and they make beautiful flashing optical illusions of each piece of metal fins as they rotate. The glass ball underneath in the coiled metal section gives the illusion of crawling up the screw shaped spiral rod and you think the ball will roll up and come out the top. But actually it's just an illusion... 

Here is a video of them in action:

We had a couple mornings that it was actually warm enough outside to grill out breakfast on our Blackstone.  We made toast in the oven and did up bacon and hash browns on the griddle. I finished up with some scrambled eggs in a fry pan on one of the cooktop burners on the top of the Camp Chef oven. 

On the fourth morning, our idyllic setup was going to change. Off to the south we noticed a bit of smoke coming along. At first we thought it would have been those wildfires from Texas and California that were happening? But no, it was getting stronger and stronger.

Bit by bit our beautiful blue sky became hazy! We went online and looked and found out there were some controlled burns happening all along throughout the National Forest just to the west of where we were camping! They would continue on through the rest of the week!! 

The smoke was getting worse and I was having a hard time breathing with my damaged lungs. We could really smell it too. 

We checked online to make sure none of the fires were out of control. We had to pull in the slides and shut all the windows. Now we were running the air conditioning just to have positive pressure going outwards to keep any of the smoke from intruding into the motorhome..

Our idealic week at Carter Cove was coming to an end--- two days early!

We checked with the campground host, and he easily credited us back for our extra days because we had a very good reason to leave the campground. We loaded up and got on our way and headed north up and around any of these fires.

Time to move on.... Goodbye Carter Cove. You were a really great campground. We have fond memories and we will return again someday. Hopefully without any controlled burn fire smoke! 

Only 66 mi traveled 

1,354 mi so far