Magnus to Mass., with Jamestown jaunt

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

The big trip of the year was upon us. 27 days!  Longest to date, and maybe the longest we’ll ever attempt. We’ll see.

The goal was to head to Massachusetts, hang out with the kids for a week, then return via the Atlantic Seaboard and see some of the old American historical sites. Sounded good on paper, but reality was not what it seemed. As you will see.

We started the day off bright and early at 9am with a malfunctioning slide-out. Ed pronounced it okay to go but slightly worrysome.

The first night camping stopover was a place I’d been wanting to check out—a campground located smack in the middle of downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.  Sounds scary, but it’s fenced and gated and is scenically located right on the Arkansas River. So we have a scenic view, security, big city sirens and air pollution—all in one package!

Getting there was a little challenging, but that’s because we let the Trucker App guide us instead of following the RV park’s instructions. After getting off the Interstate, it should have been very simple, with just a couple of turns. But the app took us on a back-and-forth hopping route that ended up near, but not at, the park. I hope I remember that if we come here again.

After connecting utilities, we sat outside for a bit. There was a nice breeze blowing in the cottonwood trees and making it pleasant in the shade.  It was hot but not unbearable.

Molly and I walked across the Arkansas River on the big bridge shown in the pictures below. On the way out of the park, I tried to go out the front gate and couldn’t get my code to open it. Eventually I found a side gateway—for walking through—and lucked out with the code after several tries. But on the way back I discovered that the RV park had a back exit with a sign saying, “enter code and push gate immediately.” That’s what I was doing wrong before—I’d enter the code and wait for some sort of indication, and when it never came, try to open the gate. Already re-locked, duh.

 

All this was despite my little toe giving me agony from the stupid thing I did earlier. At the rest stop, I was feeling so good that I tried to run around a sidewalk circle for a few steps. My little toe contacted Molly’s back leg tendon and it wrenched the toe sideways. I almost hit the ground, but a couple of quick steps saved me. Shortly thereafter the toe became swollen and very painful.

On the other side of the bridge there’s some little parks and a bike trail. We didn’t go that far—too crippled. No birds to speak of, but a pretty place.

 

Our campground from the bridge

 

Molly was not impressed
 

REVIEW

Downtown Riverside RV Park 58.94

Perfect spot for visiting the city and not bad for a stopover

Downtown Riverside RV park is a really nice place. Yes, it’s a concrete-and-gravel gated parking lot for RVs, but a nice one. There is grass all around the riverfront edge, a nice river view, and despite the wall on the city side, it has a park-like aura. There are a few picnic tables and benches scattered around plus a riverside fire pit with seats. And a big pavilion that can be reserved.

We had a really long concrete pad on a gravel driveway. 50-amp electricity with water and sewer. And a pleasant lady in the office at check-in time.

Getting there from I-440 would have been simple if we’d followed the instructions on the RV Park web site. Google would have been okay, too.  But the trucker app we were using couldn’t get us there and took us on a lot of left/right turns to get us under the bridge, where it left us.

For dogs, there’s a poo station near the sites, plus, at the very end of the park there’s a nice little fenced dog park under the bridge that goes over the Arkansas river. The back exit of the park is opened with the gate code, and it allows you to get to the dog park and also the bridge, aka the Bill, Hilary and Chelsea Clinton memorial bike trail.   You can also walk to the bridge by the front exit, but make sure that you enter the code and immediately push on the gate—it re-locks almost instantly.  Very secure.