Lake Dardanelle & Petit Jean S.P

We changed the scene from city camping in down town North Little Rock to camping in Old Post Park operated by C.O.E on Lake Dardanelle near Russellville AR, each has its own pro and cons,but we sure like the last one more.

Old Post Park is a small C.G with levelled specious sites , each site has electrical and water hook ups,good clean bathrooms and a central dump station.

The C.G overlooks a dam on the Arkansas river and has a boat lunching  for those who like to fish on the river.

 

After cleaning the fish  fisherman through the remaining parts that attract birds to the area, some of them just sit on the trees waiting for the meal to be served.

   

Accordingly to the camp host we were lucky to get a site this week end due to an annual huge sale on HWY 64 ,a fact that we of course were  not aware of ,”this year it is a yard - garage sale along Hwy 64 and next year it will be along another Hwy in the area “ explained the camp host.

On the next morning we used Hwy 64 to get to Petit Jean S.P and surely the Hwy was packed on both side with garage-yard sales,from shoes to guns,tractors,fishing rods,clothing's,horse saddles , furniture and any more you could imagine.

 

Many happy people drove away with a truck full of stuff.

On the way to Petit Jean S.P we had another interesting stop in Dew Drop Inn,as we started to climb Mountain Petit Jean I saw from the corner of my eye a building that did not fit…I saw THIS and Stopped.

Cup (short for Captain..) told us that visiting this area ,his wife and him fell in love with this place and bought it,they plan to convert it to B&B + add some cabins on the property ,mean time they live on the upper floor while to first floor is an antique shop.

We offered him some home made juice we had with us ,promised to be in touch and entered the beautiful Petit Jean S.P

 

Where did the name of the S.P come from?

In early 18 hundreds Jean’s husband served as French soldier and was shipped by a ship to the Americas, to be able to join him on this voyage she pretended to be a male (John)and worked as a cabin boy,only after they landed and lived with Indians in the mountain area it was discovered  that she is actually a women,but her luck run out ,she became sick and died still very young on the mountain, her grave can be seen at the look out point.

Cedar Falls is one of the highest waterfalls in Arkansas ,but as we learned during our visit to the State most of the waterfalls are either dry or dripping in the summer,but never the less we hiked 0ne mile down  to see this beautiful falls creating a huge pool surrounded by this incredible crater.

 

On the way back “home” at 5PM it got suddenly dark and it started to rain so heavily , the wipers were not fast enough to coop with all the water and I had to slow down to be able to see the road- but we got back all in one piece,lets hope tomorrow the weather will permit us to hike Mount Nebo,one of the three highest mountains in the area.