Holiday Weekend Driving...

 I don't know if it was the high gas prices or if maybe everyone was home on their phones but the highways and campgrounds for the most part were very manageable on our recent trip from East Texas to Indiana. Even a pass through Little Rock, Arkansas which seems to be a magnet for every big truck in the tristate area was easy. Only one campground was really packed and on out final leg home Sunday the Love's Travel Stops where I buy gas because I have the 10 cents off per gallon app had crowds but it might have just been the fast food boxes of fried chicken livers that all these in the Midwest and south serve. 

Our first stop outside Memphis was T.O. Fuller State Park. It's a famous place, built by African American CCC workers it was the first state park east of the Mississippi open to their use. The pool was our of order which is something that seems common in these older CCC built sites but there was plenty of good day use areas in addition to the camping and an Indian village, excavation and museum which we will have to check out in the future. It's usually the kind of site I like to visit but with just an overnight stay I'd have had to ride my bike 4 miles on a farm road that was pretty narrow to share with automobiles.        

The most crowded park was John J. Audubon, also a CCC built park, in Henderson, Ky where we made three nights. It was handy for visiting family in Evansville, In. and close to attractions and good restaurants. Not crowded the first couple of nights but as the weekend progressed the campers poured in and sites were close and as there were more arrivals I noticed some challenging camper back ins and there were lots of kids on scooters and bikes. I tried to capture it in these photos. 

There was the John J. Audubon Museum on the grounds which is the largest collection of his art in the world and though he was very prolific and hard working he was very much the starving artist. 

Our last camp on the way home was Willow Beach, a Corps of Engineer facility located off the old Arkansas River. Good spaced out campsites and we had one of the best. Campground was full but only a couple of groups using the beautiful day use picnic sites along the river on a holiday weekend Saturday. Guess they were on their phones or something. 

There was a good boat launch and plenty of people fishing from modest boating rigs instead of the big bass boats with not a live scope sonar in sight. There something calming about casting a spinner bait and not worrying about gas prices. Works for me every time.