Living Positive: Arkansas!

June 7, 2021

Today was a travel day to Arkansas. Since we were in the southern part of Missouri, it did not take long to cross the border into Arkansas. Oh the trees! There are so many trees everywhere that it prompted me to do a little Googling. The Arkansas state tree is the pine tree and they have many varieties, all different from the types we have in Colorado. The four native species are the shortleaf pine, loblolly pine, longleaf pine, and slash pine. There are also many lakes. Arkansas has over 600,000 acres of lakes and 9,700 miles of streams and rivers. This is why there is so much fishing….and humidity!

We stopped in Harrison, Arkansas on the way to pick up Don’s new phone. The Verizon store was conveniently across the street from a Walmart which was great - a big parking lot for the trailers! Did I mention that in Arkansas it seems like every town has a Walmart, a Dollar General and a Sonic? Apparently, the first Walmart was in Benton, Arkansas. Fortunately, Verizon had Don’s new phone ready for him so we were shortly on our way….after we went into Walmart….

We arrived at our destination, Bull Shoals- White River State Park in the early afternoon. It was so green that it felt like we were camping in the middle of a city park. We were near the White river and white tailed deer would happen by every so often.

Since it was only in the high seventies, we decided to go for a little hike on a nearby trail. Ok, I didn’t take into account the humidity which was around 78%! Even though we were hiking through the densely shaded forest, it was still hot. It is hard to follow the paths here because the ground cover grows quickly and there is moss everywhere. We did see Sassafras trees and white oaks and tried to keep a lookout for poison ivy and poison oak which are also prevalent here.The trail led to an overlook of the Bull Shoals dam which controls the water level of the river. It is a hydroelectric dam, one of many in the state.

Our campground is near a town called Mountain Home and that is where we traveled for dinner. Gary and Karen are familiar with this area and took us to one of their favorites - Fred’s Fish House. It is located next to the Norfolk reservoir which is very scenic. The specialty of this establishment is fried catfish so of course we needed to order it. Entrees came with the fixins which included pickled green tomatoes, coleslaw, hush puppies, and jojo potatoes. Consequently, everything was brown on your plate because everything was fried, however, everything was delicious- not greasy or fishy since it was fresh. I got a kick out of the waitress when I asked her what alcoholic drinks they had and she replied, “we got beer and wine in a box.” Beer it is!