Initial Plan
For Memorial Day weekend, I reserved a campsite at a canoe livery near the Niangua River near Lebanon, Missouri. A couple of months prior we had gotten an agreement from my granddaughter’s father to allow us to take her on a canoe trip with us. Unfortunately, when I started checking around for a campsite, almost everything within three or four hours of us was booked. Since we had not driven the trailer more than an hour yet, we were hesitant to go much farther than that. Luckily I was able to find this campground that had two spots available.
As the day got closer, we experienced an abnormal amount of rain in the Midwest. This caused most of the rivers in Missouri to be too high for canoeing. A week before Memorial Day weekend the weather forecast also predicted more rain throughout the weekend.
New Plan
As we were about to cancel our trip, we decided to look a little farther south out of the area for the flooding and rain forecast to see if we could find another campsite. North Arkansas was known for having some great canoeing rivers, especially the Buffalo River. Luckily after a lot of phone calls, I found a little campground in Harrison, AR called Harrison Village Campground and RV Park. I then found a canoe livery about 30 minutes away that had some available rafts called Silver Hill Float Service.
Now that I was set with a new location, I had to cancel my other reservation and see how much of my deposit I was going to lose. Luckily they acknowledged that camping/canoeing was not going to be possible at their location over the Memorial Day weekend so they gave me the option to push my deposit to another weekend. I accepted though I did not know when I would be able to return.
The Trip Down
We decided that I would leave Friday morning and drive the trailer down to the campground, and Lisa will pick up Savannah after work and join me later that evening. The drive down was largely uneventful except for a couple of minor annoyances. First, Google Maps took me on a route that had me travel down a gravel road for several miles. Luckily I was able to find another route that took me off the gravel road after only a few miles. Second, I ran very low on gas before I found a gas station that I felt I could take my truck and trailer. Luckily I was able to find one in time.
About an hour from the campground I entered the Ozark Mountains and the first test of my truck/trailer on steep hills. Though I had a trailer towing package, and the trailer was well under the towing capacity of the truck, I still had to go slower than the speed limit and drop to third gear on a couple of the hills.
When I arrived at the campground, they drove me to a spot with their golf cart to an un-level, grassy area where all the grass had been burnt. The trailer next door had their Confederate battle flag flying proudly and looked like they had been there a while. The campground manager probably read the horror on my face as she quickly started offering other possible places to camp in the campground. While traveling to those locations, we drove across a really nice graveled camping spot that was empty. When I asked about it, they told me it was available but it was a deluxe spot for which I would have to pay extra. Seeing little choice, I quickly agreed and was able to get the trailer parked and set up with little difficulty.
Later that evening, Lisa and Savannah joined me.
Buffalo National River
Over the next two days, we were able to enjoy wonderful weather and beautiful weather while enjoying rafting on the Buffalo River. We were put in at Tyler’s Bend and floated 8 miles down to a landing near Gilbert. The current was fast enough that I was able to sit on the back of the raft and steer with very little rowing needed. This was Savannah’s first rafting trip which made it extra special.
In the evenings we enjoyed our campfire. I did learn the hard way to keep the camper door closed as the campfire kept triggering the smoke alarm.
Monday, Trip Home, Almost
On Monday, we packed up and after getting the trailer hitched to the truck we did our final checks and started pulling out. Unfortunately, the trailer tires were locked and did not move. I was getting a “trailer wiring fault” when I first started the truck so I thought I probably did not have the trailer wiring connector in far enough. After rechecking the connections several times, I soon gathered a group of helpful campers around me all trying to give advice. They immediately started pulling and prying things all over my trailer which made me very apprehensive. Finally, someone suggested that I should try hooking my trailer to another truck to see if we could isolate the problem to the truck or the trailer. When we finally do this, we learn that the problem seems to be with my truck.
We decide that Lisa and Savannah should go on home while I stay an extra night and go to the Ford dealership the next morning to see if they can fix my problem. They took off and tried to visit the Fantastic Caverns on the way home but found that they were closed due to flooding. I partially set the trailer back up and waited for the next morning.
Tuesday, Trip Home, Finally
The next morning I was at the dealership about a half-hour before it opened and was able to be first in line. After troubleshooting, they determined that was my Brake Controller Module and that it would take almost $300 to fix. After they replaced the module, I was able to get back to the campground, hook up the trailer, and take off toward home before noon.
As I left the campground, I took a picture of this disturbing billboard that was on the outskirts of Harrison.
The trip home was uneventful except that I messed up the trailer kitchen stairs by hitting a curb coming out of one of the gas stations. This bent up some of the thin sidings around the stairs as well as bending the casing around the stairs making it difficult to extract/store the stairs.
During one of my status calls home, Lisa warned me that they were expecting severe weather that evening starting about 6 pm. My current schedule had me making it back by 5 pm so I was hopefully going to miss it. As expected, I ended up having the trailer parked in the storage lot by 5 pm. That evening the storms produced tornadoes in the area so I was fortunate.
Overall, we had a great time and are feeling more confident in taking our trailer on longer camping trips.