We started our trip out east headed to North Carolina to visit the grandkids. For this trip, we thought it would be nice to take Ms. Wynn cross country. We planned our route taking a couple of days at state parks along the way. How would our 34-year-old RV handle the trip? Well, only one way to find out. About an hour into our trip Will noticed a couple of the voltage meters blip. So, we pulled over to check things out. He checked a few things and couldn’t find anything wrong. Having gotten a late start we decided to just have lunch as we had a nice large shaded area off the road. We got ready to head out again and Ms. Wynn wouldn’t start. Nothing! Out in the middle of nowhere, 14 miles outside of the little town of Springer, NM. Will started checking things out again and noticed that one of the wires to the starter had frayed. He rummaged around with his tools, found a bit of wire and managed to get it fixed. She started right on up and off we went again. Oh yes, the fun had just begun. We made it to Palo Duro State park southeast of Amarillo, TX. Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the country. We camped at the Hackberry campground which was fairly well shaded with both big Cottonwood and Mesquite trees. We were able to walk across the road from our campground and get on the Givens, Spicer, Lowry (GSL) trail. We created our own loop trail by doing park of the Lighthouse trail and a short road walk to the Paseo del Rublo trail. The GSL trail is rated as difficult, but we didn’t find it to be difficult. The views from the trail were nice and we were glad we started with some cloud cover. All the trails are pretty well exposed and it’s difficult to find shade. It was about 95 degrees when we finished our 6.5 miles. With temperatures said to occasionally get up to 120, this is not a summer hike. Bring plenty of water for these tails. There was a snow cone stand at the Lighthouse trailhead, but unfortunately, they weren’t open. All the campgrounds are located on the canyon floor and the road driving down is quite steep. That night a big storm came in and it rained like crazy. The next morning was only 55 degrees and we had to head out to our next destination. We do want to come back to this park one of these days. They have many more miles of hikes to do. If you like to mountain bike, there are a number of trails for that as well. We saw many families out with young kids trying to keep up with their parents. If you do want to camp here, I recommend having a reservation. We arrived on a Thursday night and apparently the campgrounds were full.
Our next stop was Hinton, OK, west of Oklahoma City. Red Rock Canyon State Park is a small narrow canyon with yes, red rocks. The road down was again steep and has a couple of very tight turns. So, if you have big rig, keep that in mind. We found our site and got setup. We went for a short walk on one of the nearby trails, just to get our legs moving from sitting all day. There were many groups of campers enjoying the cooler weather. What a day, woke up around 2am to see water dripping from our ceiling. Put a bowl to catch the water and tried to go back to sleep. The drip was coming from our A/C unit, so Will thought maybe the bolts had loosened. Well, luckily for us that seemed to do the trick as the leak stopped. We were both relieved no one had to get up on the roof in the pouring rain. The next morning, it was still raining and we watched as all the other campers packed up and left, leaving us as the lone survivor. The rain was heavy off and on throughout the day. At one point we thought it had stopped and got out to at least walk along the park road as being cooped up in Ms. Wynn all day was giving us cabin fever. This park is small, but is a popular repelling site as it’s close to OKC. There is also a pool open in the summer months for cooling off. There are a few trails, but with all the rain, we thought the trails would just be a muddy mess. We got back from our park tour with only about 10 minutes to spare before it was pouring rain again. Hopefully, the rain will clear up in the next couple of days.
We left Hinton and drove on to West Siloam Springs, OK, almost to the Arkansas border. Natural Falls State Park features a 77 foot waterfall. There is no swimming in the park, but canoe float trips along the Illinois River appear to be quite a popular summer activity. After setting up went for a quick walk to the falls while we had good weather. The trail to the falls is paved and fairly easy. We were expecting rain the next day and while we were hoping it wouldn’t be too bad, we prepared for another day of being cooped up inside. The night was nice, we were able to sit outside and enjoy. Later that night we were treated to a coyote chorus. At one point, I think a dog or 2 from the campground joined in with the howling. A skunk also made his nightly rounds as I could smell his lovely perfume through our opened windows. Quite an active night here at Natural Falls. Awoke to a beautiful looking morning that quickly turned cloudy. We set off anyway to hike all 4 ½ miles of the parks trails. While it rained on us it was steady and not a downpour. We had almost completed the last loop on the Fox trail when we spied a group of coyotes. Not wanting to aggravate them we turned around and went back the way we came. Could they be park of the chorus from the night before?
Our next stop was in North East Arkansas at the Lake Charles State Park. The lake is fairly good size at 645 acres and is located about 1.5 hours from Memphis. The park itself is not that big, but they do have 60 campsites some of which are right on the lakefront. They also have a different bathroom setup with each room containing its own toilet, sink, and shower. We did take advantage of the shower as the parks water pressure was low and we couldn’t get a decent shower in Ms. Wynn. The night was beautiful and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the evening. The next day started off a little chilly, but warmed up to be a very pleasant day. We set out hiking one of the 4 trails available in the park, which led us passed the swimming beach and where we noticed some kayaks were still available for rent. It being later in the season we were able to rent 2 solo kayaks for 3 hours for only $15. That was a pretty good deal. It was the perfect day to just paddle around the lake. There were a couple of large crappies that seemed to enjoy jumping out of the water right in front of our boats. We finished hiking the other park trails and again could enjoy another nice evening sitting outside. We were just thrilled it wasn’t raining and that we had some blue-sky weather for a change.
Our next state park was T.O. Fuller State Park in Memphis, TN. So, it was a nice short drive from our last location and we had setup just in time for lunch. I was pleasantly surprised by this park. We had been to Memphis before and we’re not the biggest fans. Memphis is dirty. There is trash everywhere. Not sure why nothing is done to clean up this city, but Fuller park is a different story. This park runs about 75-95% full all year, so, it’s a popular place. The spots are closer together then most of the other state parks we’ve been to, but still works fine for Ms. Wynn. This park also has laundry facilities right in the campground. Really convenient and a great addition for a state park. Memphis is also the main hub for FedEx as was quite evident when going to sleep that night. The air traffic really picked up with their cargo loaded planes. The joy of being in civilization. We again woke up to a cloudy day, but we were determined to make the most of our time and check out the park. The trail going around the park is the Discovery trail. Our campsite was right on top of the trail head. When booking online, I wanted to be close to the trail head, but didn’t realize we’d be on top of the trail head. Took the Discovery trail to the Chucalissa (abandoned house) museum, located inside the park. This Native American archaeological site was found in 1940 when a pool was being put in for the park. It’s a small museum describing life along the Mississippi River for the Choctaw people who inhabited this area between 1000-1550 AD. We continued on the Discovery trail and ended up doing about 5.5 miles. We were back for a couple of hours when the rains arrived. Well at least Will was able to watch a couple college football games as we could pick up a few TV channels.
Would we ever be able to leave the rain behind? Headed out the next morning managed to get out before the rain came, but Will had a long day driving through storm after storm. Arrived at the Cumberland Mountain State Park in Crossville, TN. Believe it or not, they give you 4 days of free WIFI. Wow! Found our spot and setup just in time for, yep, more rain! The rain stopped for a bit and we walked around the campground to check things out a little. They have 5 different camp areas with 145 sites. So, this is a good size park at 1,548 acres. We started out with a cloudy morning, but we set out hiking as thunderstorms were predicted for later that afternoon. Being the rebels that we are, we set out to hike the Overnight trail as a day hike. It’s only a 6-mile loop hike, but you do have to hike another trail to get there. So, we ended up doing about 9.5 miles. It was a nice hike, although, the Overnight trail doesn’t get a lot of traffic and was over grown. There’s a swinging bridge at one point, which we thought was pretty cool. The bridge/dam in the park formed a small lake and was constructed out of crab orchard sandstone and makes the park unique. The trails themselves were well marked with different colored blazes painted on trees along the way. A very nice and popular park.
