Mammoth Goes to Petit Jean, Day 3

 Friday 5/13

Today's event was the maiden voyage of our new Sea Eagle inflatable kayak. My rather inappropriate Mother's Day present. (I'd have been happy with roses)

I've wanted one ever since we started this endeavor, but it was only after I got Ed interested in the idea took root. It didn't hurt that a couple of people camping next to us at Cedar Ridge had one and spoke highly to him about its ease of use and durability. He'd thought of inflatable boats like cheap air mattresses, prone to leaks after a use or two. But the newer generation are tough and durable, and that's what got him thinking it wasn't such a ridiculous idea I had.

The little Bailey Lake here was perfect for the trial, too. Not large enough to have waves, no sharp rocks, no motorized boats allowed, and easy to access. The boat ramp was only a three minute walk from our campsite, although of course we chose to drive it over there. The boat only weighs about 50 or so pound, but it's still a lot more than we want to carry any farther than we need to.

So we set it out, pumped it up--taking turns at the hand pump because it's a little tiring--and set it gently on the water. That easy. And using kayak paddles, which I've never done, turned out to be surprisingly easy, too. We poodled down the lake, up the lake and all around and were back in under two hours. The only wildlife we saw--in the middle of the day--was a Canada Goose sitting on a nest on a little island.

Now if I can just get another trip set up to Florida in the winter!  I've seen manatees--that's whht we went for--but more manatees!

After our watery adventure, all we had to do was wait around until our second campsite opened up. When I booked this place, way back in February, I could only get week days at campground "A". That's where the full hookup (water, sewer, 50-amp electric) sites were. And also the lake view.  So what I did, because I was scheduling to avoid being in Arkansas on Sunday morning, was book Wednesday and Thursday at the good site but Friday and Saturday at the crappy campground across the street. And I do mean literally across the street. You could see the new camp site from the old one.

So we dumped our sewer tank, did a mini break down of the setup, and moved sites. The new one has no sewer, no lake view, ancient asphalt for the parking pad, and 30-amp electricity. Incidentally the water hookup is all the way at the front of the site, but Ed was ready for that. He always has extra hose for the drinking water.

Another reason for venturing to book this was to test how well our air conditioners performed on 30-amp. With the original air conditioners, we were told at the shop, you had to have 50-amp hookups to run both of the two units at the same time. One or the other would run on 30-amp, but not both. We've found that to be true and survived that way in the past.

But since then Ed replaced the air conditioner units with new, super energy efficient ones. And we've been wondering if just possibly we can get along on 30-amp that way.

Verdict: it certainly seems so. When we get ready to use the microwave oven later, we will be expecting a circuit breaker to flip. But that's okay.

There seemed a constant stream of cars coming into the camping area, pretty much all evening. They only stopped when I went inside and quit seeing them. I walked the dogs from about eight until eight-thirty or so, so that's how late people were coming in. I don't see how that's possible, because it's not all that big a camping loop.

People seemed to be quiet down at our end, thank heavens. Our next-door neighbors played the radio and were noisy when they were setting up, but after dark I didn't hear a peep out of them. And the ones across the drive were extremely quiet, too. They appeared to be an older couple. (Although not as old as us)

My chosen site was all the way at the end of the loop, next to a driveway and across from "Area B", which is under construction. The construction trucks cleared out at the end of the day and we saw no more of them. So it wasn't an impossibly bad camping spot, just not a great one.

Molly and I had a nice late afternoon walk--we went to the historic CCC bridge. I might have seen an interesting flycatcher...but it might have been a phoebe. Thought I saw an eye ring, though.

 On our way back we saw only this: