Lake Dardanelle State Park

September 28th 2018 Lake Dardanelle State Park
We promised Brayden and Hannah a weekend camping trip and decided to take the short trip to Lake Dardanelle State Park.  Our one previous camping trip to Lake Dardanelle State Park that was our first trip in the new Heartland Pioneer back in 2015. This time we were unable to get one of the of the full service AAA sites, but picked site #33 after driving through the park and registering with my phone. One of the benefits of having a state park in your hometown. The B sites had water with electric connections. They were all closely spaced, but nicely shaded.  The weekend marked the first cool nights of fall weather and we were all excited to get out to the park. 

Mr. squirrel was not happy that we had setup camp directly under a sawtooth oak on a pill of his acorns.  He sat on the landscape timbers and ate acorns anyway.

Jessica and Juan brought the kids to the park after they got home from school Friday afternoon.  We had burgers on the grill. Burgers always taste better when grilled at the campground.

Brayden and I took a little bike ride around the park at sunset. We had to stop at the playground, but later got a good photo of the sunset over Lake Dardanelle.

Evening means a campfire and of course s'mores.

We got up a little late on Saturday morning.  There was a bass tournament in progress, but we didn't have much luck fishing from the rocks.

 

Caught a few fish on Sunday morning with Brayden. Obviously ANO Unit 2 is down for an outage. I much prefer this view from outside the plant vs. working 6 twelves inside.

Lake Dardannelle State Park

We decided to stay close to home for our first camping trip and drive to Lake Dardanelle State Park. I called the park and was lucky to get a great camping site for Friday, August 28th through Sunday. Site #12 was located on the lake side of the back loop about 50' from the water. 

Our first night we had lots of visitors. Jessica, Juan, Hannah and Brayden met us at the park. It was good having some help the first time I parked and set up the trailer at a campsite. Donna's friend Eva came to visit and brought wind chimes for house warming gift (mostly because Donna told her she didn't want to start junking up the trailer right off). The champagne and orange juice for mimosas was a hit and we really do like our wind chimes.

Brayden and Hannah came back Saturday and spend the night. Hannah is a big help washing dishes. Brayden built a tent so he could go camping in the camper!

 

Saturday night Donna caught these great sunset photo across the lake. 

Brayden is always happy when fishing and even happier when he catches a big fish.

Lessons Learned:

• Don't scrimp on sewer hose. 10' is not enough when you have to position the camper away from the campsite sewer dump station,
• Gray water tank fills up much faster than black water tank
• Back valve is black water and front valve is gray (remember back is black),