Donna didn’t sleep well Saturday night and woke up not feeling so great on Sunday – she thinks she may have overdone it in the heat on her bike ride Saturday. She managed to go out and visit with our neighbors, Lester and Jo Ann Foreman – the people with the Vixen I wrote about in my last post. Then she pushed herself to take her a walk through the trails surrounding Tom Sawyer’s RV Park.

When she came back, I noticed a barge tow slowly making it’s way upriver. The tow was only four barges lashed together, but it was being pushed upriver by the smallest tow boat I’ve seen on the Mississippi. I wrote about the Mississippi barges in this post. The small barge tow was only moving at walking speed – in fact, I think I walk faster than it was moving. With the water level of the river so low, most of tows have been smaller than what we saw in the spring.

Donna pointed out another small tow boat, identical to the one pushing the barge coming downriver. I went outside and snapped a few photos as the new arrival made a 180-degree turn and lined up next to the tow boat to help it upriver through the bend.

Smallest tow I’ve seen on the Mississippi

Helper tow boat making the turn around

Help has arrived

I organized the trailer and loaded the Traeger smoker/grill and scooter. Later I watched the Moto GP race from Silverstone in England. In typical English summer weather, rain began falling on the track just as the riders went out for the sighting lap. The start was delayed as everyone came back into the pits to switch to a wet set-up motorcycle. The race was very entertaining, but I won’t spoil it in case a reader has recorded it for later viewing.

When we were here in June, I meant to take a photo of the high water mark from May 2011. In April of 2011, storms in the Mississippi watershed had the tributaries flooding and filling the Mississippi River. Spring runoff from snow melt also contributed to second highest water levels recorded on the Mississippi in the last 100 years. The river crested at 48.7 feet in Memphis. This building in Tom Sawyer’s RV Park, which sits on higher ground than our site, shows just how high the water was. Here’s a photo.

That’s how high the park was flooded

On Sunday night, it was my turn for a fitful night trying to sleep. The pollen levels are so high, my allergies kept me awake much of the night. On Monday morning, we packed up and pulled out of our site a little before 10am. I had mapped a route to take us west on Broadway in West Memphis. This road becomes highway 70. We turned north at AR147 to get to US64. I wanted to avoid I-40. We knew from our trip last June that I-40 from West Memphis to Little Rock is horrible.

Just before we reached US64, we stopped as a train slowly crossed in front of us. I saw it slow down, then stop. There were two tracks, but the engines were stopped 150 yards past the switch. We wondered if he was waiting for another train to pass, but it didn’t make sense. With the engines and several cars past the switch there wasn’t a way for another train to reach the second track. I shut off our engine and Donna and I talked to while away the time. After about 10 minutes, I heard the train cars banging and jolting. The train was reversing back the way it came. The engine came past the switch, then cleared the road. I started our engine just before the barrier rose in front of us and we were on our way again. I have no idea what the train stopping where it did was all about. Train transportation logistics are a mystery to me.

US64 was a mostly smooth road with only a few rough sections. Again, it was slower going as we passed through small towns. Most of time we were in farm country with lots of soy bean fields and sorghum. We were only going about 200 miles. Our destination was an Army Corps of Engineers (COE) park near Morrilton, Arkansas (map).

Park entrance

We followed a narrow, winding road through a residential area, then found ourselves at Cherokee Park on the Arkansas River at Arthur V. Ormond Dam and Lock. The dam is operated by the COE and they also provide a recreation area including campsites. There are 32 paved sites with electricity and water. The water quality is questionable. I ran water from our spigot and saw pieces of vegetation coming out of the tap. Good thing we left West Memphis with a full fresh water tank. The cost for 50 amp electrical service is a reasonable $20/night.

We circled the park and chose site A15 at the east end of the park. This site is a long, level back-in site next to the river. There was one problem though. They placed the power pedestal at the extreme rear of the site. I worked around it by backing the trailer to the end of the pavement, centering the short concrete stop barrier and putting the trailer onto the grass. Having done that, I still needed the full 35′ length of our 50 amp cable to hook up to power.

50 amp cable fully extended

Donna and I walked through the park back to the entrance. We didn’t see any check-in instructions or way to pay for our site when we arrived. We couldn’t find anything on our walk either. After I came back to the coach, Donna decided to walk another lap. When she came back, I saw her by the picnic table outside. Suddenly she was screaming and calling me for help. She was being swarmed by wasps nesting under the table and got stung twice before I could get her into the coach. I had one hit me in West Memphis last night.

View from our doorstep – watch out for wasps

Ormond dam floodgates – lock on the far side of the river and the power generator is out of view to the right

Arkansas River on the edge of the park downstream from dam

This was our first time staying in a COE park and we didn’t know the procedure. About an hour after we set-up, the camp hosts drove up and greeted us. They took down all of our pertinent information in a log they keep and gave me an envelope to pay at a drop box when we leave. So, that’s how it works at a COE park.

While we were driving down the road this afternoon, Donna had jambalaya cooking in the slow cooker. It smelled so good! It was an amazing dish that Donna said was quick and easy to prepare with wholesome ingredients.

Jambalaya from the slow cooker

Once again, Ozark the cat traveled peacefully sleeping in her crate. We’ll move on today to another COE park in her namesake town – Ozark, Arkansas.