Cherokee Landing Thousand Trails preserve was a little piece of heaven - so quiet, peaceful, and restful! We spent almost the entire week there without taking any day trips as we had planned. The weather was almostpicture-perfect as the sun shone, the temperatures were absolutely mildduring the day, and the nights were pleasantly cool and comfortable!

We had the pleasure of a visit from Wayne and Kathy Johnson for two nights.They came up on Wednesday and were the only occupants in the cabin section of the park. They could walk out their back door and right onto the lakefront. When they arrived on Wednesday afternoon, we all drove to Bolivar and the local Super Wal-Mart. They both bought temporary fishing permits and some bass lures. We spent one afternoon with them on the shoreline and watched them fish. Both of them got bites, but no "keepers". It was fun just sitting and watching them - Wayne takes his fishing seriously, and Kathy does a great job trying to keep up with him. When they left on Friday morning, we were sad to say goodbyes. We've had a wonderful time seeing them and sharing some special time with them.

We had originally planned to go to Memphis on a day trip, but changed our plans a bit. Instead of driving the 50 miles to Memphis, we stayed close to the preserve and got some needed chores accomplished on the coach. I was able to clean the roof, wax some parts of the coach, and do arranging in the storage bays. I went to breakfast on Saturday morning and met one of the active posters on the TTN email list. I also had the chance to talk with the owners of a motorhome that arrived on Wednesday - Maxwell, Victoria, and Jennifer Smart. They have a mid-engine Newmar MountainAire coach and are traveling around the U.S. They will visit all 48 states in one year and do a weekly radio show sponsored by Hewlett-Packard. Their schedule is grueling; even more strenuous than ours is! You can read all about them at
www.smartfamilyshow.com. They have an interesting story and were very interesting to meet and talk to

We finally had to pack up and leave on Monday morning. We were able to leave early and get some miles behind us on our way to Mountain View, AR. We drove through Memphis and stopped at the Flying J in West Memphis, AR to top off the tank. We drove on up through mountainous terrain (peaks of 700') and stayed primarily on state and county roadways. When we arrived at the Spring Hill RV Park, we had a little challenge getting parked in a park built for small trailers and campers. Once we were settled, we learned that Mountain View is known for its gatherings of bluegrass musicians. These aren't big name performers; these are the folks that play acoustic instruments and enjoy the basic sounds of banjos, guitars, fiddles, mandolins, and dulcimers. The folks gather around the Courthouse each night around 7PM and have their little "jam sessions". It's a fascinating collection of simple folks who love their music. We enjoyed sitting around in circled chairs and listening to the sounds of the players

We found Arkansas to be a beautiful state. The mountains that folks refer to are small by our standards, but very similar to the roads we've traveled in the Cuyamaca Mountains east of San Diego. Lots of rolling hills and heavily treed landscape kept me watching the road. I noticed a lot more poverty than I had seen so far on this trip. We couldn't help but notice the number of mobile homes, old travel trailers, and even old motor homes that had become permanent living quarters for many of the mountain residents. We also saw some of the most beautiful mountain cabins (estates) and some amazingly low prices for real estate

We spent only one night in Mountain View and left early on Tuesday morning headed for Branson, MO. I had looked on the internet for prices of the shows in Branson and my fiscally-conservative traits popped out. OK, I'm just cheeeep!!! I don't care to take out second mortgages for entertainment. Most of the shows were in the $30-40/person price range. We arrived at Branson at the Fall Creek Resort, an AOR park that only costs us $6/night. It is a beautiful resort - huge condos, time shares, and an RV park. We checked in for only one night and cancelled our other two nights

On the way to Branson we received a phone call from Hart Ranch. There have been some interesting developments up there and they are short of help. I had offered to arrive earlier if there was a need - the phone call confirmed that the need was indeed there. We are in the process of changing our plans and arriving by next Tuesday. We still want to spend a few nights in Nebraska, so we'll be doing a little more driving than I had planned. We will take advantage of our location and stop in Lincoln for two nights and Genoa, NE for two nights.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money going to shows in Branson. The resort had a Chinese buffet scheduled for Tuesday night and several of the Branson entertainers dropped by to give us a sample of their shows. We saw Jenna Crispin, the 15-yr.-old who sang in the Clay Cooper Revue at the Orlando Monaco Rally in January. We also heard two numbers from a group called "SIX". They are six brothers who sing with no instrumental accompaniment. They make the sounds of the instruments and are fantastic! If we were to stay longer, we definitely would like to see their show. (Who knows, maybe they could be brought to a Monaco Rally some time!). We both enjoyed the buffet supper and the teases we saw for the different shows. For $7.50/person it was a great evening!

We are getting our first real rain showers in a long time. The forecast calls for the potential of severe weather, but we'll be monitoring our weather alert radio and hopefully sleep well anyway. Tomorrow begins the long drive to Hart Ranch - I know, I'm retired, but I would like to get there and assist in getting the park up and running.

1 comment:

Rick Stone said...

That rain you got is the storm that came up from west Texas and across Oklahoma from SW to NE. We had it hit here on Tuesday. Lots of rain but it moved on through pretty quickly. Should have taken time to go to the Roy Rogers museum and take in the Dusty Rogers show. It is one of the lower priced shows and is really good. It's a tribute show to his parents.