Lake Dardanelle State Park

Lake Dardanelle State Park is located in central Arkansas about 2 miles south of I40. It is surrounded by the Ouachita Mountains to the south and the Boston Mountain Range of the Ozarks to the north. However, its main attraction is the 34,000-acre man-made lake, formed by the Arkansas River, which is very popular for fishing, boating, and swimming.

Facilities include picnic areas, boat launches, a marina, miniature golf, and a 97-site campground.

Here we were in Arkansas, the final state in our quest for completing the lower 48. I’m not sure what we expected, having never really given Arkansas much thought. In many ways it seemed very familiar, much more like home than any other place we’d been to in the last few weeks. There were mountains and lakes, and for the first time in awhile, grass and trees. Everything was so green—very different from the browns and reds of the Southwest and the golden grass of the plains. It felt good to be here, which must mean that we were about ready to go home.

The park was actually quite lovely with a beautiful man-made lake surrounded by mountains. The scenery would have been even more idyllic if hadn’t been for the nuclear power plant on the far shore spewing white clouds from its huge chimney. It reminded me of a Homer Simpson episode. We just angled our chairs a little and pretended it wasn’t there.

That night was a big event in our RV history—the filling in of the final state on our RV map of the continental U.S. Originally, I had felt silly about the idea of collecting states just for the sake of collecting them, but it had turned out differently than I expected. In the process of visiting states that we would never have visited otherwise, we had found some true gems. And as a bonus, the kids really knew their U.S. geography now.

As Herb placed Arkansas on the map, he turned to us and said, “Now we can sell the RV.” I think he was just kidding. I hope so because I’m just getting started…