We headed out in the morning for Lake Dardanelle State Park in Arkansas. Looking for places to stop and see on the way, Tom found “Old Mill” in North Little Rock.
This was an interesting choice for a stop. It is described on its web site as “A historic re-creation of an early 1830s water-powered grist mill, the Old Mill was built as a tribute to Arkansas pioneers. It is in the opening scenes of the classic movie “Gone With The Wind” and is believed to be the last standing structure from the film.”
Why a replica of an abandoned mill in the middle of a residential area? See the website’s history page. Scott missed that when originally researching the site, and nowhere does it say there is no parking lot – just a few spots on the street in front of the mill. We were on a kinda steep sideways angle, and there might be a story of a granola bag that fell down and exploded before we ate lunch, but as there are no pictures that never happened.
It takes about 20 minutes to see the whole mill, which has a Disney feel to it – note in the history how everything is made of concrete but lots of it are made to look like wood and such. There were very nice plantings as well. It was worth the time and parking and driving hassles to see it.
Next on to our campsite at Lake Dardanelle State Park. In his research on that, Scott determined that the visitor’s center has 8000 gallons of aquariums with local fish – including one circular tank that looked like a taller and somewhat wider version of the tank in VideoRay’s 580 Wall Street headquarters. The nice ranger lady spent lots of time talking to Tom about what to do in the area.
Our campsite is on the lake and is easily the nicest spot we have stopped in – there are stairways down to a platform for sitting and watching lake activities (and a view of the cooling tower of the local Nuclear powerplant.) Tom planned a trip after dinner to nearby Mount Nebo State Park, which reportedly has great spots for watching the sun rise and set. Before we left we learned the folly of frying a hamburger inside the RV.
The drive was pretty, the sunset was nice, and we learned more about the Trail of Tears which occurred in the area. A shameful part of American History.
The Sunset was nice, but perhaps a bit overhyped.
As with every night, it was Blog and Bed…