Resting and Relaxing with the Neighbors

When we last posted we had just begun our adventure in the Bull Shoals White River State Park in Arkansas.  Since then we have spent the last two weeks in what I would claim is the best state park I have ever experienced.  In fact, this state park has won several times in the past few years the top state park in the State of Arkansas.

We can see why.  The area is well kept and manicured.  The camping sites are large and level.  The facilities are clean and modern.  There are plenty of things to experience such as free organized talks and hikes.  Nature is abundant and the air is clean.  Our last two weeks have been spent relaxing and doing what we wanted to do when the impulse moved us to do so.

During our stay we celebrated two birthdays.  Sophie and David each had a birthday.  For Sophie we visited the Taco Bell in Mountain Home and had her favorite combo for lunch on her birthday.  Later that evening, Brenda prepared a roast and potatoes dinner with a lemon cake for the evening birthday celebration complete with birthday candles on the cake.  David had a Pizza King buffet lunch with four different kinds of Longview’s Pizza King pizza and a homemade old-fashioned banana pudding (compliments of Bibi) complete with candles to celebrate his birthday a few days later.  This lifestyle is rough when you have to eat all this home cooking while in a rustic setting.

Happy Birthday Sophie, you look pretty happy!

Happy Birthday David, believe me.  He was VERY happy!

Another thing we did was tour the dam for Bull Shoals Lake.  The dam was erected in the 50’s by the Corps of Engineer for the purpose of flood control.  The White River was prone to a lot of flooding prior to the completion of the project and contributed to the Mississippi River flooding problems since the White ultimately empties into that body of water.

We actually did not tour the dam since it is mostly concrete, what we actually toured was the power plant operations.  This project included an electricity generating plant and is well worth the time to learn about how it works.  Water is taken from the lake and run through turbines that turn electrical generators to provide electricity.  This particular facility provides excess demand electricity for seven states.  It has eight generators that are used in the process to send electricity into the grid as needed when demand exceeds the normal capacity of providers.

We watched this process daily from our campground on the river below the dam.  When we got up in the morning, the river was low and not flowing too fast since only minimal generation happens overnight.  As the day progresses, around noon, the generation of electricity begins at the dam and the water level rises on the river and the current increases with the increased volume of water released into the river.

Interestingly, the water in the river is very cold, around 45 to 50 degrees while the surface lake water is around 84 degrees.  The reason for the difference is the water used to run through the turbines is taken from deep in the lake where the water is much cooler than the surface.  As this cold water comes downriver, it creates a fog.  One morning we got up and went to fish, we could hear people talking but you could not see more than a few feet in any direction due to the fog.  As the sun rose, it gradually cleared the fog and was mostly gone by ten.

Fog on the river

Fishing (Larry and David) in the fog

Larry is lost in the fog - there is a boat out there somewhere

Preparing for a restful sit in the Air Conditioned River Air

The cold water makes the river a prime trout river.  It is home for several species of trout.  The brown trout is native to the area but rainbow and cutthroat are regularly stocked by hatcheries for sport fishing purposes and to relieve fishing pressures on the native species.  We of course, being this close, decided to partake of the local sport.  So we succumbed to the fishing fever that envelopes a person that is infected by close association with so many anglers.

We rented a boat so we could reach the honey holes after we observed how others fished, talked to many folks and got a general idea of the types of baits used for catching the most fish.  As you can see from the picture, research does indeed pay.  Not only does it pay for the serious fisherperson but for the not so experienced as well.  Bibi caught her first trout ever.  Now you may think this is not a big deal but for someone that traditionally has not been able to land a single fish, even when everyone else around her is catching fish, this is a HUGE deal.  See that smile?  I was very proud of her and proud for her because she did this on her own.  Not only that but she hooked a very big one that got away.  Probably the biggest of the day and she had two witnesses that vouched for the missed big one.

Fisher folks in the boat-David, Bibi and Gran

I caught one, I caught one.  She could not stop smiling this day.

View upriver to the dam

View downriver

View into the river, yes that is what we are after, a trout

Somebody hitched a ride on David's hat- see the butterfly?

Tired but happy fishermen

Close up of the day's catch

This rented excursion also proved that honesty does indeed pay.  Because the water is low in the morning until the power generators are turned on and more water enters the river, you are limited to staying between two sets of shoals, one upriver and one downriver.  We knew this but got distracted and accidentally got into the shoals downriver as we floated.  David, who manned the motor, immediately realized our predicament and started the motor to get us back to deeper water.  This is when we heard it, the thud!  He restarted the motor and again attempted to get us out of the rocks to better water.  Many times we heard the thud! As the process was repeated over and over again we managed to make it back to the safety of deeper water and proceeded on our way, carefully watching over our shoulders during later floats to stay sufficiently away from the shoals.

When we turned the boat back in, David dutifully confessed to the attendant the situation and that he might want to check the propeller.  When we rented the boat that morning, we noticed they took a picture of the propeller and to us it was for comparing to the propeller’s condition when the rented item was returned.  The fellow said he would and sure enough a chunk was missing from one of the blades.  He compared the returned motor to the earlier picture confirming what we all already knew; we had indeed damaged the propeller on the rocks.  The attendant confessed to us he did not know what to do as no one had voluntarily and honestly reported damage before to him.

He began making calls but without much success.  The response he kept getting was, “we never had anyone tell us they damaged a boat before.”  He found out where we were located in the campground and promised to get back with us when he had an answer about what needed to be done.  While we were eating that evening, the attendant drove up to tell us, there was no charge for the damage.  He seemed genuinely pleased to give us this information since there had been such honesty in reporting the damage.  There is a reason to be honest and that is the peace of mind in proving your character.  So honesty does pay and pays dividends too by impressing those around you who have not experienced such honest behavior.

Some of our neighbors, hey that's not a hummingbird.  What's up with that?

That's more like it.  This feeder's for hummingbirds.

Don't forget Mr. Goldfinch waiting his turn at the feeder

Here is Mr. Red Fox himself

This is one of our butterfly buddies.  There were a lot of butterflies.

There were also lots of herons.

That is a bald eagle in flight about to land, see the white tail feathers?

This is one of the bald eagles perched in a dead tree.

Every evening the geese would fly along the river as they went off to roost for the night.

Some of the nature talks and hikes were very interesting.  The girls went on a birding hike.  Brenda and Sophie are dedicated ornithologists that never miss a chance of identifying bird sightings or calls.  We have a number of their pictures that reflect the variety of birds in the area.  Bibi is leaning towards this vocation now that she has an Audubon app for her iPad to use in confirming what she sees and hears.  For now she prefers to go and document the sightings with a camera, worrying about identifying and cataloguing at a later date.

The ladies would attend these sessions and come back to regale us with stories and information they learned from the park volunteers that had been shared with them during the sessions.  One particularly interesting session occurred when they went to learn about owls (around the 10 PM hour).  As they struck out to find the appointed meeting place it was already dark and flashlights did not seem to help them locate the amphitheater.  They walked right past it (even though a sign pointed directly to the amphitheater and was read by them) to the end of the park.  Having walked to the end of the park, and now in panic mode, called to find out if we knew where the amphitheater was located, which apparently we did not know but luckily one of the other campers they stopped and asked did know.  They ran back to the original sign and located the missing amphitheater.  For you see, they were looking for lots of lights and activity but alas, this is a night session looking for owls.  It needs to be dark and quiet.

We had lots of red headed woodpeckers in the neighborhood

and the elusive Pileated Woodpeckers (3 here, 2 on pole and 1 on tree)

Close up of Mr. Woody Woodpecker- a/k/a Pileated Woodpecker

They eventually found the session and did not miss anything.  Interestingly, the girls found the co-participants in the session as interesting as the volunteer’s program and comments.  A rather large group of Mennonites (they think) joined the session.  Part of the description provided to us during the recap of this session included the dress of the group.  All of the women had on their long dresses (all the same pattern and color) with the men wearing overalls over a white shirt.  Age of each of the Mennonites did not matter as all were dressed in the same fashion including the young boys and girls.  Owl comments were secondary to these revelations and ruminations.

Another seemingly interesting session involved night life in the woods and insects.  I found it interesting the girls did enjoy the presentation.  When they came back we found out they had been ‘officially’ recognized as members of the local spider sniffing group.  It even has a secret salute that resembles a spider doing pushups on a mirror.  Yes, for those of you that have been involved with a snipe hunt, this sounds eerily similar.  But it is not all smoke and mirrors.  There evidently is a method to sniff out spiders at night that really works.  Now sniffing is not your normal ‘smell’ sense but relies more heavily on the eyesight as opposed to olfactory sense.  It seems if you hold a flashlight next to your temple with the beam behind your peripheral vision pointing forward, you can actually see spider’s eyes in the grass, on the trees, etc.  Hence you are ‘sniffing’ out spiders.  According to the ladies, the spider’s eyes reflect as green dots when you employ this method.  I personally have not tried to do this yet, but I think the park volunteer’s extremely strong green laser light had a lot to do with the success of this technique.  The other ‘magic’ they learned at this session is how to make someone’s head disappear during the night.  Again, I have not tried this either but it sounds fairly implausible to someone with a logical brain.

There were a couple of sessions that we could not interest the ladies in attending, no matter what inducements, enticements and encouragements we offered.  One was a session on snakes.  There was another on edible insects.  Snakes I understand, but a session on edible insects is a whole different story.  You just never know when you might be stranded too far away from a Wal-Mart and need a good healthy meal.  I certainly would feel safer if my Bibi could scrounge up a meal of beetles and crawly things to keep us from starving to death while awaiting a trip to Wal-Mart.  Just sayin’.

We have certainly enjoyed the outdoors and wildlife since we have been here.  In addition to the neighbors we showed in the previous blog posting, we have seen the following and there are some pictures below to share them with you.  A red fox came strolling by one morning.  We saw not one but three Pileated Woodpeckers (of Woody Woodpecker fame) at one time on the same tree/telephone pole.  Evidently it was a family that included a juvenile (some would say teenager since it seemed to be pretty independent acting) being taught life lessons for survival.  We saw a pair of eagles regularly and according to one of the park volunteers; they raised a chick this past spring about 2 miles downriver.  The eagles regularly make fishing runs upriver to try and catch a fresh dinner.  This is tough for them as they can only catch fish at the surface to less than 2 feet into the water.  Since the trout in this river hang close to the bottom of the stream, they are well below the 2 foot range but easily seen through the clear water.  Such is the life of a predator, so close yet so far.

Another activity enjoyed by all was the ‘Moonlight Cruise’ on Bull Shoals Lake.  The park service operates a large pontoon boat staffed by volunteers to take visitors on cruises around the lake.  We chose the evening cruise due to the romantic sounding name.  Note to guys: it never hurts to include a little romance for your special lady in your life!

Gran and Bibi

Sam and Brenda

David and Sophie

As we embarked on our journey, we were provided with information about the lake, the flood control aspect of the dam including electricity generation and a trip to a known bald eagle nesting site.  Unfortunately, the eagles were not spotted but we did locate the nest.  Our guides later positioned the boat so we could see both the sunset and the moon rise.  The sunset was spectacular due to the large cloud formations.  Unfortunately, the large cloud formations played a part in preventing us from seeing the moon actually rise.  It was still a very enjoyable and peaceful ride on the lake.  We all had a great time.

Big body of water to match the sky and clouds

And a closer view of the shoreline

God says, 'How about this rainbow?'

Close to sunset

One last colored cloud

...and the sun sets on a perfect evening.

As you may have gathered, our stay while in the state park and surrounding area has a couple of themes to it which are 'relaxing and resting.'  We have certainly done our share and enjoyed the entire time here.  As with everything in life, there is a rhythm and now we must move on.  Sam and Brenda are headed to a very important appointment in Mountain View before moving on towards Longview and doctor appointments. As for the rest of us, we will be making our way southward about 18 miles downriver to a campground called Blue Heron which is situated on the White River and close to Cotter, AR for some additional resting and relaxing.  So until next posting, be safe and honest.

A Day in the Neighborhood

Before we leave Toad Suck completely, I am reminded of a humorous incident while camped there.  Sam and Brenda decided to join us there earlier than planned.  On the day of their anticipated arrival, we go to the office to make a reservation for them.  This was necessary because the Corps of Engineer parks do not allow online reservations unless made at least 48 or 72 hours in advance.

So our party marched (more like trudged) the half mile or so to the office to visit with the local camp host volunteer about making a reservation.  A very nice lady but definitely one that ‘follows’ all the rules to the letter of the law.  She informed us that we could make the reservation for them, after we had put up a tent or something on the site.  In other words, it had to be occupied.  We could not reserve the site, even if Sam and Brenda were showing up in about 3 hours unless there was a tent or other structure on the site.

So we trudged off (retracing our half mile or so trek) after she refused our money to reserve the site to contemplate our next course of action.  Not wanting to break any rules or regulations, we pondered and pondered the possibilities.  It was after we walked up to the empty site we wanted to reserve that David remembered he had a ‘blue’ tent with him.  So we gathered up the appropriate materials and moved our car to the site as we ‘erected’ the tent.  After inspecting our handiwork, we all trudged the half mile or so back to the office and announced we have a tent on the site, will she now accept our money for a reservation.

Erecting the tent

This is more work than I remembered

Almost there with the finished product-a 'blue' tent

Much to the amazement of all, she not only accepted our word about the tent; she took the money and gave us the reservation receipt.  Of course we are talking about a $10 one night stay here.  So we happily went off (by way of trudging our half mile or so) back to the campsite to await the arrival of our friends.  Here you see a picture of Sam and Brenda arriving over the bridge preceded by a couple of pictures documenting the setting up of the ‘blue’ tent.  We were a little disappointed the nice rules driven lady never came to inspect our tent to make sure we followed the rules.  Oh well, just another day in the neighborhood.

Don't look down -- too late -- they see the blue tent!

We set out on our way to our next destination, Bull Shoals State Park.  Several mapping programs wanted us to use extremely mountainous routes but we put our heads together after reviewing the available routes using Google Earth and decided on the least curvy road route.  Fortunately, this agreed upon route took us right by Fergusons in St. Jo, AR at lunchtime.  If you have never been to Fergusons, please make a point to stop by and enjoy their home cooking.  Do not miss out on the Cinnamon rolls either.  As Grandpa Jones (on Hee Haw) would say, “yum, yum!”

Upon our arrival at Bull Shoals State Park, we were greeted with hot, smelly brakes.  The latter part of our trip was definitely in the mountains with 20 MPH curves up and down.  We saw several of the warning signs about using lower gears on the steeper hills.  Anyway, it was a relief to get out of the rigs and off the road.  Well………, after we checked in.

 

For you see, we ran into ‘Sunshine’ (he says facetiously) at the next check-in office.  She was not a happy person and seemed to be generally irritated by the presence of new campers.  She was efficient, if not pleasant, as she checked in two of our party of three as her cohort (who was not only pleasant but seemed glad to see us and talk to us) managed to check in the third party in our group.  Again, it is just another day in the neighborhood.

We made our way to our campsites and are very happy to be greeted by wild deer crossing the road directly in front of us as we are heading to the campground.  Our initial inspection shows this to be one of the nicest state park campgrounds we have seen.  It is very clean, nicely manicured and large spacious campsites.  There are plenty of trees, access to the river is close and there are a ton of songbirds.  We even have visitors (see pictures below) of squirrels and deer.  The deer regularly show up in the morning and afternoon.  There are even Pileated Woodpeckers in the area.  A Pileated Woodpecker is like Woody Woodpecker of cartoon fame.  It is a large bird (about the size of a crow) with a distinctive sound.  We will try to get a picture of one to post.

Here are some of our neighbors from the neighborhood...

Got something you want to give me?

Please let me eat in peace

Oh boy, more human stuff to pick through

Red, red robin goes a bob, bob bobbing along...

Listen closely to my song, it is really relaxing says the dove

Mr. Redbird checking us out

U may think I'm upside down, but I think it is U 

Red Headed Woodpecker, not Mr. Pileated

Mr. Cardinal taking a closer look

Mr. Pileated from a side view and a long way off with sun in wrong position

This week promises to be fun and relaxing.  David and I have already procured the necessary fishing license and trout permit.  We have checked out the river and are making preparations for fishing.  Water is released into this river from the adjacent lake to generate electricity.  The more electricity needed, the more water released.  When there are a lot of generators being used, the river levels are very high and the current is very fast.  Overnight the levels go down but not as far down as in the past.  It seems there is a new agreement in place to protect the trout population in the river.  This agreement requires the release of water so the level does not drop too low.

This creates a small problem for us.  The main river channel is on the far side and this is where the fish hang out.  In order to reach it, you need waders or a boat.  We think boat because even the folks we see wading cannot quite reach the honey holes with their casts which is beside the problems of standing in such strong current and cold temperature creating other issues.  We have fished on the bank a couple of mornings without much success.  I did manage to catch a small fish (about the size of the palm of my hand) that was immediately released and that is the extent of our efforts thus far.

We may have to make plans to move to another spot further downriver after we leave here to keep the fish from costing $5,000 per pound.  We are still investigating and will let you know what we determine.  Until next time and more adventures, be safe.

River access

River fishing guide heading back upstream for another floating pass

That is fog on surface of water, cold water plus warm air = fog