Inside our fifthwheel

Well, we have lots of pictures of our fifthwheel. So, I thought I would post a few of them here, and if you would like to see some more pics...just click on the following link to see a slideshow! RV Slideshow...And the one thing that we have learned about our camper is that it is real easy to mess up...but really fast to clean it up.

Lee Creek

Lee Creek runs right beside the RV park where we are living. It begins just south of West Fork, Arkansas, and flows southwest to the Arkansas River near Van Buren, Arkansas. Along the way, the tributaries of Blackburn Creek, Fall Creek, Cove Creek, and Mountain Fork Creek add to the flow of Lee Creek. Lee Creek is a typical Ozark Mountains stream with willow jungles, rock gardens, and an occasional waterfall. Water quality is very good. The creek starts in Lee Creek Valley, where the Devil's Den State Park is located. We want to visit that area of the Ozarks and get some good pictures. http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/devilsden/

Over the Bridge

As you head south about 5 minutes...you reach a scenic view of the
Arkansas River and Fort Smith just over the bridge. Historic downtown
Van Buren is just ahead down the steep incline. We didn't take
pictures yet...but we will. It is a cutsy little shopping strip in
beautiful old buildings.

Our first night in Van Buren Arkansas

On October 21, 2008 we arrived in Van Buren, AR. It is a smaller city that’s about 15 minutes away from Fort Smith, AR. We are parked at Park Ridge RV Campground. So, we left Indiana around 7:00am, and the 12 hour drive turned into a 16 hour drive...Yikes. We were exhausted when we arrived, the owner was quite amused at our gripey, growly selves as we demonstrated our total lack of experience with setting up and leveling our new home. Okay now before you go feeling smug, how many of you guys have had to level out and hook up your whole house before you could take your extremely tired whiny self to bed? And our fancy leveling system that we paid extra for...well of course it had lost it's calibration on the trip...kept saying we needed to add 10 inches to the off door side to get the RV level....which if we'd done that, would pretty much have started to tip the whole thing over...Of course, to make matters worse, the whole drive through the Ozarks, the most scenic part of the trip, well...it was pitch black. So, no photos, heck, we were beginning to think maybe no us,...because by that time we were barely above being significantly visually impaired. One weekend we are going to go thru the Ozarks during daylight and take some photos!

Mini Mountain and the Fall colors

We were happy to see some fall colors before leaving the area. The Friday before we left, our new friends at Mini Mtn threw a going away party for us. It was really nice to feel so accepted and welcomed. Jamie was the social butterfly... out and about, chatting with everyone.....half the time she was no where to be found, only to show up later saying she'd been out visiting... only thing that limited her at all was the absence of a golf cart. That place was golf cart heaven.... folks cruised around in them all the time. Decked them out with fringe and Halloween decorations and had parades. Jamie has golf cart envy,.... next thing you know she'll be wanting one of those to haul around her metal detector.... Lots of the folks there were asking Fred and Jeanette (the owners) if they were reserving our camping spot for next year.... even before we had the chance to talk to them about it..... it was kind of funny when Fred and Jeanette came up to us to let us know that several folks had said that to them..... and they just wanted to know if we actually wanted to come back... before they just gave in to the consensus. We are looking forward to going back there if possible in the spring..... as long as there's a job for me somewhere close by.

Our First Stop

We had our home on wheels moved to Mini Mountain Campground in New Carlisle, IN. We stayed here for about 2 months before heading south for the Winter months just like geriatric snowbirds. At Mini Mountain we met lots of nice people.... folks just showed up to hang out around the picnic table on any given weekend afternoon. Everyone was curious about our camper, and wanted to see inside it.... most of the guys put their wives up to asking.... they didn't want to appear to really be interested and all. The guys all liked the whole TV set up, and the surround sound but mostly they liked the "basement," the under the camper storage..... it really is big and holds lots of stuff. That's good for us, seeing as how we're living here full time. It's amazing how much stuff you can still seem to need even when you are trying to travel light. Jamie says we have too much stuff... I think we, just like Goldilock's, are "just right." We will get some pictures of the inside of the camper up on the blog soon.

Home on Wheels