Easter At Siloam Springs State Park

Easter weekend forecast was nice on Friday, cooler on Saturday and Sunday. Cindy had Friday off for Easter, so we decided to get Baby out of hibernation and go RVing. I spent Thursday de-winterizing Baby and getting as much ready to go as I could. We finished packing Friday morning and were off.

Siloam Springs State Park has several campsites that they keep open year round. These campsites are near the entrance to the main campground and shower house. They are nice campsites in that the are level and well shaded with mature trees that give an element of privacy. However, these campsites are raised sites. They are made by building a wall then back filling with dirt and covering it with rocks. There is room for picnic table and fire, but not much room for tying out two dogs.

When we got to Siloam, we parked Baby in the shelter house parking lot and unhooked the jeep to check out the campsites and see which would be best for us. While driving to the campground we saw several wild turkey on the roadway. I slowed to a crawl and we crept up to within 30 feet of the turkeys before they decided to run for cover. Unfortunately we had left the camera in the RV and we missed a great photo opportunity.

When we got to the campground we were surprised and delighted to find that they had opened the main campground. Now we could park at one of our favorite sites and have plenty of room for the dogs.

It did not take us long to set up. It was in the high 50's or low 60's and the sun was shinning.

While Cindy setup inside I was taking pictures and pretending to setup outside.

Homer heard us talking about the turkeys and decided that he was going to watch out the front window to see if he could spy a turkey or deer or two.

I had built a fire as we had decided that our afternoon activity was going to be watching the flames dance. After I had a nice fire burning the wind suddenly picked up. The wind was blowing pretty hard. With the direction of the wind and the placement of our fire, I was afraid that the wind was going to blow the fire into the leaves that were all around our campsite. So I knocked the fire down and let it burn out. After that we sat for a while looking at the cold and empty fire pit.

It did not take long and we we off for a walk. As we walked towards the lake a gaggle of geese landed on the lake making a lot of noise with their honking. We decided that we needed to see them. We cut through the woods to the lake and a small landing and there they were.

These two stayed fairly close to the bank and did not seem to mind either Cindy and I or the dogs.
Ditka and Sox really liked those geese and would have jumped in to go play with them if we did not keep a tight grip on them.

After our walk we retired to the RV for supper and the NCAA basketball tournament. Cindy pretended to read but I saw her many times looking over the top of her book to watch the games.

Saturday morning was cloudy and cool. Too cool to do much outside. So we took our time with breakfast and cleaning up then took the dogs for a short walk. Later, we decided to head into Liberty for lunch at Mike's Place. Cindy really enjoys Mike's place. They do have really good food and have very reasonable prices.

We got to Mike's around 1:30 and there were still several groups of people eating lunch.
This is Mike standing behind his pies. He has a sign that says: "life is short, eat dessert first." After looking at his pies you'll want dessert first!

After that big lunch we had to go for another walk!

Friday afternoon when the wind was blowing hard, we saw quite a few big black birds riding the wind over and around our campground. While on our walk we saw them again and watch them land in the trees.
Creepy looking, aren't they!

Cindy told me they were attracted to me because of my sour stomach and my bad gas! After all she said they are carrion birds!


Homer was still watching for those turkey and deer when the sun began to set.

This is the only sun we saw all day Saturday...but it was worth the wait.


Easter Morning!
Snow!


Homer still looking!


It was a pretty snow with the sun shinning and no wind. But it felt like we were in for more snow so we packed up and headed home. Even with the cold and the wind it was still a nice weekend.

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OTHER NOTES:

Someone sent a note asking for Cindy's recipe for Fried Apples. Well she does not have one. She cooks the apples in butter till they are almost tended then adds brown sugar and cinnamom til it looks and tastes right. Cinnamom, apples, brown sugar, and butter it all sounds good ... use lots of all of it!

Someone also sent a note asking about Trevor's shoulder recovery. It is going well, he still is not allowed to lift weights with it or to run sprints, but it is doing fine. He did have one set back the other day when he slipped and started to fall and caught himself with his right arm. He said it hurt a lot and the team trainer told him not to use it for three days. We are very happy with the training staff and team doctor at Eastern. They seem to be more knowledgable and caring than alot of the other schools we looked at and visited.

This is the first year that Trevor will start the season pain free since his junior year in high school. He is looking forward to having a good year!

Ken F.