April 11th, Thursday 4:10 p.m Ouachita National Forest, arkansas. New camp with cell signal!!!!
Had a nice 11 mile ride this afternoon. Feeling reinvigorated now. Took some actioncam footage while I was riding.
Moved back to this campsite I spotted yesterday on the drive in. It’s windier up here, but it has cell signal and the wind is keeping the bugs away.
going to take a shower as I get the chili going. I should probably re-orient the truck too. right now it’s tall butt is in the wind. I need to spin it around for better sleep tonight. Nose into the wind is always better.
Found Lake Sylvia! Ouachita Forest
It’s a tiny lake on the east side of Ouachita National Forest. (wah-chuh-taw), I may back track to the main road I came in on . vs driving the back forest roads to get there. I’ll have to do some route planning on GaiaGPS tonight. Which is like Google Maps, but for people trying to navigate forest roads and jeep trails.
in the 2nd screenshot below. the little orange arrow is me on the bottom left. I basically have to get to the eastern most part of the green area. That blue line was for the eclispse totality path. I’ll have to figure out how to remove that now.
Making camp chili right now. Smells amaze-balls. and of course I forgot to record it on my action cam for a future youtube video. When I’m hungry I get stupid.
And by hungry I mean, biking for 2+ hours and just having a couple snacks.
I took a geyser sponge shower using water I poached from one of the concrete bridge things I crossed. They cement over a couple of 2ft diameter culvert pipes and you drive over the “bridge” which isn’t really a bridge, all the water goes through the pipe.
Driving over a couple of them, there was overflowing water, so i just grabbed my collapsible bucket thing and poached some “clean” water. Clean meaning no visible debris in the water, but as far as I know, it could have all kinds of microscopic critters in it. Only the best water for my skin! Mmmmm giardia…
April 12th, Friday 1:30 p.m Ouachita National Forest, forest road 132, heading to Lake Winona arkansas.
Here are the coordinates
34.82098, -93.02464
Had to stop for a night even though it’s still early. beautiful scenic spot. My view at camp!
I’m along the ridge, fairly high up. Going to read and relax some
before seeing if I have the energy for a bike ride this afternoon.
For
lunch I stopped at a locally owned Philips 66 gas station that was a
little bit of everything. Hardware store, grocery, deli, hamburger,
pizza, fishing bait, camping supplies shop.
Anyway, I had a jumbo
cheeseburger (two patties) that was better than any fast food burger
I’ve had in a long time. Including Five Guys. Gassed up as well, and
ditched campsite garbage I’d picked up from the previous sites. Must
have been a somewhat popular site, there was a shopping bags worth of
stuff I picked up.
Drove north on 27, east on 28, and then south
again on 7. Going to take my time on this road, and maybe visit the
Hot Springs National Park before I start to head back towards home next
week.
here are some more photos of my campsite for today. I’ll
be moving on in the morning. Someone made this impressive fire pit just
using nearby rock
the site is very close to the road, but there’s very little traffic and the scenic view is worth it IMHO.
here are some screenshots of where I am. I’ll be heading east to Lake Winona
The orange line is what I drove today
Trail Magic for Larry-Boy
I met a young man backpacking by on the road Friday night. I offered him some trail magic, and he was super happy to receive. Larry-Boy is his trail name. Hikers don’t use their real names, they use trail names that they give themselves.. Just search youtube for “trail magic” if you want to learn more about that.
Gave him some food and drink
he enjoyed
- summer sausage
- new york extra sharp cheese
- raw broccoli florets with ranch
- and some plain 2% greek yogurt with blueberries and maple syrup
- washed down with a coke zero i had chilling in the fridge
I apologized for not having any beer to offer, explaining I accidentally resupplied in a dry county and he laughed saying the same thing happened to him a few days ago when restocked in a nearby town. Now I know why there are so many angry conservatives in Arkansas, lol!
He’s backpacking the 220mile Ouachita trail (wah-chuh-taw), and he’s 160+ miles complete. I thought that trail stayed closer to the lake, but i guess it comes back this far. He said it follows some of the surrounding ridgelines. he was walking the road to avoid a blowdown section. lots of treefall from a recent storm that’s not been cleared out yet.
felt good to make a hungry backpacker happy. the company was welcome, but he didn’t stay long (30 minutes?) ; he needed to go find a tent site before it got too dark. Gave him some electrolyte packets for the warmer weather coming this weekend.
Good deed done for the day.
More photos i took from today, a lot of haze in some
