Old Highway 25 Park

No better place for a July camping trip than at a lake. So we planned this trip with John and Lynda to Old Highway 25 Park on Greers Ferry Lake. We arrived on Tuesday for a three night stay. Our site was G24 which backed up to the lake. A short walk down a path from the back of our trailer led to the rocky shoreline. John and Lynda were one site over in G25. The G Loop is our favorite area in the park. It's located on a peninsula away from most of the park traffic, but just a short drive to the swim beach. 

Site G24

John and Lynda Next Door in Site G25

Path to the Rocks

Wednesday morning we went to the Old Highway 25 Park swim area. Donna had to count this as her beach vacation.

Wednesday afternoon we went to see Zoey perform at her cheer camp at Heber Springs High School. This would be her last cheer camp as she will soon be starting her senior year at HSHS.

We made plans while in the Heber Springs area to visit with Dianna and Billy Bailey who John knew from Pine Bluff. Dianna had made a beautiful quilt for Lynda and she wanted to thank her in person. We met the Baileys for dinner on Wednesday night at Mack's Fish House and spent the evening enjoying dinner with new friends. Turns out that Dianna's sister had dated my brother Wayne. It was like old home night. After dinner we went to the Baileys house that overlooked Heber Springs.

Thursday was boat day on Greers Ferry. We rented a pontoon boat from the Heber Springs Marina. It was an under powered 50HP boat that would only make about 7 MPH, but we still managed to see a good bit of the lake. In the afternoon we picked up Matt and Sarah at the boat ramp near their house. Later were were met by Dianna, Billy and their grandson on their pontoon boat. 

After a day on the lake we all met back at Brothers BBQ in Heber Springs for dinner.

Lynda and Dianna

On our ramblings we stopped at the JFK Overlook above Greers Ferry Dam. I had walked past this placard in the past but didnt realize what it was. The pedestal for the placard is an actual core sample of the rock below the dam foundation. The placard reads: 

Foundation rock underlying Greers Ferry Dam is revealed in these specimens of 34 calyx cores which were cored in 1957. This rock is a hard, fine grained, shaly sandstone belonging to the atoka formation. The dam is founded on alternating beds of sandstone and shale. 

Calyx holes were drilled during preliminary investigations of the foundation rock in the dam site area and served several purposes. The deep, open calyx holes themselves reveal the true nature of the foundation rock and are inspected by geologists who are lowered into them to map features such as bedding planes, joint systems fractures, cavities, water inflow, and rock quality. 

These specimens of 34 calyx cores represent but a small portion of the total 300 feet of calyx core that was extracted in the dam area. The deepest calyx hole was 128 feet deep.

President John F. Kennedy dedicated the Greers Ferry Dam and Reservoir ion October 3, 1963. The ceremony was held at the JFK Overlook and was open to the public. In his speech, Kennedy praised the dam as an example of what can be achieved through cooperation and hard work. He also noted that the dam represented almost 30 years of effort, beginning with authorization during the New Deal. About six weeks after the dedication on November 22, 1963 Kennedy was assonated in Dallas.