Moved to Wilder

Here at the ranch they have 2 types of campsites for members to park on. 30 day and 60 day pads. The 60 day pads are hard to get as the full-timers that live here year round like to trade places with other full-times. We don’t mind the 30 day pads because by 30 days I'm ready to move to a new spot anyway.

Since we have our new rig we have found a bit of difficulty in finding spots large enough and finding 50 amps is the most difficult. Lonesome pine campground is all 30/50 amps but Wilder, Hill Country, Foggy, Melody, and Powder Mill only have a limited amount of 50 amps. Powder Mill only has 2 true 50 amps and the camp host is on 1 of them. The other is next to the camp host and our campers would be almost touching side to side. I do not like that!!

We had been riding around and looking at the 50 amp sites and Hill Country had several but we were not due to move until July 26th. Well Tuesday night we decided to go out riding again and thought well since the weekend was coming up it might be best to move before then. The 50 amps in Hill Country were all taken, Powder Mill was out as i don’t enjoying be that close to my neighbor. Melody Lane campsites are so small there is no way we’d even try to take our new rig there. We found 2 nice spots in Wilder and so we agreed the next morning we’d get up and take a 4 wheeler down and save our spot.

Well when we got there can you believe both spots were taken! So I decided to drive by one of the prime spots in Wilder to see if by chance it was open and it was! I had wanted to park on this site all last year and could never get it.

Just my luck so we parked the 4 wheeler and went to hook up the camper and moved to our new spot.

Nothing much happening

Nothing much has been happening since i last posted. It’s been too hot to do much of anything but stay inside to keep cool. We did go to town one day and get some grub, and i forgot to get me a air card. The wifi has been down for over a week and so no internet at my campsite. I enjoy playing online and hubby enjoys reading the papers online so he can keep up with the news back home. We’ve been taking rides down by the fishing area and through the campgrounds in the evening when it’s cooler. We’ve also spent time in the evenings visiting with friends and making new friends.

Were just enjoying sitting back and relaxing this summer.

Hope your all having a great summer .. it sure has been a hot one here!!

Mammoth Spring, AR and Little Grand Canyon in Thayer, Mo

Today is my baby boys birthday! Happy Birthday Gabe, we love you. He is 23! Wow how time has flown.

It is one hot day! We decided to take another day trip of looking over Arkansas campgrounds. It’s too hot to do anything else. Heat index predicted to be in the 100’s!

We decided to go to Mammoth Spring State Park. We had driven by several times and it looked beautiful.

First we headed toward the hatchery. We went inside to the aquarium. My pictures are not the best with the lightening my camera doesn’t do well.

Then we went outside to the hatchery. once again my camera didn’t do well, even though i turned the flash off. All i could get pictures of were the coy fish.

Then we headed over the museum, we learned some history. Did you know that Mammoth Spring, Arkansas was the inspiration of the Ole Grand Opry? I didn’t!

The museum is where the old train depot was.

You couldn’t go inside the train but you could see inside and snapped a picture.

Then we headed to the visitor center and the part i wanted to see ….

Yessssss … the dam! Oh it was so hot out walking but when you got below the dam, it was so nice and cool. The water made the breeze nice and cool. I could of stayed here all day long .. this type of stuff, dams, water falls .. basically water memorizes me.

This is the view when you walk across the dam.

What a day to go swimming and yes people were swimming.

Here is the museum from the dam side

This picture is taken from the top of the dam looking down .. beautiful!!

After you walk across the dam the old electric building is open to tour. It was pretty neat as this is where the electric came from to run the dam years ago ..

Wow … look at this huge machine …

This picture if walking back from the electric building.

Little Grand Canyon??

On our way back we say a sign that said Grand Gulf State Park, which is located near Thayer, MO. So since were on an adventure we followed the sign. We were beginning to wonder if we would ever find it. finally a sign that said turn here and then we came to the end of the black top and there it was. The sign that said Grand Gulf State Park. I was thinking it was a campground type park .. wrong ……..

We went inside the park and parked in the only parking lot there was. all we could see was trees and a trail. We got and started down a trail that was rocked and had hand rails .. should of been our first hint ….

Hmmm we never dreamed we’d find this …

The sign above says this …

Grand Gulf State Park preserves one of the state’s most significant geologic wonders – a major collapsed cave system often called the “Little Grand Canyon” When a portion of the cave roof collapsed, it created a three-fourths mile long canyon and one of the largest natural bridges in Missouri.

We walked around the other side and down about 20 steps and there was a nice rail patio and this is what you saw when you looked over the side .. sorry the last photo turned out bad but i got very light headed and we had to get me out of there before i ended up on the ground!!! I don’t do heights very well and looking at this really got me!!

Hubby got me safely in the truck and he walked around another side of the canyon and said that it was 1/8 mile long, 119 steps down and and the canyon on that side was 70’ deep! I have always wanted to see the grand canyon and hope that someday i do get there but not sure that i can actually see it without fainting .. hmmm if i almost fainted seeing Little Grand Canyon what will i do seeing the big one ??

On our way home we stopped at Wal-mart and picked up a few things we needed. I also got me a new memory card for my camera as my camera doesn’t hold many photo’s. I purchased a 4 GB disc .. it was a great day although it is very hot outside and the rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in our nice and cool home.

Norfork Lake, Arkansas

We got up a bit on the late side today, but we played cards late last night with our friends Doris and Lynn. I’m proud to say the ladies won both games!

Around 2 pm we decided to take a drive to Arkansas to check out some campgrounds over there. We stopped and toured around several COE campgrounds. A couple of them we could get our rig in but the roads are very narrow. Gamaliel COE had a couple spots long enough for our 38’ home but the roads are very narrow for backing into. Bidwell Point, i wouldn’t recommend anyone with a large rig trying to get into that campground .. spots are very small there was one other but i forgot the name and large rigs could get into some spots but the roads are all on hillsides.

Here is a picture that i took crossing the bridge going over Norfork Lake. It’s one huge beautiful lake!

On the way home we stopped and toured a small town called Bakersfield, MO. A very small old town. We found this old neat bridge that we crossed and it takes you to the park and ball field.

Here is the entrance to the ranch. I hadn’t taken a picture of the entrance and decided to do so yesterday.

The road leading into our private paradise is almost 3 1/2 miles of winding and hilly road. It’s a beautiful drive.

This snapping turtle was crossing the road

Here is the gate house, you have to be a member to enter or if your a guest, your member has to be there for you to enter the gate.

There are 5 campgrounds, this is the one we are currently parked in.

Here sits our home, yes we are road to road. That is a down fall at C9, the pads were made years ago and it’s hard to find pads to accommodate the larger rigs, but if you look carefully you find one you can park on.

We had a wonderful time out venturing and we went for a nightly ride and then retired to just relax from a fun day.