TEXAS, OKLAHOMA, ARKANSAS, MISSOURI

My wife and I decided to travel to Texas to visit family.  We had beautiful riding weather as we left home and headed through St. Louis.

After taking our time, and spending the night in Missouri, we made it to the Dallas area to spend time with family.  When leaving Dallas, we decided to  travel as many 2 lane roads as we could.  We spent the night at the KOA campground in Durant OK.  As we pulled in, I wasn’t sure if they would let us stay there as there were all of these fancy motorhomes.  They said to us, “no problem, just find a place to park.”  We pulled up right between a couple of fancy high end motorhomes.  We looked dwarfed as we set up.

The next morning, we started towards Arkansas.  It was relaxing as we drove along 2 lane roads.

After spending the night in Eureka Springs, we headed towards Missouri.  We traveled through Harrison and decided to take the Peel Ferry across Bull Shoals Lake.

While on the ferry, the captain told us that the year  before, the flooding has raised the lake to just below the shed in the following picture.  It is the small shed located at the top right just below the metal building.

As we exited the ferry, we realized the we were still in Arkansas.

But just around the curve, we ran across this sign.

Soon thereafter, we came across this metal bridge and also saw the lake again.

I had heard about a place called Hodgson Mill.  I had wanted to see this for 20 years or so and since we were this close, I was not going to pass it up.

While we were touring this old mill, we came across a couple of waterline marks from previous floods.

Notice the two pictures.  On the second one, the waterlines marks were on a door just above the railings on the porch.  Here is a couple picture of a cave and small cabin that is located on the premises.

To get another perspective of the flooding that has taken place, I am standing on the main floor while taking a picture of our trike.  Look how far down it is.

This is the little creek that floods the area.

We stopped in Willow Springs to visit with friends.  They live in the country in an old log house.  It was good to see them again.  Across from their house, there is an old cemetery and an old church that is no longer in use.

After spending a couple of days with them, we headed out for Alley Spring.  I have wanted to visit this spring for a long time.  Here are some pictures of the spring.

We decided to spend a few days in Branson so we checked into the KOA.  This campground is a very nice campground and is kept very clean.  We spent 4 days here and would go back tomorrow.

We love our Bunkhouse camper.  It is easy to set up and gives us enough room to move around.  The weather got hot during the day so we used our air conditioner.  The mornings, however, were cool enough for us to have our breakfast outside on the picnic table.

While exploring one day, we came across the old log church.  It is never locked so we stopped and had a look around.

While riding away, we saw these wild daisy flowers.  Unfortunately, we were running out of time so we had to start heading back home to Illinois.