Full Moon Rising

Full Moon Rising over Lake Greeson

Tues night Wednesday Thurs AM

Wow! Three Oliver's all in one photo! Top one belongs to Aubrey, our ragin' cajun! Middle one belongs to Steve and Tali. Front one belongs to Larry and Betty! We have 2 more camped here, Pete and Oscar, Karen and Tom Whaley. FIVE OLIVERS in one campground... is that a record ????

Captain Fran took all of us ladies on a wonderful boat ride around Lake Greeson on Wednesday! It was sooooo much fun!

Fran and Betty have been friends for over 10 years!

With Captain Fran at the helm, we had a great ladies only boat ride Wednesday afternoon! It was great! Thank you Fran for taking us all out for a good time!

Betty and Tali enjoy conversation while riding over Lake Greeson!

Chimney Rock was a point of interest on our afternoon boat ride.

Fran's parents joined us for fried catfish and good food Wednesday afternoon! They are in their 90's and so much fun! Sharp wits, both! We feel honored to have met them!

Chuck, Aubrey and Tom get into deep conversation while waiting for supper!

The food begins to fill the table as we get ready to eat Wednesday afternoon.

Is there anything better than good friends and good food served outdoors ????

Betty and Al are hard at work frying catfish, & hushpuppies! Everyone brought good covered dishes! Pete made a killer coleslaw salad, Karen and Tom brought a tasty spinach salad with cranberries and walnuts! I made potato salad. So much food I can't remember who brought what... but everybody brought a big appetite!

Betty and Al putting the cornmeal on the catfish Wednesday afternoon for supper!

Thursday's catch! 3 very large 20+ lbs catfish plus quite a few more of the normal sized variety! Larry says this makes 300 lbs of catfish brought in so far this week! mmmmmm good eatin'!

Before it hits the frying pan!

Lake Greeson Day 1

We made it to Lake Greeson!

Visiting in the MotherShip are left to right,

Chuck(FL), Pete Marks (TX) with Oscar on his lap, Karen and Tom Whaley(VA) and the furkids Doogie Bowser and Scotty.

When we arrived, Pete and Oscar were here to greet us! So were Fran and Al! Betty and Larry (aka Mountainborn) were back in Mena on business but due back at camp around 7 pm. Shortly after we got set up, in rolls Karen and Tom with their furkid Susie.

We all got together just before dark down at Mountainborn's camp around a big warm campfire!

Day One drawing to a close. So glad to be here, it's so beautiful! For those of you not familiar with where it is, look on your Arkansas map for Crater of Diamonds SP. It's about 20 miles north of that! Highway 27 north out of Murfreesboro to Highway 84, look for the Lake Greeson Kirby Landing sign! Beautiful campground! $9.00 a night for senior citizens!

Lake Columbia Arkansas

We left our beautiful campsite on the Mississippi River in Vidalia LA Sunday April 25th. Beautiful morning after 2 days of stormy weather. Clear blue skies, nice spring breeze. We followed highway 425 north to Arkansas. All was good road, pretty scenery and mostly 4 lanes..... until we ventured north of I-20. Then everything went from good to .... not so good. Extremely narrow roads with no shoulders, full of potholes and old patches. Twisty, turny, hilly roads! At least they were doing some road construction... which slowed us way down when the road wasn't beating us up! What should have taken us an hour on 425 from I-20 north to highway 82 in Arkansas took us more like 3 hours! That big Ford 450 duelly isn't the easiest thing to handle and the seats ride harder than a buckboard!

By the time we got to ElDorado Arkansas, we pulled into a Walmart parking lot and I made sandwiches for lunch... Chuck was worn out. To make matters worse, once we began heading due west on 82 we hit a strong headwind.  We knew Lake Greeson was another 4+ hours away. Once back in the truck. I started looking for an Arkansas State Park. You know how on all the maps they show state parks with a green fir tree and a tent under it? Well I found one 11 miles north of Magnolia, Logoly State Park. Well the road there was worse than the road we had left behind in LA!  Then we get there and find out it offered only walk-in tent camping! YIKES! The ranger was nice and told us of another place about 20 miles west called Lake Columbia Campground, a county owned and run park.  It is beautiful there! So I had to take some photographs to show you!

Tall trees!

Nice restrooms w/ showers

The MotherShip all tucked in the woods!

All campsites were $15, full hookups, with nice picnic tables on pads, each site had a garbarge can and each site was very large!

 

We were glad we found this place! Both of us went to bed early after a rough ride on the highway that day!

We got up early and headed for Lake Greeson feeling much better after a good night's sleep!

Mississippi River

Mississippi River Barges

Our new 5th wheel travel trailer looks right at home with all the other sun blockers now!

The bad weather seems to have made it's way east after taking 2 lives and destroying the town of Yazoo Mississippi. We pulled in 2 days ago and the weather was going badly then. We made the decision to stay 1 or 2 nights where we hoped to avoid all the tornados. We got the wind and the rain, but no reports of tornados. This is a great little campground, http://www.riverviewrvpark.com/  right on the Mississippi River! Great showers, food store, library swap and swimming pool! You can get free shuttle rides to the Casino across the river. Chuck and I tried our luck.... I had none and Chuck had a little!  LOL!  Slot machines don't like me! Address is 100 River View Parkway, Vidalia LA 71373. If you are ever coming this way, nice folks here!

Tomorrow we get on the road again and continue the trip to Lake Greeson Arkansas and some good home cookin' with catfish being the main item on the menu! YUM!!!  Several of our friends are there already catching catfish with yellow empty antifreeze jugs! Jug fishing they call it! I call it supper! Grin!

We are on the Mississippi River!

We left Florida April 21st and camped the first night in Alabama. We left AL yesterday and arrived here on the banks of the Mississippi River in a beautiful camp ground called River View RV Resort in Vidalia LA. The weather turned bad overnight. Reports of severe thunderstorms and possible tornados kept us here for at least one more night and possibly two as the weather reports don't sound good for tomorrow either! Better to be safe here than sorry out on the highway!  PLUS we are pooped! We have been rushing around trying to get everything done for a solid 2-3 weeks.  We have been napping all day, as old folks should! Haha! It's been raining off and on all day and now it's raining hard and just heard a loud clap of thunder so I'm gonna close the computer down. Just wanted ya'll to know we are safe and sound beside the Mississippi River!

Our Summer Adventure Begins!

We named our new 5th wheel travel trailer "The MotherShip"! So many of our camping friends camp with the smaller Casita's and Oliver's that now when it's freezing cold outside, or raining we can all gather inside The MotherShip for good conversation and a game of dominoes!


I can hardly believe how busy we have been since we got back in Florida late November!  Time flies! We put new floor down in the house! We spent Thanksgiving with family! We got married in January! We went camping in freezing weather with Pete Marks, Oscar and Tom and Karen Whaley. We went down to Bradenton again to celebrate grandaughter Aubrey's second birthday in Feb. We went down to Cape Coral to visit my cousins Danny and Annette Morgan. They had just sold their house there and were moving up to Myrtle Beach SC! Then we went to Dade City to visit my doc who was very happy with my weight loss since lap band 2 years ago, We met up with friends Paul and Diane Thibodeaux several times. We spent several weeks visiting Florida State Parks Myakka River and Highlands Hammock! We spent months looking for new travel trailers and bought our MotherShip in March, went back to Bradenton to celebrate Glorianne's 40th??? birthday and 8 weeks after we left we were back in Eastpoint!
 We had to go back to Crystal River where we bought The MotherShip to get an awning installed over the slideout. Darn! The factory sent the wrong size! But the time was not wasted! We and our friends Randy and Nancy Fife, owners of the Nature Coast RV where we bought this beautiful 5th wheel and they also own the wonderful campground across the road "Quail's Roost! We all went down to Homosassa and met Sherry and Paul Cavannaugh at a great restaurant called The Freezer. Amazing!  It is as much unlike a restaurant as you can imagine! Most of it is outdoors under a Seminole built Chickee! See the link below!


http://thefreezertikibar.com/


We went on Wednesday night, steak night! It was packed with people! You gotta stand around and drink beer until a table or a place to sit becomes available! Tough huh ??? It's right on the water... you just have to go there one day to experience it! Everybody got steak but me, I got snow crab legs and they were YUM!
We then went over to Leesburg to visit with niece Dawn, her husband Dan and daughter Danea. We got home yesterday, Sunday, so now our Florida days are numbered... well over! It's time to head out. But while we were coming home yesterday, we got a call from Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood AZ asking us if we would like to work there as camp hosts from Aug until end of Oct! Sooooooo of course we want to!  Soooo now here is our planned trip so far... 


1. Lake Greeson Arkansas for Jugfest 2010 our catfishing camping families meet there!  We can't wait to see all of you again!
2. Branson MO to check out the possibility of winter Workamping jobs and to listen to country music live!
3. Spearfish SD to visit Paul and Diane Thibodeaux who will be workamping there for the summer and possibly we will apply to work there next summer!
4. Trujillo Meadow CO to visit with Mountainborn and Betty who workamp there at 10,000 feet!
5.Then down to Truth or Consequences NM to our home there. We will explore some ghost towns from there and do some rock hunting etc.
6. Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood AZ from Aug to Oct.


After that... who knows ???




We love you all and I will try to do better on my blogging!!!!!