First Camping Trip of the Year!
May. 18th, 2018 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hillarygayleWe had a couple of free days around last weekend & we knew we wanted to go on a trip in the RV, but it was Mother's Day & I thought I should stay around for my mom at least. So Bryan had the very bright idea to do both, and we took our motorhome to the local park!
My city can be super weird & backward about a lot of things. Like most smallish American cities, it's built primarily for car traffic & lacks good pedestrian/bike pathways & public transit options. In my town specifically we have this weird lack of good local restaurants; everything new that opens here is a chain. Basically if you think of the whitest (we HAVE people of color here but are they in decision making positions? Mostly not), most generic, boring background city of any American teen drama or sitcom, you've got Jonesboro.
There's one thing Jonesboro has gotten very right, however--Craighead Forest Park. We have a park which has a fairly decent sized lake for fishing & boating, several awesome playgrounds, a walking trail with exercise equipment around it at intervals, and most importantly, an RV park! If you're looking for a relaxing weekend, oddly enough, this is the perfect place for it in the middle of the most dull, monotonous town.
We drove over (less than 3 miles from the house) on Friday and got a spot for 2 days. For those 2 days we roasted marshmallows, watched Ganon fly his drone, took walks, and had the cousins & my parents over for Uno games on Saturday night. It was SO relaxing, especially for Ganon who is the very epitome of school burnout. He's been working so hard on his grades, which remain all over the place regardless. He was this close to a huge stress meltdown, so getting him out of school early that day & going on a camping trip was just what he needed.
Pictures!
Our motorhome, a secondhand 2006 Coachmen Mirada. Her name is Beatrice. There's also a bonus shot of my car, Ruby, which is a 2018 Honda CR-V and the fanciest car I have ever owned. I love that it feels and looks like a super expensive SUV but in reality it's still priced like a Honda.
Here's me doing some plumbing to de-winterize. On my own, using YouTube videos & texting my brother (who has been RVing for several years), I managed to figure out how to re-route the water flow in the vehicle, fill the tank, remove the water heater from bypass, have a small heart attack when water came gushing out the side of the RV, realize the water heater wasn't plugged, replace the plug, re-route the water flow again, & use the pump to prime all the air & antifreeze out of the lines. Tada! Useable water system! As it turns out, understanding the structure & function of the human heart actually preps you to understand certain plumbing concepts, like hydrostatic pressure, flow routes through valve systems, etc.
A couple of pictures of the lake at Craighead Forest Park.
Some of the walking trails!
Very cool fire log. It comes scored all the way through in a star shape, with a bit of accelerant soaked kindling in the center. You light the kindling and then the log burns like a chimney! Perfect for marshmallow roasting.
Which of course is what we did. Also roasted some hot dogs on it, too!
At one point Ganon's drone crashed on top of the RV, so after one aborted attempt, a few deep breaths, and a serious bashing down of his fear of heights, he used the ladder to climb to the top and got it!
It was an awesome weekend. I work overnight tonight & tomorrow night, but it's Greek Food Festival weekend in Little Rock. Despite working 5p-3a Saturday night, I'm going to try & get up early to go. It's the only time of year I can get souvlaki, pastitzio, and melomacharona (which may perhaps be my favorite cookie in the history of cookies). There should be lots of cool photos from that as well!
My city can be super weird & backward about a lot of things. Like most smallish American cities, it's built primarily for car traffic & lacks good pedestrian/bike pathways & public transit options. In my town specifically we have this weird lack of good local restaurants; everything new that opens here is a chain. Basically if you think of the whitest (we HAVE people of color here but are they in decision making positions? Mostly not), most generic, boring background city of any American teen drama or sitcom, you've got Jonesboro.
There's one thing Jonesboro has gotten very right, however--Craighead Forest Park. We have a park which has a fairly decent sized lake for fishing & boating, several awesome playgrounds, a walking trail with exercise equipment around it at intervals, and most importantly, an RV park! If you're looking for a relaxing weekend, oddly enough, this is the perfect place for it in the middle of the most dull, monotonous town.
We drove over (less than 3 miles from the house) on Friday and got a spot for 2 days. For those 2 days we roasted marshmallows, watched Ganon fly his drone, took walks, and had the cousins & my parents over for Uno games on Saturday night. It was SO relaxing, especially for Ganon who is the very epitome of school burnout. He's been working so hard on his grades, which remain all over the place regardless. He was this close to a huge stress meltdown, so getting him out of school early that day & going on a camping trip was just what he needed.
Pictures!
Our motorhome, a secondhand 2006 Coachmen Mirada. Her name is Beatrice. There's also a bonus shot of my car, Ruby, which is a 2018 Honda CR-V and the fanciest car I have ever owned. I love that it feels and looks like a super expensive SUV but in reality it's still priced like a Honda.
Here's me doing some plumbing to de-winterize. On my own, using YouTube videos & texting my brother (who has been RVing for several years), I managed to figure out how to re-route the water flow in the vehicle, fill the tank, remove the water heater from bypass, have a small heart attack when water came gushing out the side of the RV, realize the water heater wasn't plugged, replace the plug, re-route the water flow again, & use the pump to prime all the air & antifreeze out of the lines. Tada! Useable water system! As it turns out, understanding the structure & function of the human heart actually preps you to understand certain plumbing concepts, like hydrostatic pressure, flow routes through valve systems, etc.
A couple of pictures of the lake at Craighead Forest Park.
Some of the walking trails!
Very cool fire log. It comes scored all the way through in a star shape, with a bit of accelerant soaked kindling in the center. You light the kindling and then the log burns like a chimney! Perfect for marshmallow roasting.
Which of course is what we did. Also roasted some hot dogs on it, too!
At one point Ganon's drone crashed on top of the RV, so after one aborted attempt, a few deep breaths, and a serious bashing down of his fear of heights, he used the ladder to climb to the top and got it!
It was an awesome weekend. I work overnight tonight & tomorrow night, but it's Greek Food Festival weekend in Little Rock. Despite working 5p-3a Saturday night, I'm going to try & get up early to go. It's the only time of year I can get souvlaki, pastitzio, and melomacharona (which may perhaps be my favorite cookie in the history of cookies). There should be lots of cool photos from that as well!
no subject
Date: 2018-05-18 04:54 pm (UTC)