Back to Nature

Well, I'm a little late in logging our latest camping adventure. As soon as we arrived home we had guests from out of town, and they continued on to Nashville today, and tomorrow we are expecting some of our grandchildren, so I'm squeezing in what I can.

Last week we took the travel trailer to Lake Ouachita and stayed at what was formerly Denby Point. It has been renamed Lake Ouachita Shores, but everything other than the name was pretty much the same. I've labeled this entry "Back to Nature" because the reason you go to Lake Ouachita is for the lake--the camping facilities are some of the oldest in Arkansas and therefore scarce on luxuries.

The campgrounds that had water connections are still under water from all of the massive rains experienced in May (Arkansas was 13 inches above normal at the end of May.) We stayed in the campsites beginning I think with 22 (which is almost directly across from the fishing cleaning station.) Actually not as bad as it sounds. There was ample space between campsites and we had nice shade and a view of a inlet. Thankfully, though, someone left early and we were able to move away from the scales and closer to the lake. In fact, we were close to the swimmers' area and within view of where we pulled up the boat.

You can reserve sites at the Corp of Engineers campgrounds on Lake Ouachita 3 days prior to your arrival. A word to the wise--reserve. Also, if you are driving a 40 foot RV, ask the campground personnel if you can manuever such a large vehicle both around the campground and into a specific site. We only saw one RV and I don't think it was more than 30 feet long. The roads here are narrow and winding, and the pads are not especially long or wide. The only service we had was electric. We ran out of water the second day there. My husband had to carry water back and forth from the dump station (which had potable water) and he was not a happy camper. We were able to get the local CBS affiliate on our TV but nothing else, although we did pick up the baseball game on Saturday where we cheered the Hogs to victory and on to the State Finals.

We motored down to Shangri La for breakfast and it was as good as ever. Don't miss a meal there. The folks are always friendly, the service great (even on the day we were there when it was completely full) and the food terrific.

All in all, our trip was a success. We built a roaring fire and told ghost stores and toasted marshmallows (not as tasty as I remembered them from my childhood.) If you want to commune with nature and don't care about the niceties such as cable TV, water and sewer hook-up and a swimming pool, any of the Corp of Engineer campsites on Lake Ouachita will do you just fine.