We were on our way to Memphis to rendezvous with our friends Kristin & Jason when we had our ‘brake-down’.
Chilling in Memphis
After getting back on the road nearly 24-hours later, we made the final two hour drive and happily parked next to our neighbors who assisted in our rescue!
While we had big ambitions to tour Memphis, eat some BBQ and maybe catch some Blues – we just couldn’t get the energy up. We were simply exhausted.
Especially after arriving to Tom Sawyer RV Park (our review) in West Memphis, AR and realizing what a gem it was. We had a waterfront spot, with barges pushing up and down the Mississippi in front of us.
On top of a wonderfully scenic view, we just loved the park. It’s very well kept up, well managed and clearly the owners have paid attention to what RVers want. The WiFi was fast, and worked reasonably well when the winds weren’t blowing. There were lots of maintained hiking trails. Two tree houses to explore – one right on the water’s edge (my favorite!).
And .. free laundry!! Their laundry facility was not only one of the cleanest public laundromats we’ve encountered, the machines were exceptionally high-tech. I even ended up giving lessons to fellow campers on how to use them. And did we mention.. free??
So, we spent our time catching up on sleep, resting, watching barges, hiking and doing laundry.
As Kristin & Jason had an out of town friend visiting, they did the exploring for us. We enjoyed our catch-ups with them and hearing tales of their adventures. Sometimes, that’s just enough and we have to honor our homebodied nature.
And we obviously weren’t the only ones who had discovered the charms of Tom Sawyer’s RV Park – as soon as we pulled in and checked into RVillage.com, we discovered two other couples also checked into the park who we didn’t know in advance. Sweet!!
So, we scheduled an RVillage Happy Hour Get-Together in one of the campground’s tree houses. It was perfect, and great to meet up with folks. All and all, we had 9 in attendance, including some locals who are gearing up to RV in a few years. It just warmed our hearts to see the potential of RVillage play out so perfectly, and so soon after launch! (RVillage is now up to over 6300 members, and has been endorsed by Escapee’s and Workamper News!! Wow!)
Our stay here was absolutely perfect, and we’d definitely return in a heartbeat. Heck, toss in a hot tub at this place, and we’d likely never leave. Well, at least until Old Muddy flooded her banks and floated us away.
Columbus-Belmont State Park
The Snowmads headed on to St. Louis as Kristin’s parents were inbound to meet up with them – and Chris’ folks wouldn’t be arriving back to St. Louis after their Florida winter until later in the week. So we took the opportunity to stop at Columbus-Belmont State Park (our review) in Kentucky. Also along the Mississippi River, but on a bluff.
We had actually stayed here back in 2009 on a trip back to the Oliver factory for tweaks and enjoyed it.
Our two night stay was tranquil and peaceful. We had very limited cellular signal – almost no Verizon, and just some faint but boostable AT&T HSPA+ (4G). Enough that we decided to cancel our live video chat we had scheduled and focus on non-computer time.
We enjoyed some hiking, some reading and watching the sunsets.
The one thing we didn’t like however was how sloped the sites were – particularly ours. Even putting out all of our wood blocks, we were still pointed downwards. To their credit, Reserve America has all sites in the campground marked as ‘slightly sloped’ – but this was a bit more than ‘slight’ in our opinion.
We ended up sleeping backwards in bed – which did afford us nice morning views of the river.
And onward…
On Friday morning we continued up the Great River Road to St. Louis, where we’ve been ever since. We’ll continue the tales later.
What’s Next? We actually have no clue. Our next solid plan is Burning Man at the end of August, and then hosting at Cape Blanco Lighthouse in Oregon for September & August. We’ll be working our way west in general over the coming months – but we have no plan or destinations in mind. We’ll probably do a bit of casual caravanning with Kristin & Jason, and there’s talk of possibly following Route 66 to Albuquerque from here. But, nothing is firm and we’ll figure it out as we go!
Since you’re heading to the Oregon coast this fall I thought I’d recommend the 37th St Laundry and Showers in Florence Oregon. Spotlessly clean, fast wifi, decent chairs and tables so I could be comfortable while I downloaded some software updates onto my laptop. Just what I needed after camping for a while and accumulating a big bag of dirty laundry.
Just wanted to let you know that I really appreciated your latest webchat. Also, I LOVE your Namad videos. Sorry I never left a comment about it. I know those videos take forever to edit and put together so let me just tell you it is appreciated and you both are awesome!!!!
Too bad you weren’t in the Alb. area at the beginning of April, you might have had a chance to visit the Trinity site. The place on the White Sands Missile Range where the first atomic bomb was tested. The location is only open twice a year. The first Saturday in April and October. No roller coasters, but an important marker in the story of the human race. On a more upbeat note, the Very Large Array of radio telescopes up the road has a special open house on the same day that the Trinity site is open with tours of the control rooms and scientists on hand to answer questions. The visitor center is open every day (might be closed on Christmas and New Year), but the tours make it more interesting.
I visited both in 2013 and even bought some Trinitite at the rock shop up the road from WSMR. Trinitite is green colored glass that was formed from sand in the intense heat of the atomic blast. It’s a federal offense to take any from the site. The rock shop’s original owner collected a whole bunch way back before the site was shut down to collecting. It’s only very slightly radioactive. There are natural deposits of U bearing minerals in UT that are much more so.
Will be adding the RV park in Memphis to my “must stay here” list. How fun to sit and watch the barges go down the great Mississippi River! Enjoy reading about all the things y’all get to see and do. 🙂
It’s definitely on our ‘must return’ list… hope you enjoy it!
We also found a great free laundromat at the Palmetto Island State Park near Abbeville, LA! Just like yours, it was neat as a pin…..but not the fancy machines. But they did have great clean washers and dryers with big folding tables.
Because of RVillage we met three couples here at an Escapees Resort at Jojoba Hills in CA.
That’s awesome to hear about more RVillage encounters!! Thank you for sharing.
And we do love the LA State Park system, I think most of their campgrounds have free laundry. And the ones we’ve stayed at have also been quite lovely.
Love the campground and will have to put it on our list when we are headed that way. And its exciting to see RVillage in action! We are on Route 66 having picked it up in Flagstaff AZ and now in Albuquerque. It seems to me it is becoming more popular as the years go by. Great post!
It’s wonderful to see that old road have a revitalized interest. Enjoy it, and who knows – maybe we’ll see you between here and there!