The memorial was to be held on a Saturday and Cindy wanted to bring the twin grand-daughters with us. Now, just because I'm a real nice Grandpa, I decided to make the trip a bit more fun than just going to Earle Arkansas and participating in the memorial so I decided that we would leave town on Wednesday and spend a few days in West Plains, Missouri, then go on to the memorial, arriving there on Friday, Leaving very early on Sunday and going to Springfield, Missouri and finally heading back to home base on Monday.
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Wilma Martin's final resting place
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We loaded up Matilda and Brutus with bags of stuffed animals and the twins sleeping gear and headed off to West Plains. We had reservations at a campground that was out of the city and was a very, very nice place. The campground was given a 10-10-10 rating by Good Sam and the reviews were all very positive. We had a great time at Chipmunk Crossing campground and I can see where this facility deserved to be rated and reviewed in the extremely positive manner in which it was. The hosts were magnificent and the grounds were very clean, the sites were large and the facilities were superb!
Now the twins were looking forward to the pool more than anything so it was no surprise when we arrived, the first thing they wanted to do was go swimming. The surprise was that Cindy didn't hesitate to go with them. It is sure great seeing Cindy get active again. Having her knees replaced was one of the best things we could have done. The twins did inform me that one of the things they wanted to do on this trip was go to the Mall of Arkansas. Having visited the Mall of America in the twin cities, they added this mall to their list of places to see, so while we were here, we ventured across the state line to the Mall of Arkansas, commonly known as Wal Mart.
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If you want clean, quiet and just all around nice, this is the campground for you!
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We spent a lot of time in the pool at this campground and also visited one of the nearby mills. Natural springs are plentiful in this area and this one seemed like the one to go see.
We stayed at Chipmunk Crossing until Friday morning. Now Cindy and I have seen Mammoth Springs, Arkansas several times but the twins had not so we decided to make a stop there on the way to Earle. It had been a few years since we had been there and when we pulled into the area, it was very evident that there had been a lot of improvements made since our last visit. The area is now a very nice park with a walking trail all around the springs and water area as well as a very nice visitor's center, some walkways over to a mill and much, much more. This is a very worthwhile stop when you are in the area. The Mammoth Springs are the headwaters for the Spring river. This link will give you more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_Spring
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| Brutus and Matilda behind a Civil War cannon at Mammoth Springs Park |
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Grandma and the twins striking a pose
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| Taking time to admire God's work |
We departed Mammoth Springs and headed on up and over the Ozark mountains on to the flat lands and into Earle, where we set up house in Cindy's uncle's yard. Now, as I stated in the beginning, there really wasn't much that was interesting enough to keep us in this part of the world so we decided to leave real early, like 6 am, Sunday morning and go to Springfield, Missouri and stay the night there. The twins are huge animal lovers and they really wanted to go through the Paradise Animal Safari drive through park. I pulled out my "trustworthy" Good Sam directory and found our destination campground, Paradise in the Woods RV Park, in the community of Strafford, Missouri. Now this is where the title comes from. We had stayed a 10-10-10 rated park that was very clean, very quiet and very accommodating so I, in my own way, figured that this should be a fairly good place to stay with a 9-8.5-9.5 rating. We entered the park to a sign that greeted us with big bold letters "RV Park for Sale". We turned into the entrance of the park to first see the rear of and older motor home that looked as though it had just been towed in from a rear end collision, well, maybe not just towed in, it did after all have some very healthy tomato plants growing through the remainder of the rear bumper. Now, to see one or two of this style, obviously long time dweller is not un-expected, I do understand that some parks serve a dual purpose and provide a home for many, much like a mobile home park, but I would estimate that at least 45% of the spaces were occupied by long term dwellers. I have to admit this is the first park I stayed at that I made sure I locked and double locked everything that would lock. It just gave that kind of vibe. One thing I want when I pay to stay someplace, be it a hotel or campground, is quiet. This park is so close to the interstate that even my near deaf ears were continuously filled with the exciting noise of the road. The pads were very, I do mean VERY close to each other. Now I have never, EVER had any electrical issues with Matilda and thanks to the electrical grid in this campground, I had the first scare in the life of Matilda. I had gone up to do laundry when Cindy called and said that she had lost all power to Matilda. I went up and found the breaker had tripped. Now, we had run Matilda on a 5000 watt, 21 amp generator circuit at her uncles with absolutely zero issues, just as I had done many times in the past. One of the first things my brother told me to buy was a good surge protector, so, thankfully, for the second time, this saved me a bundle of cash, but not a huge scare. I reset the breaker and everything came back to life....except my air conditioner. I realized that the air unit in Matilda was over 18 years old and was some day going to die, I just wasn't ready for today to be that day. The timed internal breaker just would not reset so I started checking my Camping World coupons and looking at the ads and since we were conveniently just a few miles from a Camping World Super center , decided that first thing in the morning I would have to go buy a new unit. Not thinking, I turned the switch to the air off, surrendering to the reality that the air had lived its life. I don't know what made me do it but about an hour later ( I guess it was wishful thinking), I reached over and turned the switch on. The sound was utter music to my ears! The unit came back on like it had always done. That is when it hit me, I remembered reading in the owners manual but had forgotten that in order for the to reset the unit must be turned off for a period then back on. I had not turned the switch off! Needless to say, I drew a line through this one in the book. We did stay there but won't do so again.
We took the twins over to the animal park and they had a blast looking at the animals as we drove through and then it was almost impossible to get them to leave the walk through and petting area.
Until then, always trust your instincts and not the ratings!
