Friday 4-9 Tompkins Bend Recreation Area and Rain

 

Lake Dardanelle State Park

We started the day out saying good-bye to Mount Nebo State Park. We left about 8:00 am. Mount Nebo State Park doesn't have a dump station but you can dump your tanks down the mountain at Lake Dardanelle State Park. It's only about 7 miles away. It took us a bit to get down the mountain because of the tight turns. Larry was grateful that he only passed one RV on the way down and it was at the beginning. He just took his time and did an excellent job. 

Once on the bottom we took a two lane road to Lake Dardanelle State Park. It has two campgrounds and Larry decided to go to the one closest to the direction we're going. The park looks very nice and had campsites on the lake. After dumping the tanks we went to Walmart to pick up a few things. Then we were ready to continue our adventure to our next destination.

 

Lake Dardanelle State Park campground

 

Larry dumping our tanks

Our next destination was Tompkins Bend Recreation Area on Lake Ouachita. Lake Ouachita is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake. Tompkins Bend has 77 campsites with concrete tables, ground grill, pedestal grill, lantern pole and shade provided by trees. The other amenities are flush toilets, showers, boat ramp, water and power on each site, trailer dump station, fish cleaning station, playground, pavilion, amphitheater and trails. 

We arrived at Tompkins Bend about 11:00 and the booth was closed so you were on your own. We drove around and found our site but couldn't get in it because someone was there. Check out time isn't until 4:00 and check in time isn't until 6:00. You can check in early if no one is in your site. We parked the Minnie on the site next door and waited. He turned up shortly afterwards and started to put things away. While we were waiting we had lunch. 

After lunch a park ranger came by to check people in. She said we could stay in the site as long as we wished because it was available. The neighbor was waiting for another camper to leave so he could move to that site. He didn't realize we were waiting. He decided he would dump his tank and then wait in the boat ramp area until his site was available. When he left we moved into our spot.

We set the Minnie up for a couple of nights. The clouds had rolled in during lunch and we heard thunder so we hung around the Minnie and read. I did my Daily Challenges and the Event: Free Cell Mini of 5 games. It took me 13 minutes and 30 seconds, which put me in 24th place in my group. The rain came in around 2:00. It steadily came down for about a half hour.

After dinner Larry and I went for a walk. When we were driving into Tompkins Bend we saw where the hiking trailhead was and thought we would have to walk to it. Larry figured it was about a half a mile away. While walking around we found another entrance to the trail that is very near our campsite. This was a great surprise. We walked a bit to see how muddy it was and found it to be fine. As we walked we saw a bat house and a few deer. We walked to the boat ramp. The ramp was very nice and wide. We walked around for an hour. We had a nice walk. 

 

Camping at Tompkins Bend Campground

A bat house

Campers at Tompkins Bend

Sunset on Lake Ouachita

After our walk Larry and I read a bit. I baked some oatmeal raisin cookies for our dessert. I finished doing my 26,000 steps, which put me 5th place in my group.