Slyamore Creek, Allison, AK

This is the creek at our camp site in the Ozarks. The White River is 300 yards east of it, known for its trout fishing. This is about 5 miles outside of Mountain View, a small town that has everything you would need and yet still maintain its small town atmosphere. Well, almost everything...it's a dry county...my turn to "rough it".

We had some travel trailer maintenance and laundry to do, and Bob was coming down with bronchitis, so we ended up staying here two nights.

Up at 5:45 a.m. to a beautiful spring morning with the extra plus of spending it on a bench in the park instead of my cubby, and the realization that although it was Monday, it was NOT Moan Day. Charlie wants to know when we can get on the road again.

Sunday, May 2, at around 7:30 am CST, we left Isaac Creek and hoped to make Arkansas. Bob was concerned about camping sites in Mississippi. We hit rain all the way, but luckily we were on a 2 lane divided highway most of the day. The area of Mississippi that we drove through didn't seem as distressed as what we had seen or heard of. Maybe it was because we were in an area where there were several colleges and institutes of higher learning, not to mention casinos. We crossed the Mighty Mississip into Arkansas around 3, and stopped at Village Creek State Park near Colt, Arkansas around 5:30. This was another beautful park... with densely wooded sites.

View of the lock from our site...

Don't ask me how we got here, but we did.. Isaac Creek Campground at Clairborne Lock & Dam on the Alabama River outside of Monroeville, AL. The one that Bob had originally routed turned up being closed for renovations. In Evergreen, parked across from a railroad depot, we searched the web on our lap top and found this park. When we called, the woman gave us directions like my dad used to...take a turn by the big tree, go to the house that used to be painted white...etc etc. The park is one of many of the Alabama River Lakes. I tell you, they sure know how to do "park". The sites were spacious and scenic. Being that it was maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, we got to use our Golden American pass, and the site cost us only $9 for a full hookup on the river with a view of the dam. Unfortunately, there was no tv cable, so Bob had to rough it.

Ho Hum lived up to its name thanks to the t-storms that persisted. Nonetheless, it was relaxing watching the birds and waves in the safety of our travel unit. Since we couldn't catch our fish dinner, we went out to eat. Turns out, it might be the last of a dinner of oysters, grouper and/or shrimp due to the BP oil spill.

We learned some things from t-shirts that the waitresses wore. One was : "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, but what happens in Carrabelle never happened.". The other was about the "worm grunt ball" held annually in Sopchoppy since around 2000. Seems the locals gather to pound a stake into the ground and proceed to move a rasp back and forth across the top of the stake in the hopes of enticing the earthworms to come to the surface where they are harvested for bait. As I said, Ho Hum lived up to its name.

The effects of the economic melt down were very evident. Many of the businesses that we knew from previous visits were gone...closed, for sale, even razed. Posted on home after home were for sale signs.

In the early morning, the rain had finally stopped long enough for Bob to take a picture of me with one of my many retirement gifts from my friends at work...an "RV co-pilot cap", and then we were on our way again.