Mammoth Goes To Arkansas

14 August June 2019
Home to White Oak Lake State Park, Arkansas
Route: US-380 to Greenville, I-30 to Prescott AR, AR-24 E to SH 287.
1. Planned distance: 225 miles
2. Map time estimate: 3:29
3. Adjusted estimate: didn't calculate
4. Actual distance: 231 miles 
5. Actual time:  4:30 (minus stoppage = 3:50 driving time)
6. One bathroom break, two gas stops
7. Average mph trip: 60.2

We departed a little later than hoped, at 11:22. A small bit of rain had dampened the flowerbed and garden, but that's not what slowed us down--we were just moving slowly. The rain was a happy coincidence. It's funny that the last few times we've had a prediction of thunderstorms they've turned out to be small showers.

Immediately we stopped for gas at the Shell station between Princeton and Farmersville. They're not listed as a truck stop on the map, but they had diesel and after we pulled in, Ed discovered that there were truck pumps around the back. Back on the road I did some quick research on the difference between "road" diesel and "reefer." Since you're dying to know, I'll tell you. Reefer is used in refrigerated trailers and it doesn't include the road tax that regular diesel does. So it's cheaper, but it usually has dye in it. The purpose of the dye will have to remain unknown, awaiting another day's research. I was getting nauseous from reading in a moving vehicle.

That little bit of rain wouldn't help to keep the garden alive, but the "cold" front left behind some lovely, low clouds. Driving wasn't unbearable with the air conditioning on high. And it was August. In Texas. The day before had been 90 degrees when I got to work--90 degrees at nine o'clock in the morning!  The forecast high was 101 but when I got in the car that evening the thermometer said 103. As I drove home, it got higher, which never happens--it always registers higher when parked in a lot, and as I head toward home it drops three or four degrees. It didn't.

But on Wednesday, travel day, a "cold" front--air quotes there because "cold" represents a difference between 100-degree highs and 95-degree--was coming through.

I'd had the good sense to remember that I'd be wanting some lunch during the ride, so the day before I'd bought a bowl of Blazing Noodles with tofu and extra veggies at Masala Wok. With fruit for dessert, half a bowl is more than a meal. So I had the leftover half to eat cold. And there was much rejoicing.

We stopped at 2:10 at the rest area just across the Arkansas state line. I didn't note our departure time because a disaster had occurred and I was too depressed to do anything intelligent for a long time. Trying to speed up things, while Ed went into the rest room I asked the for RV keys and I went back to get the dogs. I was planning to walk them while he went to the bathroom; then hand them to him.  But I made that decision spur-of-the-moment, with my brain not switched into gear, so instead of harnessing up Zack before I took him out the door, I just picked him up and I carried him to the nearest grassy area, harness in hand. Before walking across the pavement, I locked the doors and shoved the keys in my pocket.

Well, I was wearing women's shorts. Women's clothing has one thing you can be sure of--crappy pockets. When I bent down to harness Zack, the keys fell out in the grass.

Not noticing this I proceed to walk round and around the various picnic areas, letting the dogs smell and pee. After a period of time just short of a millenium, Ed finally emerged. I handed him the dogs and reached into my pocket to get the keys. And shit! No keys. Frantically I started retracing my steps-- which was going to be darn near impossible since I'd been following Zack in meandering circles, wherever the smell took his stinky little Shit-zu fancy. He or Izzy could have tracked us all the way out and back, but I couldn't. And the grass was abnormally tall and cushioney.

A short drive was about to become hideously long. In fact, I doubt if either of us had our wallets with our Good Sam ID cards/phone numbers in them.  All of that was locked in the RV.  But we can be grateful Ed is very good at spotting lost items on the ground--I might have seen the keys after three or four circuits around, but when I took him back to the place where I'd stooped down to harness Zack, he spotted them immediately.

New rule and new item for the Notes section:
Never give me the keys.
Ed has his keys; I have mine. And if I leave them behind, he has to take me back to get them. Losing even one set of keys would have been a real pain in the kiester, but being locked out at a highway rest stop was a total joykiller.

We took a second gas stop on the exit to highway 24/371. We weren't empty, but just wanted to top off the tank. Outdoors it was 91 degrees, humid, and horrible. The stop lasted thirteen minutes and we were back on the road. We arrived at 3:52 with 201.5 miles on the trip odometer.





What a gorgeously beautiful wonderful little lake! The park was as clean as everyone said it would be; the workers very friendly; the facilities in near-perfect shape. There were recycling and garbage containers conveniently placed all over, in pleasing shades of green and brown to blend into the landscape. Our campsite had huge, mature pine trees that would shade it in the mornings; they were mixed with a smattering of hardwoods like sycamore and (blackjack?) oak, and a lovely array of cypress trees with their bony knees poking up by the water's edge. It was one of the prettiest lakes I have ever seen.






Even the car had a view.

The water was a bit on the murky side of brown, but it seemed to be productive. There were perch minnows, frogs and turtles everywhere I looked. Dragonflies abounded; water ripples sprang constantly from fish unseen dimpling the surface with their little fishy lips....   It was not a swimming lake or a water-sking lake but something much better--a fishing lake.

And better for me--a birding paradise. If the temperature had been fifteen degrees lower I'd have been in heaven.

The usual first day supper--barbeque chicken for Ed, baked potato for me (with a scoop of stolen blackeye peas). Sunset, TV, beer and bed.