Day 11 - ending at Jacksonport, AR - The Great Plains Trail - Sort Of

May 25, 2023

Day 11 - ending at Jacksonport, AR

Day 11 - Walcott, AR to Jacksonport, AR

Heart

Comment

Slept well last night, getting up at 5:25am. I changed my routine somewhat this morning. I packed up some first then worked on the report. I thought the tent was facing west, so was somewhat surprised when sunlight came pouring through the front door.

After I took a break to eat a pack of Pop-Tarts, a girl, I'm guessing in her mid-30s, stopped by to talk. She was kind of fixed up, but not too much. I guess I would call it 'camping casual'. She wondered if there are canyons where I'm going, because one of her dreams is to camp in a canyon out west. Her partner, a farmer, won't sleep in a tent, so she'll do this adventure on her own after their daughter is grown.

Jacksonport State Park near Newport, Arkansas is where I wanted to be tonight - a few more miles away than what I've been doing lately. There wasn't a place to eat breakfast along my routing, so I decided that maybe it would be worth it to backtrack 3 miles north to US-412, where Ms. Addie's Restaurant is. A re-route from there looked like it would work.

I left my campsite at 10:28am, stopping at the Visitor Center on my way, to pay for last night's stay. Had a fun conversation with the worker there, who was quite busy with paperwork for the upcoming weekend. She registered me into the Arkansas State Park camping database, then figured a senior discount for my stay.

I arrived at Ms. Addie's at 10:55am. They were wrapping up serving breakfast so I ordered lunch - a double cheeseburger, coleslaw, chocolate milk, and coffee. While I ate the place filled up with workers coming in for sit-down lunch, and others picking up carryout orders.

I stopped by the attached store for Gatorade and another chocolate milk to drink there, before leaving at 11:46am. Taking highway US-412 west to AR-228 would get me back on my pre-planned route. US-412 is a busy road but has a great shoulder. I stopped at noon along this highway to record my progress: 5.7 miles.

AR-228, I found out, has minimal shoulder but no traffic. My west and south route today was all flat. And there was a strong northeast wind pushing me. Perfect!

My pre-trip plan included gravel roads for today. The Garmin GPS definitely wanted me on gravel. I finally turned off the Garmin, ignored my pre-trip plan, and went by road map. Highways I use today besides US-412 and AR-228 were AR-91 AR-230, and AR-367.

I passed two crop-dusting operations today. Both places gave me an opportunity to see the planes closer up. One plane had landed. The pilot stayed inside with the engine running while a worker ran up to add fuel. At the same time the reloading truck pulled up, dumping the fertilizer or pesticide beads into the plane. It looked like the military precision you see in a movie with planes on the deck of an aircraft carrier. That plane took off then a second one pulled up for the same procedure. I would of had a good video of this except I guess I'm supposed to let go of the button to record, instead of holding it the whole time. The planes were overhead all day long - to the point that I was finally just ignoring them.

NPR station KASU (91.9MHz) is what I listened to today on my radio. They had segments on Arkansas artists and musicians.

At 4:55pm, I stopped at the EZ-Mart Shell station in Tuckerman for a drink with ice in it, and picked up some cookies and snacks. Had a fun conversation outside with a motorcyclist who was on his way to work at a steel mill. He operates the overhead magnetic crane. My first job out of college was at a steel mill, so we had fun talking "shop" for a little bit.

The roads as I neared the state park were curvy and a little busy, which had me pulling over from time to time.

I arrived in Jacksonport at 6:21pm. Took some time to look around, then headed to the campground. There were a few sites left available, and I could see they were set up for overflow camping for this weekend. I chose site 19 and then spent way too much time looking for the correct change to make my self check-in payment. Finally just "donated" 17 cents over my $26.58 fee.

Supper tonight was the same as last night except with added cookies. Birds I don't normally hear are singing and cows across the road are eating grass. Such a pleasant evening!

I walked over to the river that passes by the campground hoping to get a sunset picture. A gentleman walked by and said you can't catch fish without a pole. I told him I wasn't sure I could catch one with a pole. He said, "Yeah, I only got one catfish today." He told me this is the White River. The Black River flows into it. He fishes both rivers, and has been from one end to the other on both.

Worked on a picture selection after it got dark, and then to bed at 11:00pm. This was definitely my easiest day on this trip so far.

Jeff

Spent: $12.44 plus $3 (lunch) + $4.88 (Gatorade) + $9.98 (Snickers, cookies, peanuts, soda) + $26.75 (campsite) = $57.05