Weekend Camping.

Will and I had a good time camping near Eureka Springs at Beaver Lake. We got in very late on Friday and could not find our site. The place I thought it was blocked off and there were other sites there but we couldn't find them. I saw a sign which said No Artificial Lures beyond this point. I didn't really know what that meant but thought we couldn't go in that rode. So we went back across the Dam to a different campground. We had a hard time finding numbers but found a camp ranger. We said that we had site 35 reserved. We had reserved it online. He asked if it was a river site and I said yes. We were not at the river sites when we found him. He said it may be a problem, because of all the rain there was some flooding and some of the sites were not open. He was very helpful and was looking everwhere for a site for us. There were several campgrounds the whole way around the lake. There was another ranger helping him also. He finally said he found something on the other side of the lake it would be a drive. We thought it would be better than heading back to Searcy. He said we could follow him he was heading that way to the main office. We had followed him for sometime and he pulled over and asked what our names were. He said he was sorry but we did have a site reserved in the Pines. So we made our way back to where we were. We got to a rode that said something about Bottoms camping and pulled in and there was another ranger. We asked where the pines were and she said she would take us over. It was kinda nice to have escorts everywhere. She asked what site we were and we told her. We were camped in the sign that said no artificial Lures byond this point. We set up camp and went to bed. At this point it was after 1am. Will woke up early that AM and enjoyed the hammock. When I got up the weather had turned thundery and rainy. We decided we better eat somewhere instead of trying to cook. Which was good. A lot of rain fell. You can notice the rain behind Will and that was even a day after the rainfall.

The rain cleared up after breakfast and it ended up being a beautiful day. We went to see the Chirst of the Ozarks Statue, and Went to downtown Eureka, we walked around and look at the Art Cars. Jasper especially enjoyed one of the Art Motorcycles. Who had fishing supplies complete witha basket and a loaf of bread. The bread intrigued him so much that he grabbed it out of the basket. The man was very understanding and stuck the bread right back with the rest of the loaf which was held together with toothpicks. We then went back to the campsite to set up a new table cover we bought just encase of rain and to cook something. That evening we went over to the lake to swim. The water was still very cold. Will and Jasper Swam the most. I jumped in for a minute or two. That evening we played some games under the table cover. Which was very nice there were no bugs getting in or swarming our latern. We felt we made a good purchase. Probably around nine the rangers came by that had helped us the night before. They had apoligized for putting us ona wild goose chase and had talked to us for a little bit. There were both very nice.

The next morning. We got up and made some breakfast. Even by 9:30 it was very warm so we decided we better not do the hiking we had planned till it cools off and headed for the War Eagle Mill. It was very neat to see this waterpowered still working mill. Jasper cooled off in the river beside it. We were going to but did not have towels, we only had our swim suits. We headed back to camp and were just about ready to hike when some thunder and lightning came and some very dark clouds. We headed back to our site instead. My this time it was raining and a little windy. We asked the attendant if he heard how long it would last. He said he did not know but there were tornado warnings. We decided we would throw everything into the truck and head back to Searcy. By this time our whole campsite was pretty much flooded our tent was in a big puddle. We loaded everything up in the wind and pouring rain. I even saw a couple pea size hail and made our way home.

Memorial Day we made some buckwheat pancakes with our new flour for breakfast and we went to see a matinee of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. We were gonna play bocce ball and some badmitton but guess what more thunder and rain. Luckily our porch had a little everhang so we were able to start the grill and grill some veggies and hamburgers and watched some old Nancy Drew shows from the 1930's.

Do you have any interesting camping stories or Holiday weekend stories?