Happy Easter from Arkansas 🐰

April 5, 2021 Writing My Story

Hello everyone!
I am writing to you from the parking lot in front of Super Suds coin laundry in Wynn, Arkansas. 😃 It is about 7 miles from Village Creek State Park where I am staying. Why the parking lot? Again, I have one tiny bar on my cell phone at the State Park…when I’m lucky!! So here I am.
I stopped at Sonic to get a good egg burrito, and came here to do some laundry before I hit the road again tomorrow for Missouri. After laundry I will be going to Walmart and then for diesel and then back to my campsite.
I started spring cleaning yesterday! I cleaned out my refrigerator and I rearranged my minimal furniture in my living room and scrubbed the floors!! 😅 Once the furniture was away from the windows, I could wipe out the sand from the beach that was still on the casings. 🤔😬
Both cats have been banned from the bedroom for the last few days because they threw up twice on two different quilts! So I was already at this laundromat earlier this week. It gets complicated to try to keep them from getting in there, especially when I’m sleeping. I pulled the sliding door closed over the steps to close it off. However they can go under the door to get there easily. So I stuff a big pillow on that step. So then they scrunch down the pillow and squeeze over the pillow and under the door. So then I open the bathroom door against the sliding door and stick a pillow against it to hold it solid so they have another obstacle. Well when they are adamant enough, they can push that door open. So at night I go through all of that and put the vacuum cleaner in front of the door to the bathroom!! 🤣 And you thought I had nothing to do but to take it easy!!! 😂 But I sure have been sleeping better without the cats walking over me at night!! 🤔😏

Village Creek State Park

This park is a surprisingly spread out park with two small lakes. I am on the second of two attached campground loops. Over the weekend it filled to maybe three quarters occupancy with families. It was nice to see the parents interacting with the younger kids and even helping them fly kites. ☺️ And little bicyclists were everywhere!! I had a small gully with water in it on my door and picnic table area. The next campsite was on the other side and up the hill so it was pretty quiet for me there. I set up the fencing for the cats and they enjoyed sitting outside. Especially since they can’t get into the bedroom to sleep all day! Especially Gumble!

There is quite a bit of history in this park. This area was part of the Trail of Tears for the Native Americans that were marched to Oklahoma from the east/southeast. They have preserved a mile and a half of the original Trail and it is part of a hiking trail you can take. I took it yesterday. It was a beautiful day and except for a small group that went ahead of me, I had it totally to myself. It was quiet and peaceful. I read everything before and along the way as there was no rush. It was nice to be able to spend as much time there as I wanted to. It was a total of two and a quarter miles of hiking through the woods. Are you ready? Here come the pictures!!!

*the trail begins on the top of an earthen dam. This is not the actual Trail but an access Trail*

at the end of this path are excellent information signs concerning each Indian tribe that came this way

What I found fascinating, was the information of how much planning went into this ahead of time. Not only were treaties signed by each tribe, but then the roads had to be developed through the area. Thousands of people with wagons and horses were going to go on this path. So that took a couple years and was not an easy task.

**I thought this was really interesting. Things never change they just become modern. Same process same wheeling and dealing**

*this tribe was smart! They rejected the treaty because they saw what wasn’t was not guaranteed*

I didn’t know that they did not all go all the way to Oklahoma. I see one of the tribes stopped at Little Rock and made their home there.

*it also made sense that they did not all go at once. That they traveled in waves.*

And the Cherokee. The ones we heard about the most.

it also seemed that each tribe’s treaty was different. Some were able to take their personal belongings some were not. Some had different benefits waiting for them then others.

*even then they had traveling expenses*!!

The access path was a windy, narrow, hilly path that was about a quarter of a mile. But it was a nice walk. Then you actually joined up with the trail that had been walked on nearly 100 years ago. It has been preserved and it is on the national register of historic places.

**a really nice walk on a beautiful day**

*the area across the woods and swamp here was known as Crowley’s ridge*

**This area really was quite High compared to the valleys and ridges around it**

*my feet are walking on the same ground, relatively speaking, that these tribes did 100 years ago. There is always something unreal about* that.

I would like to go to a number of the historic places in the South and West where different battles were fought. I would especially like to go to Gettysburg. I just can’t help but thinking there has to be a sense of the magnitude of the suffering that took place there that one can feel. I know I had different experiences while I walked this Trail.

This part of the hike was a mile and a half of the Trail of Tears. Farther along , the Trail began to change and it became almost a valley that you were walking in. Quite a different feeling.

**And ended like this. it’s** hard to tell, but the sides were way over my head!!

i then the flatness of the trail begin to change like this…

Somehow the pictures got reversed. I’ll do an update and fix that later.

*I thought this was just a pretty picture that kind of reflected the peacefulness of the day 🤗*

You leave the trail shortly after this area. You join another trail that is narrow, windy and hilly just like the access Trail and that takes you back to the Earthen dam. It was just a beautiful day for a hike. It was wonderful to be a part of that history. The total loop was about 2 and 1/4 miles and it took me about 2 hours. But that’s because I took my time.

it is now 7:40 p.m. and I finished this in the parking lot of the Walmart. 😂 I have to drive about 7 or 8 miles on very windy roads back to the campground. Boy I will be happy when I can do this right at my RV again!

I visited another state park today that also had a history of Indians that settled in this area 700 years ago. That will be another edition!

tomorrow I will be pulling out to head north to Missouri. The next state park is actually named, Trail of Tears state park. So there will be more history there. Take care and stay healthy everyone!