First night on the job

May 22 -   Brrr!  The day started off pretty chilly, in the 60’s.  I put on long knit pants with a t-shirt and denim shirt.  Bill wore shorts but with a t-shirt and long sleeved pullover.  It was the perfect morning for oatmeal with blueberries, well for me it was.  Bill went with cold cereal and blueberries.  After a little more housekeeping duties we took a walk back down to the marina to see if they had worked on the dock that you can’t use because the water is so high.  The road is also flooded but is a circle drive so people can get to the other part of the marina from the other direction.  The marina is huge and I think there are 7 around the lake.  There are very few open boat storage slots in the one here. 

One of the camping loops

On our walk back we stopped at the Volunteer Village and met one of the couples that volunteers in the Visitor Center.  They have a new fifth wheel and gave us a tour.  Very nice!  They have been here 15 months but decided to winter in Florida for 4 months this winter.  They are full timers but still have a house in AR.  So far all of the volunteers we’ve met are from AR and most stay here most of the year.  It gets COLD here, I thought the advantage of an RV is to escape that.

Visitor Center

As we were preparing to go to the Visitor Center and into town our Ranger Jason showed up.  He was supposed to be off today but guess his schedule got changed.  He was just as nice in person as he was on the phone.  He gave us a quick briefing.  Our position is new and in test mode.  We will not handle any money but more be checking for car passes and warning non-registered guests they must leave by 10:00pm when quiet time begins.  We can also tell late comers what sites are open and to come back at 10 AM to officially check in and get their vehicle passes.  There are 2 rangers on duty until midnight every night so if there is any trouble we can contact them.

More of the campground

We enjoyed our stop at the visitor center.  The movie of the history of the area and building of the dam was very good.  This facility is similar to the Land Between the Lakes in Tennessee and Kentucky.  There are 18 parks around the lake.  Most of them have campgrounds and boat launches and a few are just day parks. 

We drove partway into Heber Springs, well, technically it was Heber Springs but not the original town.  Once the recreation became prominent here the road from town to here developed with all kinds of businesses.  A lot of them have to do with boats, imagine that!

The folks at the Visitor Center recommended King Buffet for lunch.  It’s 95% Asian food and the rest American.  You can have the buffet or order from the menu.  Most of it was pretty good and I was happy to see they had a Sushi station.  I pretty much filled up on that.  Bill was all over trying stuff and we left full.

We stopped at Wal-mart for a few things.  It’s a Super one but not quite as large as most.  Only has one entrance and no tire/automotive part.  Bill was glad to know it was here as he can have some of his meds transferred here to pick up.

I spent quite a while trying to get our Directv working and found that our new Genie will not work with our dome.  Major Bummer!  After all we went through changing our service at home to get these boxes we should have only gotten HD boxes that would communicate with our dome.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.  I need to call the dome people to verify what HD boxes will work with it and see about getting 2.  We can watch what we have recorded but that’s all, so we did watch an episode of “Big Bang Theory”.

Since we ate rather late this afternoon Bill wasn’t hungry for dinner so we left for work at

The gatehouse where we work

about 7:30, (it’s only about a one minute walk) and went over what reservations had not arrived and some other pertinent info.  We each took a piece of fruit and some almonds and bottles of water.  The time went really fast!  We could not believe how many people arrive at 9 PM on a holiday weekend Friday night looking for a space.  Unreal!  There is hardly any light in the campgrounds so they’re out there in the dark setting up in spaces with no electric or water.  We probably had 8 go look at open spaces and only 3 reported back what site they took and one guy took one and built a fire on it and it was reserved so we told him if they show up tonight he’d have to move and if not, he has to move in the morning.  Idiots!

Kerry called and we talked quite while.  She reported in on Harry’s graduation/going away party.  There was a nice crowd and all went well.