We are now about half way through our 51 day trip and it is the middle of May, 2022. The weather forecast looks promising after today but because of the heat, we were up early to head out. I followed the Recreation.gov directions to the Choctaw Campground and I was glad I did as the roads approaching the park were not well marked. We are in Loop A, Site 1 and it was another nice spot, nestled into the pines. We arrived during the week and the park was pretty empty.
When we took a walk down to the lake that first evening, the view literally took my breath away. It is absolutely gorgeous and reminded me of Germany with the lake nestled into the Ozark mountains.
We decided to take the first full day here to finally reorganize our storage compartments. There were dog items that belonged to Sabre which needed to come home and some other small dog items that were not going to work for Kismet. I built a fire in the evening despite the still warm temperatures. I cooked some hotdogs to have later in the week and then two filets that were chargrilled to perfection. We had box potatoes with gouda and a salad. An $8 Chilean wine made this a feast. That night, we awoke to a loud thunder boom. There was no rain but it cooled things down. We also found on Saturday morning that the campground around us was just as quiet as it had been.
There was only one negative here and that was the black vultures. In Missouri, we have turkey vultures but these are different. They are bigger and much more aggressive. Though it turned out that they never really bothered us too much, they seemed very ominous and this warning down at the lake kept us constantly on guard when they were around. One morning, we did hear them on the roof and Carol went out to scare them away. Fortunately, after noon each day, they left our area and we had peace all afternoon.
We decided to take a drive and see more of the lake since we were at the westernmost COE campground. We crossed the lake at the Narrows and again, it was gorgeous, blue water. From there, we drove over to Fairhope Bay and saw many upscale communities. That area seemed to be the much more popular part of the lake, probably a closer getaway for those who live in Little Rock or even Jonesboro. On our way back, we saw signs for the "Natural Bridge" which was just north of Clinton so we headed up and found a cute little site with lots of photo opportunities.
Once we came back to the campsite, we decided to just chill as tomorrow is moving day and we head to Harrison, Arkansas. I suspect we will be busier there.