July 3, 2015
We were up and ready to pull out of the campground at 8:30 after emptying the holding tank at the dump station. It was a hazy kind of morning with a temp. of 80 degrees. We were traveling through more of the Ozark Mountains today as we headed south to
Hot Springs, AR.
.
We crossed over the border into Arkansas around 9 AM.
We would be spending most of the day going up and down the hills and valleys of the Ozarks, often seeing the mountains in the distance.
We had to take a “principal” road, not an Interstate, through small towns (populations as low as 95) with side access roads to Little Rock. We had a few stoplights to slow us down (21), but it wasn’t too bad. Traffic was light. We crossed the Buffalo National River and saw our first “elk crossing” sign.
Gas prices in the small towns were down to $2.20/gal. because the hills did a number on our gas mileage.
It was a total of 160 miles/3 hours/21 stoplights of mountain driving. As we entered Little Rock city limits, we crossed the Arkansas River where we could see Pinnacle Mountain off in the distance.
We arrived at our campground, Hot Springs KOA, around 1:15 and set up camp.
Thank goodness our site was in the shade with a temperature of 96 degrees. Tomorrow the predicted high is supposed to be 99.
We all took some time to chill out before taking a drive into Hot Springs to check it out. Hot Springs is the boyhood home of Bill Clinton we learned from the sign.
Tomorrow Bob has a BOD meeting for the Co-op that he’ll do via Skype at 9:30, so we’ll hang out until that is done and then go into town to explore. We had some leftovers on the grill, brats and burgers, and then hung out at the campsite. Auggie and I took our usual evening walk around the park. We watched some TV before turning in for the night.
