Wednesday, 11 March 2020
Lake Chicot State Park is an odd campground. When I first came in yesterday, I noticed two sections of the campground with half the sites under water, but when I mentioned it at the office, the ranger said no, it wasn't flooding, the water would sink in quickly. Except I didn't notice even a little change by this morning.
They have quite a few cabins for rent that look very nice and modern. The campground says no pets are allowed in them, but at least one of the groups has 2 dogs in theirs. They aren't hiding them either - I saw them several times out running around, not on leashes.
There's lots of bugs, even though it's still early in March. This area must be terrible in the summer. But there's a large flock of Red-winged Blackbirds, too, so maybe they're eating the bugs.
But other than those things, it's not a bad campground, except once again I have no wifi. I haven't had easy wifi access in the last 5 days, and it's really getting old. Lest I seem petty, here's what my life is like without a signal:
* I can't work on the blog
* I can't get weather reports or know when to expect sunrises and sunsets (all important to a camper)
* I have trouble planning my driving route
*I have no ability to check whether the campground I'm aiming for has space available
*I'm not getting any email
*I'm getting no news updates because Arkansas Public Radio has a very limited coverage area.
That's okay for a day or two, especially when I'm prepared for it. But not for the best part of a week when I wasn't expecting it. In other words, I abandoned my travel plans and hightailed it back to the nearest campground where I was sure I could get a wifi signal - White Oak Lake.
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| today's route |
I went first to Lake Village, a few miles from the campground, expecting to pick up a wifi signal there. Although the town has almost 2,600 people, I still couldn't get a signal while sitting in a downtown parking lot. I decided to head west to the nearest sizable town and hope for a signal there. The AAA map showed Montrose as sitting right on the highway, so off I went.
I crossed the Beouf River, which runs down into Louisiana, but have no idea why it would be named "beef."
Turns out Montrose doesn't sit on the highway at all. It's off a side road to the north, which I didn't realize until I was long past it. I stopped in a driveway that serviced some sort of utility installation to pore over the map, because there wasn't anywhere else at all that I could stop. US Route 82 is just straight and flat - you'd think we were in west Texas - and from that driveway I could finally get a signal and plot a route to White Oak Lake.
I heard on the radio - a country station - that a female Komodo Dragon in the Chattanooga Zoo gave birth to 3 babies by parthenogenesis. Some trick. A shame humans can't do that.
In the tiny town of Snyder, I saw a large homemade sign that said, "To be almost saved is to be totally lost." Maybe the person is well-intentioned, but I don't think absolutes are of much use in the real world.
I passed the community of Mist (a few houses gathered together, it seems). It's on the official state map but not the AAA map.
I'm seeing lots of flat fields, some of them obviously cotton fields.
In the town of Hamburg, pop. 2,857, I actually ran a red light. I stared straight at it, got distracted, and went right through it. This was looking like a very unlucky day for me, and I started to get worried about my ability to focus.
Right after Hamburg I ran into 15 miles of road construction work, which also got me so distracted I missed the turn I needed to make to stay on Route 82. The construction kept going and so did I, and I was actually several miles into Louisiana before I realized where I was. That was a 20-mile detour I took and kept me driving through construction a lot longer than I needed to. This was definitely not my day.
Back on Route 82, I passed a sign in someone's yard saying, "God Bless America - Not if we legalize sin." I have no idea which sin they have in mind, and no idea why they're so sure God won't keep on blessing America, which I'd think would need the blessing much more if it's wallowing in sin.
I got to Crossett, pop. 5,507, the Forestry Capital of the South, they claim. And they have several Georgia-Pacific plants in town to prove it. I passed a business with no name except One Hour Martinizing Dry Cleaners. I haven't heard that name for years. I've never known what "martinizing" is supposed to do, though I suppose it's pretty spiffy.
The redbuds are blooming.
I passed a sign saying I was in the Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge, then in short order crossed the Ouachita River Relief, crossed the Ouachita River Relief again (don't know if there're 2 of them or if this one wound around), then the Ouachita River itself, then the Ouachita River Relief yet again, then Deep Slough followed by Lapile Creek. All of these - including the roads in the NWR - were obviously flooded. Yes, it's been raining, but I'm guessing what I was seeing was runoff from the already saturated lands around here. Speaking of which, they must be having a terrible time with excess rainwater in Alabama these days.
I saw a few more Longhorns, then miles and miles of tree farms at various stages, ranging from clearcut to new planting to intermediate growth and on to mature trees.
I came to El Dorado, pop. 18,883, which has strong ties to the oil and gas industry. That may mean they're hurting right now, with the volatility of oil prices at the moment. There's also an Arkansas Welcome Center there, and we stopped so the dogs could get out and walk around a bit and we could have lunch.
Following this break I went down the wrong road yet again because the Google directions I had listed that wrong road as being the right one. Fortunately, this time I caught it almost right away, and the only problem was trying to find somewhere to turn around.
I saw at least 20 vultures in a drainage ditch working on a deer carcass. They're such big birds it's always impressive to see several of them gathered together.
I was on State Route 7, designated an Arkansas Scenic Byway. As I was back in the hills again, I agree this area is scenic.
I passed the turnoffs to the towns of Norphlet and Smackover. Every state has its odd names for towns, and Arkansas is no exception. Smackover, by the way, is the home of the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources which, in this case, mostly means oil and gas, given its location.
I passed another sign telling me I was crossing the Future I-69 Corridor. That thing's going to cut through lot of Arkansas.
The Visitor Center parking lot was very pleasant because of hot sun, but now heavy dark clouds had moved in to cover all the north sky.
I came to Camden, pop. 13,154, and switched to State Route 278, designated both the Civil War Trail and the Trail of Tears.
I passed a very small local grocery with a sign in front saying, "Politics spoken here." That's the sort of thing you'd have to be very local to get away with, I'd think.
We came at White Oak Lake from a different direction than we had come before and stopped at the Poison Springs Battleground State Park. I can't seem to find anyone to tell me where Poison Springs got its name from. The battle here was the South beating some Union troops that were provisioning themselves to prepare for the Red River Campaign. It was considered a good victory for the South, except that they massacred all the surrendering Union soldiers and mutilated their bodies - not so good. Many of those soldiers were recently freed slaves, which may account for the viciousness of the Southerners.
The dogs and I walked around again for a bit. The soil here is very sandy, almost as much as in a woods near a beach. A sign said something about it being an unusual place for all this sand, and the plants that prefer growing in sandy soil managed to find it.
All day I passed lots of logging trucks, and this area was no different.
Right before the campground I found myself on a hill with a sharp turn ahead and an admonition for trucks to use a lower gear. That indicates these hills are quite a contrast to the flat lands of the Delta. I sure wouldn't want to meet a logging truck on this hill.
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