I don’t usually react to mosquito bites, but the many bites I got last night in the few minutes I was outside made an itchy mess of my ankles. Those Arkansas mosquitoes are virulent!
After breakfast we headed back to I40 and continued west with the trucks. There were many Dollar General trucks on the highway sadly reminding us that many rural residents have no other place to shop.
Remembering that Hot Springs National Park has delicious free spring water we approached Hot Springs up Gulpha Gorge on US 708. The National Park campground in the Gorge has small tightly spaced sites along the creek. It’s the closest campground to Hot Springs and does not take reservations.
There is free 15 minute parking in front of the public Hot Springs fountains so we pulled the truck up on the wrong side of the street to access the water fill, filled our three gallon jug and poured the hot water into our tank.
We drove past Lake Ouachita on US 270 and stopped for lunch at a National Forest Service campground where we got hit by a thunderstorm. We went on into eastern Oklahoma planning to stop at a state park, but some backtracking was needed when our GPS sent us up one of the fine Oklahoma limited access divided roads that had no exits towards our destination.
Arrowhead State Park, where we stopped for the night, is very large (hundreds of sites) with many campground loops, level sites, and plentiful lake views.
Lesson learned: When you tell your GPS to avoid Interstates, check the directions against a paper map. Sometimes you get convoluted or incorrect directions.
