Hopping over to Toad Suck Campground, Conway, AR

After four days near Memphis, we were ready to head down I-40 to our next campground. We really like staying at Corp of Engineer (COE) parks throughout the United States, and Arkansas has been blessed with some good ones. We're not sure where they got the names for some of the parks, as even we couldn't have made up a name like Toad Suck Campground. But we set the alarm early on Friday morning to make it there as early as possible, and were lucky to snag the last river front camping spot.

For some COE parks, November 1 is the beginning of the off-season. For campers, that means that they no longer take reservations, so all spots are suddenly available on a first-come basis. That is great for full-timers that have flexible schedules and can show up at a deserted campground on a Tuesday morning to get a great spot. But for full-timers (like us) that arrive on a Friday with the rest of the weekenders, we were lucky just to get a spot. Within thirty minutes after our 10:30 a.m. arrival, all the open sites were filled.

With the unusually warm fall weather, it looks like none of the weekend campers have found the need to winterize their RVs. After a too-hot-to-camp summer, they are catching up on RVing weekends in November. That is making it harder for us to find places to camp on Friday and Saturday evenings this fall. All the state parks we checked with are still booked solid on the weekends because they are still taking reservations. So we are loving the option of camping at the Corp of Engineer parks. The other thing we love about COE parks is that they are almost always located on a lake or river. So the views from them are often awesome!

Our view is of the Arkansas River, with a boat lock on the opposite bank. As tugs and barges make their way down the Arkansas, they must go through a chain of locks, and we have one just across the river from us. We watched the process as a tugboat pushing twelve barges went through the locks. This train of barges was too long to fit into the lock all at once. So the first six barges went through first--3 across and two long. Then they were tied up to prevent them from floating on down the river.

Next, the tugboat pushed the other six barges into the lock. Notice how high the tug and the barges are compared to the yellow line on the top of the lock's wall in the picture below.

We have seen these covered containers on several occasions lately, always curious about what might be inside. Since we were close, we could see that today's barges have bits of grain on top of some of the containers.

We watched as the water was pumped out of the lock and the vessels started descending. We can see the wet water mark on the side of the lock as the water is pumped out and the tug and these barges drop. Quite a difference in height from that yellow line as compared to the earlier picture!

When the gates are finally open, the tug and the last six barges can exit the lock. The tug will push these barges until they touch the ones that went through the lock earlier.

A team of guys will work to again chain the two groups of barges together. The three guys working paused when they saw our camera, and gave us a big wave.

When everything was re-connected, the long line of twelve total barges headed on down the Arkansas River to points south.

Watching tug boats is a good source of entertainment from our campground. But we are only a few miles from Cadron Settlement Park, so we went there one afternoon for some hiking. We could look over the Arkansas River from the trail.

We could also look over Graffiti Rock, where years of paint "decorate" the rocky shore line.

The only building left in the park is the old block house. The original was built in 1818, but this is actually a replica.

Today it was the backdrop for wedding pictures. We thought it was interesting to see that there were actually two weddings taking place at this little park on the day we visited.

The closest town to our campground is Conway, Arkansas, so we drove there on a Saturday. Denisa is sad to report that both of the town's farmer's markets are no longer in business in November. We guess our days of buying fresh produce from its growers have finally came to an end this year. Going to the grocery store just isn't as much fun!

Even if we didn't find vegetables, we did find trees. We drove by a park filled with people and as we often do, we made a u-turn just to see what was going on. Conway was celebrating Arbor Day, giving away good-sized trees to anyone that showed up at the park this day. They were also giving away cotton candy, popcorn, hot dogs, and cookies. So even though we didn't need any trees, we can always eat food.

We also stopped in at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), home to 11,000 students and a mascot that is a black bear. They were hosting an information day for high school students called, "The Bear Facts." As we walked across campus, we were most intrigued by a display on the lawn of these whimsical huts made from curved branches and twigs.

This display is called "The Big Naturals" in celebration of the Arkansas's nickname of "The Natural State." It has been part of the campus since the 2014 art festival, when they were constructed from branches gathered in the local forest. Two years later, it is surprisingly durable. A simple, but interesting display, we found out it took hundreds of man-hours to build. 

From working on a college campus for almost 30 years, we often said that the new crop of freshmen were looking younger and younger every year. We would have to repeat that statement with an exclamation point when we walked over to watch the football game going on in the UCA football stadium.

These guys looked like they were in elementary school--probably because they were. UCA had an away game this weekend, so their stadium was hosting the Central Arkansas Youth Football championships. It brought back old memories of many days spent watching our sons in action on ball fields all over Oklahoma.

We were heading back to the campground, when another crowded parking lot caused us to make another u-turn. Why would all those cars be parked at a local restaurant? It's because the dirt arena behind it is hosting the semi-annual dog agility competition.

We had a great time watching these dogs run through a challenging course of teeter-totters, tunnels, and jumps. It's also great exercise for their handlers, who must run through the course giving hand and verbal directions to instruct the dog which obstacle should be completed next.

We asked some of the participants questions, and they were all more than happy to explain the rules to us. Too complicated to list now, we can just say that each dog is measured at the shoulder and their height determines their class.

The bars are obviously raised for taller dogs. The big boys were fun to watch with those giant leaps; but the 4" dogs were absolutely adorable to watch as they stepped over the bars laid on the ground. Those little dogs were also very hard to photograph.

So instead we end the blog with another beautiful large dog, smiling as he clears the high bar jump. We are smiling too, as we finish another day camping at our new spot at Toad Suck.