Day 3 - WINTER GETAWAY - Into Arkansas and Stop For SEVEN days!

It would have been nice to stay at Hawn State Park in Missouri, but they had cold weather scheduled for the next 3 or 4 days.  We decided it was best to pull up stakes and head on further south. This time we took back roads and enjoyed some more of the scenery. We are really not "interstate type" people. We needed to work our way down into the next state of Arkansas. It took a little longer with the back roads, but we really enjoyed ourselves. 

We crossed into Arkansas at 1:15 p.m.

We fueled up at $3.49 a gallon for diesel and our fuel mileage was much better this day at 12.5 miles per gallon then the previous day dealing with all the headwinds. 

The terrain suddenly changed from the hilly pine studded Ozarks into some flat flat land again. We were crossing agriculture areas with many viaducts for drainage as well as probably irrigation water in the summer. Some of the fields appeared to have grown cotton because there was some around the edges. Some of it was snow, but there were actual cotton bolls clinging to the spindly stick plants.

Either they just had a lot of rain, or this is from the melting snow from the week before. Many of the fields were flooded and not ready for spring planting, for sure.

We didn't bother to make a breakfast this morning, instead we have learned that we like drinking these protein drinks. The vanilla is my favorite flavor. To me the chocolate tastes like fake malted milk balls, and the strawberry reminds me of the Nestle Quik mix when we were kids. We would heap spoonfuls of that into milk. Ugh.

We worked our way along back roads and rural country highways. We zigged and zagged a bit but that was okay. We didn't need to do a direct straight line. We kind of knew where we were going and where we wanted to end up for the night. 

We called ahead to Craighead Forest County Park in Jonesboro, Arkansas. We left a message on the voicemail that we would be pulling in and we were hoping to get one of our favorite sites, either 39 or 41. We had stayed here 2 years ago and enjoyed it so much that we even stayed an extra week! 

Here's the deal. You can get a site with electric and water for only $25 a night. But... If you are a senior citizen, you get it for only $15 a night! Then the icing on the cake is if you pay for 6 nights, you get the 7th night free!!!! 

This is a lovely park on the south end of town. It's huge! It has all different areas of various activities each situated on a different peninsula that juts out into the large pond / lake in the middle of the park. One Peninsula has camping, one Peninsula has picnicking, one Peninsula has sports like baseball diamond and soccer fields, one has children's playground equipment etc. --- you get the idea. Here is an overview map:

There's even a section for dogs to do dock diving into the water! And then a fenced off area around there so your dog doesn't keep swimming out into the lake. LOL 

Around the edges of the park are other activities such as horseback riding, ATV riding, and mountain bike trails that crisscross all throughout the park. 

There are paved bicycle paths that are along a fitness trail that rings the entire lake. At various stops there is gym equipment to use to gauge your cardio workout as you go along the trails. There are walking paths that twist along the shoreline as well as deep into the woods. 

There's just about something for everybody here!

Here is a link to their website:

https://www.jonesboroar.gov/197/Craighead-Forest-Park

Here is a link to my blog post where I reviewed the campground and all of the facilities from 2 years ago:

https://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2024/02/campground-review-craighead-forest.html?m=1

Now that we are past all that information, we will get back to us in real time.  

We pulled in and spoke to the wonderful hosts Carron and Martin. They put us up on our favorite site number 39. We can pull into the site nose first and still leave our trailer attached. It is our "garage" with all of our gear and our bicycles. Of course, we took up the deal for only $15 a night for seniors, and paid for six nights to get the seventh night free. That comes out to $12.85 a night. Pretty good deal for electric and water (dump station nearby).

Yay!!! Seven nights to relax in one spot, and not be packing up and heading down the road each day. We pulled in nose first to take advantage of the beautiful views from all three sides of our motorhome. 

There were a few crusty spots of snow here and there, but the temperature was reaching up to 70°. Yep you heard me, 70°!!! 

We opened up the windows and let all of the fresh air in. In no time at all we were set up on our campsite and relaxing for the rest of the afternoon.

Steve said it was time for a little reward, and he grabbed his adult beverage to imbibe a bit. He deserves it after all of his driving. I just do the navigating. This sure looks like a guy who is relaxing, doesn't it?

I opted to pull off my socks and go barefoot. Yep! Barefoot in February. You sure can tell we are from Wisconsin. People around us are bundled up with heavy jackets and hats and sweaters. But not us...  

Nick joined me on the bed to stretch out a little bit and relax, while he looked out the windows at the ducks and the geese and the swans out on the lake.

We had one little mishap with the windy conditions the day before with our screen door. There's this crazy little plastic latch handle that cracked. It's a handle that not only can release the screen door to get in and out, it also holds the screen door tightly fastened to the main door as you open or shut it. That way both doors stay together...

Well, at one point the wind grabbed the door out of Steve's hand and this little plastic handle snapped right off. Bummer!

With Steve being Steve, you should know he's going to attempt to fix it. So he took out his drill and his tiniest drill bit. He very carefully drilled the hole in one side and then very carefully drilled one on the corresponding other side. Now he cut a piece of heavy duty paper clip to snip off a 1-inch section to go in between the two.  

All we needed was some super glue... But guess what? When I removed anything last Fall that could freeze, I happened to take our Gorilla super glue out of our bin of supplies. That was one thing that I really didn't think of to put back in before this trip. Oh bummer! Now we will have to wait until we can get some glue to finish his repair project. Sorry Steve, I goofed up. 

But it's okay, we also have this barrel catch we had installed on the inside of our screen door last year. It can hold the screen door closed when we have the main door open. It will do for now, it just does not bind the screen door to the main door to be swung in unison. 

The barrel catch is there for a very good reason. We put it there because it can keep the dog from ever accidentally pushing on the screen door and popping it open. Also we can leave the screen door shut and latched if we lay down to take a nap and we want fresh air blowing through the motorhome. 

It is easily accessible from the outside by sliding the little black slider access door and reaching in to latch or unlatch the barrel catch. See? It doesn't even keep Steve out.

The more I thought of it, I'm thinking his glue idea will probably work. But let's hedge the bet and go ahead and look about ordering a new latching handle. I looked around online and there are plenty of plastic ones of all various models and styles. None of them were the exact same match. But I did happen to find one that was made out of metal! Can you believe it? It may not be exactly the right fit, although the measurements look pretty close. I'm sure we can kind of adapt what we have and what comes along with this new one. 

This is the first time I've ever attempted to order from Amazon and have it delivered to either a box or a counter store. When the item arrives, they hold it for you until you get there in 7 days at the counter store. If I was able to have it shipped to a box you only have 3 days to pick it up. (Remember, we are here for 7 days).

It shipped quickly overnight and was already in Jonesboro at the counter at a phone store for pickup the very next day. We may attempt to ride our bicycles there to pick it up today. It's only 3 miles away but there are a lot of busy roads to cross or ride along the edge. We are more of the "quiet side road type" bicycle people. We're looking at Google maps to see what we can find and maybe we'll work out an alternate route to get there. Otherwise, we can pick it up in 7 days when we leave the park. 

In the meantime, we will enjoy this beautiful view from the windows and the sunshine and the warm temperatures. We might get some rain tomorrow. But that's okay, it will melt the rest of the snow and it will be perfectly fine to curl up inside and catch up on a couple videos and blogs.

Even though we are here for 7 days, 

I will try to write a blog each day

 and make it as interesting as I can.

189 miles travel today 

 764 miles so far

Day 2 - WINTER GETAWAY - ONLY Ones At a State Park in The Ozarks

On Sunday morning, we left the little RV slot at the Shell gas station. We dumped our trash and fueled up at the pumps. We paid $3.29 a gallon for diesel and we are averaging 11.4 miles per gallon. So those are the stats for the morning. 

The winds were a lot stronger than what were originally forecast. We were looking at some gusts about 20 to 25 miles an hour. It was only supposed to be 12 to 15. 

Our motorhome is equipped with some safety sensors that if the wind gusts are too strong from the side they will trigger the sensor warning. Then it shuts off your cruise control and it has something to do with a conflict on the wheel sensors. Not exactly sure. I guess they made an improvement on them and we could have them replaced. Sure enough, a big gust hit us alongside and we got the warnings on the dash. We pulled over on a side ramp and waited for it to clear. You turn the key on and off two or three times and it will reset and clear. We looked ahead at the weather and the further south we'd go, the wind gusts were going to be less and less. So we decided to keep on going...

We drove through areas with large windmills. What is interesting is that when it's so gusty, they are shut down. I guess it's a safety feature from getting them wound up too fast or stressing the blades?

The skies were cloudy all morning. It didn't make for very interesting driving. But that's okay, it was just flat flat flat Illinois.

We did stop around Litchfield Illinois and fueled up again. This time we paid $3.49 a gallon. Our mileage went down to 11 miles per gallon because of the wind.  

While in the parking lot, we pulled off to a quiet spot and made up our lunch. Steve fried up some bacon and we got out the lettuce and tomatoes. We had the Bluetti power station sitting in the entryway to use to hook on the toaster. We will store the "Blue Eddie" away in it's lower outside compartment later, once we reach warmer temperatures.  But it was handy to plug in the toaster instead of starting up the generator or an inverter on the house batteries. 

It's pretty nice to make our own lunches instead of relying on fast food when we travel. A homemade BLT is a lot better than some junk from a drive-thru.

While we travel, I keep accurate records in my little journal. I write down our mileages and our costs as well as the places we go or what we saw. I figure out our miles per gallon and I keep track of our budget.

I have this beautiful little quilted traveling journal from my friend Judy. I can change the inside portions with a new fresh composition book on each trip that we take. I smile when I take it out because I think of her and the kindness of her making it for me. Yep, it's a homemade quilted travel journal.

We had looked ahead online and decided to head towards St Louis and the Ozarks instead of going straight South in Illinois. It's nice to see different territory. Usually we had straight down through Paducah and then South. 

We crossed into Missouri at 2:55 p.m. This time we veered further to the west and worked our way around St Louis on the bypass. Since it was Sunday, there was very little traffic. South of St Louis we reached an area of some beautiful hilly countryside. We were starting the Ozark mountains! 

We found a very quiet little campground called Hawn State Park. We called ahead to actually make sure they were open. It really didn't specify on the website. Last year when we took off on our trip to Alaska, the State Park websites will say the park is open, but not specify if the camping is open. We made that mistake last year of assuming we could camp at a park that said it was open on our way across Wisconsin. So this time, we decided to call ahead to be sure. Yep, the gal said the park is open, you just can't make reservations. Pull in and pay at the post. So we planned on that.

When we got there, we drove through all the loops. There were three of them. There was absolutely nobody else there. We had our pick of any site we wanted. We chose site number 40 because it had the most open exposure to the sky to set up our Starlink later in the day for the Super Bowl.  We haven't been using it yet on the trip so far, it's been stored away, and we have just been using our cell phones instead.

This campground is located down in a valley or a "hollar", and not only are there an absence of television antenna signals, there isn't any reliable cell signal. One bar of the lowest quality is about all our phones would get.

The off-season rates are $23 a night for an electric site. We get a $2 discount for being senior citizens! So for $21 we got a nice campsite with electric. There is a non-freezing water spigot over on site 41 to access for water if you wish. The main shower buildings are locked up for the season, but there are available outhouses. We paid our cash fee into an envelope and put it in the Iron Ranger (pay post). Then two tabs that tore off the envelope were to go one in the windshield of our vehicle, and the other on a large numbered clipboard post at the entrance to the loop. There was a clip available for each campsite to hang the tag on. That way anyone can tell at a glance that the campsite is occupied and what day you are planning on vacating by looking at your tag.

Here is a link to their website: 

https://mostateparks.com/park/hawn

We were all set up on a nice level concrete site. Steve plugged into the electric box after our Progressive Industries EMS electrical management system verifies that there is power and that everything is okay. We never plug our motor home in directly to any power source. We always use the Progressive Industries unit to protect us. 

We were located directly across from the shower building. Although it's not open, Steve checked it out from the outside. There are multiple shower rooms --- each individual room with it's own private entry. There's also a laundry facility on site. Quite nice new modern looking building. The two double sets of outhouses within our loop were also neat and clean and fully stocked.

It was wonderful to look around amongst the tall beautiful red pines, birch, and maple trees. The sun filtering through looks so heavenly. The winds had died down and it was a beautiful comfortable setting. With absolutely nobody around, we were enjoying the peace and quiet.

It was getting close to Super Bowl time ---

Steve set up the Starlink in the skylight overhead. It will ride here now for the rest of our trip unless we need to take it out and locate it somewhere else for a better signal.

We suspend the Starlink on a double set of spring compression stretcher bars for RV refrigerators and cabinets. We have padded them with little pieces of felted floor protectors to keep the Starlink unit from rattling when we drive down the road.

The modem and power supply of the unit rides in a basket up on our top bunk. The basket is velcroed down to the surface so it doesn't rattle around or fall down during transit. 

We have two ways to power the Starlink. We have the regular household current AC 120 volt block. We also have the 12 volt DC block to power the system.  Last year we pre-wired and installed a 12 volt DC line that comes all the way up to the bunk to operate our Starlink. It runs directly off our camping house batteries. If we wish, we can swap it over easily to run off our "Blue Eddie" power station and not drain our camping house batteries. The Starlink draws about 40 Watts during use.

Here is the link to the blog post where we did the 12 volt setup: 

https://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2025/01/motorhome-modification-starlink-dc-to_23.html?m=0

Here is the link to the YouTube post of the setup: 

We got everything set up and configured while we started cooking supper. Because we have electrical power at this campground, we were able to heat up something quick in the microwave. Soon it's time for the Super Bowl to start and we wanted to get in one quick walk around the campground for Nick before it started. 

He was very happy to curl up and watch the Super Bowl with us.

Neither of us have a real affiliation to either team playing. So we each chose one just to see who would win. I had the Pats and Steve had the Seahawks. 

We mostly enjoyed the commercials! I think the winner of course was the Budweiser horse and the eagle. Second runner up in my mind was the one about all of the football players learning to relax about having prostate cancer screening.

Especially the "unclenched" part...  Lol! 

The game was over, Steve's team won. But that's okay, we weren't really super vested into the battle. It's amazing the money that is spent on the commercials, as well as what's spent just to attend the game itself. Here we were, hidden away in the Ozarks, in our little motorhome. We were enjoying it and didn't need to be there in person. 

The campground was completely peaceful and quiet. Steve did one last nature call for Nick outside at 9:30, keeping in mind that bears are just coming awake during this time of the year. We carry bear spray in these circumstances. 

Boy oh boy, it sure was quiet. We slept in till 7:30 a.m.!  We took the reflectix down off the windows and let the sun shine stream in. Nick wanted to know what time was breakfast! Look at that, he blends right in with the quilt and the pillows on the loveseat.

We put on light jackets, as it was already up to 40° to take our walk about.

Along one side of the campground is this beautiful rock ledge. The brook water was running and gurgling. Beautiful signs of spring. We could hear birds singing in the treetops as we walked along the edges of the babbling brook.

The ice is almost melted but the rippling waters appear here and there as we walked along the edge of the bank. We can see where some stones were arranged in a circular fashion. I bet during the summer months this is refreshing and cool. I can just imagine children playing here in that little recessed area. Maybe catching minnows and putting them in that spot.  The entire little brook seemed shallow enough, making it a safe place for children to play.

It's amazing how the trees can cling to the rocks with their roots and still grow. Drawing their moisture from deep in the crevices, it's a real testament to survival.

We relaxed for a while by the side of the brook, listening to the sounds of the water gurgling over the rocks. What a complete contrast to the weather we had left behind in Wisconsin 2 days before.

Further upstream, the canyon wall got a little higher and a little more rugged. I think the area closer down by the campground was safer for us. Up higher, things got icy and we didn't want to walk over in that area. Don't need any broken bones to start out our vacation adventure.

We worked our way back around the loop and came back to our campsite. The warmth of the sun was so good on our faces. We drank in the vitamin D. What a good breakfast!

We took a look at some maps, and also at some weather reports. We are hoping to find warmer weather now today so we can de-winterize our water lines and get some onboard fresh water. For now we have just been using jugs of water for drinking and cooking and Nick's bowl. 

I am thinking a nice hot shower this evening instead of using body wipes is on order. We might set our sights towards Jonesboro, Arkansas. We know of a beautiful county park there called Craigshead Forest. We've stayed there before so we will see if we can get a site. Some people stay there for the entire season. But they do leave about six or seven sites down near the water open for people to come and go like us.

For now, it was time to finish the photos and put them in this blog. We pulled in the slides and unhooked the power cords. It doesn't take us long to get "roadworthy". 

We are now in the highway heading south and west. Not sure where we're going to end up. Stay tuned for our next blog and you will find out when we do!

Here's the YouTube that goes along with today's blog: 

268 miles traveled today 

575 miles so far 

Day 1 - WINTER GETAWAY - Wenona Illinois Shell Station RV spots

We were all set and ready to hop out of bed and finish loading up to hit the road. But we think our doctor and Pharmacy had a different plan for us...

Somewhere wires got crossed and we needed two more prescriptions. The pharmacy contacted us at closing time last night to say there were two more prescriptions! So we had to wait until 9:00 this morning to drive up there and pick them up. Argh 

It was pretty darn cold when we woke up, four below zero. Steve started the heater out in the motor home so we could start loading things in. We got a few batches of things in before we left to go to the pharmacy. 

Keep in mind, our Pharmacy is 21 miles away. So that kind of messed up a good hour of our time.

We picked up what we needed to pick up and we got back home as quick as we could. The last few loads went in and it was time to get ready. We set the security cameras and double checked all of the appliances that did not need to be plugged in while we were gone. We cleared out the refrigerator and freezer and left both doors wide open. We also learned last time, to remove the batteries from our smoke alarms. One had been a low battery while we were gone and kept chirping and chirping and chirping. Every few minutes it would set off our inside house alarm! Our alarms sense noises as well as movement. We had to send our son-in-law over to remove the battery to stop the noise.

Once the last load was in, it was time to back up the motorhome and hook on our cute little cargo trailer. Everything's been checked and rechecked. Now it's time to roll...

Once Steve hooks it all up, I stand in the back and double check the lights left, right, brake and tail lights. Looks like we're good to go.

This is our last look from the driveway as I plodded through the snow to get over in the passenger side of the motorhome. We popped on our microphones and set up our camera to film a message for our YouTube channel.

It's now 12:30 p.m. about 4 hours later than we really wanted to leave...

YEP- HERE WE GO!

Nicholas says he is very eager to find new places to sniff. We are glad he is a good traveling companion and doesn't get motion sickness. He hops in eagerly and waits for the next time we open the door. Magically is always a new place to sniff when we open the door. Makes for a happy boy.

As we headed south, the snow was getting less and less. That was nice. As we got to the very edge of Wisconsin and entered into Illinois, things were almost bare.

Our first goal was to hit a little gas station that we know of in north central illinois. The town is called Wenona. Just south of it at the intersection of Illinois State 17, is a Shell gas station with a Burger King. It's just past the BP gas station.

Steve's dad told us about this place many years ago. They have five RV slots alongside the building. I mentioned them in my last blog. They have full hookups available for $20. There's electric and sewer at each slot. The water is turned off for the winter but there is a hose on the building that you can borrow if you want it. We opted to NOT de-winterize yet as we still have a few more nights of freezing weather.

We were treated to a beautiful sunset as we pulled off the highway after 307 miles of traveling for the day.

We pulled into the slot furthest away from the building. Otherwise you can kind of hear the drive up orders until 10:00 p.m. then they are closed. Steve went inside and paid our $20 for the night while I got supper ready. He plugged us into the electric post so we were able to run our air fryer to cook dinner. That was a nice treat. 

We block off the front cab area with a hanging quilt use little clips to attach it to the curtain rod for the top bunk. Then we take it down during the day and put it back on the loveseat.

We pop Reflectix pieces in all of the windows, for added heat retention.

After our dinner, we were cozy and comfortable.  We had the propane furnace kicking on every now and then, and we also had an electric space heater going to keep the floors comfortable. We have dual controlled mattress pad heaters on the bed, so we can each choose our own temperature. Nick hops up right between us and we let him spend the night there. Usually he sleeps on the floor but it was pretty cool down there in the corner. 

 We popped on the Roku stick that we have on our back TV and watched few of our favorite YouTube channels. One of them is Cabin River Outdoors from British Columbia Canada, and another one is Kyle's Cabin from Minnesota. 

It got down in the low 20s overnight, and when we woke up in the morning it was 24° but it was also very, very windy! That had NOT been in the forecast...

We made up our breakfast and got roadworthy to put on some more miles. We went to retract the back slide, there might have been some ice up in the slide cover recoil device. Steve grabbed a broom and hopped up on the tongue of the cargo trailer. He tapped it a couple times and worked it loose. Now we could retract the rear slide and the cover rolled up the way it was supposed to. Whew! What a relief. We wouldn't want to have to try to find parts on a Sunday to repair a crazy awning cover. 

We took our time to fuel up and dump off our trash before we hit the road. Illinois diesel fuel is $3.29 a gallon and we are doing about 11.5 miles per gallon right now. Lots of wind so that makes a difference.

MAYBE HEADING INTO 

MISSOURI TODAY??

Here is the video to go with today's blog: 

307 miles traveled so far.