Since moving to Texas, Jon and I spend as much time as we can exploring the area. We travelled to many of the Texas State Parks for camping and hiking. Our new home brings us closer to states new to us. Last weekend, we camped at Petit Jean State Park in central Arkansas. We both took Friday off from work so we could get an early start on the trip. Our drive was uneventful, except our GPS trying to send us down gravel roads with rivers running across them.
This state park is different than the ones we've experienced in both North Carolina and Texas. The main road runs thru the park and there is not a gate to limit access after hours. There is not a registration process, unless you plan to camp. We were in a group site, so there was nothing we needed to do except set up out tent. The group site offered a private bathroom restricted to our group. We enjoyed not having to wait in line for a shower.
Several of us in the group decided to hike to Cedar Falls Saturday morning. This hike is approximately 2 miles round trip. It starts with a half mile down the mountain and levels out from there leading to the falls. The falls are beautiful and reminded me of North Carolina. I worried about the hike back knowing that we had to go back up what we had just come down. It was not nearly as difficult as I expected, primarily due to frequent stops to allow others on the way down to pass us on the trail.
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| Cedar Falls |
We spent the afternoon exploring other parts of the park, including the upper observation trail for the falls and several scenic overlooks. After we returned to the campsite, I noticed that part of our tent looked odd. It turns out one of our poles broke. We pretty much took most of the tent apart so Jon could restring the poles. Fortunately his repair worked and we had a completely functioning tent!
In all my years camping, I had not experienced Dutch Oven cooking. It is quite popular with the outdoor group we joined, so Jon bought me the necessary items for Christmas. While Jon worked on repairing the tent, I worked on getting our potato dish ready to cook. Everyone enjoyed the dish and I look forward to future meals in the dutch oven.
On Sunday, most of us set out to hike the Seven Hollows Trail. The map listed it as 4.5 miles and moderate to hard. I disagree with the moderate part and strongly agree with the hard part. The trail took us up and down thru the hollows to view streams, deep forest woods, numerous stone facings and quiet glades. Some of the beautiful sights along the trail included the Natural Bridge and the Grotto. We had a love-hate relationship with this hike. We loved the incredible scenery, but hated the difficulty of the trail.
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| Natural Bridge |
On our last trip, we experienced an apple stealing squirrel. On this trip, the birds decided to get in on the action. First, we discovered several crows on one of the picnic tables enjoying an afternoon meal. Jon and I chased them off. I took a heavy dutch oven lid and covered some of the food with it to hopefully protect it from the birds. Not only did they get the food out from under the lid, the opened a box of crackers!
Not to be outdone the Chuck Will's Widow decided it wanted to steal our sleep. The Chuck Will's Widow is a relative of the Whippoorwill. The description we found noted the birds "incessant call". Needless to say, the bird sang it's song for hours on end in the middle of the night. All of us wished we had a BB Gun.
Other than a disrupted sleep, we had a great time on the trip. We couldn't ask for nicer weather. We enjoyed getting to know more new friends from Tyler. Our next camping trip is scheduled for sometime in early fall. We look forward to new places to go.
Click below to visit my Photobucket site for pictures from our trip.
Photos from Petit Jean State Park
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