Meandering the Country

April 19 - May 9, 2021 We are officially headed north!     Our route took us through southwest MO where we spent a couple of nights at Bennett Spring State Park mainly as a stopover on our way to Iowa.     We were quickly reminded we were no longer in the south, as we received a couple inches of snow our first day there!     Good grief! I felt a little bit like the mail carrier as neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night is going to keep me away from those grandchildren up north!     Fortunately, it was a short-lived snowfall.     The temperatures melted the snow almost as fast as it fell. Bennet Springs State Park Bennett Spring State Park is a lovely park!  It has a fish hatchery located within the park which stocks Bennett Spring with trout.  I wish I had fishing gear!  Our neighbor told me he caught 40 -50 trout that morning!  He catches and releases, so hopefully it wasn’t the same fish he ca...

April 11-19, 2021 We camped at Hot Springs National Park during our stay in Arkansas.  Hot Springs National Park is the smallest national park in the country, but don’t let that influence you!  It may be small, but it is certainly worth a visit.  The park’s campground is nestled in Gulpha Gorge and has Gulpha Gorge Creek running right through it.  We were fortunate enough to be able to snag a campsite beside the creek, which provided sweet music, lulling us to sleep each night! Gulpha Gorge Campground Site 43! Frankie found a Frisbee field! Access to the park’s hiking trails is at the north end of the campground, making it irresistible to spend a bit of the day exploring different trails.  The trails were distributed around North Mountain and Hot Springs Mountain, both of which are part of the Ouachita Mountain range.  You may have inferred from the fact that the campground is located in the gorge and the trails are in the moun...