I decided on Burns Park as my destination in Little Rock. It's a bit expensive, but it's close to everything and like most state parks, is quiet and mostly serene. This park has a similar vibe to Lefleur's Bluff, in that it's a small piece of quiet right next to a city. My stay here is limited to one month, but I figured that it would work well enough till I figured out where I was going.
I haven't had a cigarette for a couple weeks. I found a vape shop, and I've been going on that. It might be cheating, but I feel the glycerin based products are much more benign than smoking. I can breath much better now, and have been taking the bike out on occasion. It helps that it's about 15% of the price too. The only problem is that you have to make ritual of charging your mod, and refilling it daily.
It's also much more convenient on the job. As it turns out, people generally frown upon you smoking while you're looking for gas leaks. I can hop in the truck, and take a hit or two, then I'm on my way. Even better, is that my truck no longer stinks of cigarettes.
Now that I'm settling in to the truck camper, it's becoming ever more apparent that I need to make it more of a home. When I packed up to leave, I took more than I needed. Space is tight in a truck camper. Having 5% too much stuff, feels like having 100% too much stuff. There simply isn't the room to leave things laying around.
This has lead me to start throwing things away. This part is still a bit painful to me. There has been a lot of stuff that is brand new and unused, that get tossed in the bin. There's also a ton of little things that make a massive improvement. One such thing is cleaning up my counter space.
I use my sammich griddle for a large percentage of my cooking. Unfortunately, there's almost no room on my counter for it. The griddle would sit on the burners of the stove when in use, and would be put awkwardly in the sink when it wasn't. I decided to spend part of a day sorting this very thing out. It's not an issue that would come up in a sticks and bricks, but in a truck camper, every inch counts.
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| A place for everything, and everything in it's place. |
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| That is 100% more convenient . I still have random stuffs hiding in the basin under the board, but I finally have a workable solution. I use the griddle for most of my meats, and I still have access to the stove top for searing vegibles and whatnot. For the record, that's as clean as the stove gets. I sanded off the paint trying to scour the stains off. I might repaint it sometime down the road. |
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| As it happens, I tripped across a fitted cutting board at Camping World. It was $35, but it was the exact dimensions that I needed. It even came pre-broken for me. How nice. |
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| Now THIS is how you pick up garbage. Too bad he didn't grab that Lincoln while he was at it. |
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| My site at Burns was right next to the dumpster. Normally that would irritate me, but I cleaned a lot of stuff out of the rig. Whenever the dumpster was empty, the host would have to put a stick down in the dumpster so the trash pandas could get back out (center of pic). |
I'm nowhere serious about it, but I'm loosely looking at different RV options. I'm in a pretty narrow demographic. I'm looking for a camper in the sub 5,000# range that is built well enough to live in full-time.
Unfortunately, most of the small RV's are small because of the price point. I anticipated this. There are a handful, however, that have a sufficiently decent build that might hold up to more than occasional use. Most start in the low 20s.
Since RV's can be used as a "second home" in certain instances on taxes, it opens up the financing for much longer terms. I could get in to one with a payment in the mid $200 range. The problem is that I'll be upside-down on the payment for the entire term. It's simply not an option
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| This thing was super nice inside. The slide had a big ol' reclining couch with cupholders. Very comfortable, and a decent bathroom. Maybe down the road. I'll probably just keep dumping cash into what I already have. |
If you've not been following the news, there's been substantial flooding along the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. The Arkansas has been rising quite a bit, and there's rain threatening. Burns is the high ground, and with the memorial day holiday, everything nearby is booked. This won't be the first time I've been chased off by flooding
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| Bike ride stopped short. |
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| I started the day in this field, and it was dry. This photo was at lunch time, and there had been no rain. The Arkansas river is right on the other side of those power lines. |
The flooding was starting to affect my work. I had a few maps that had to be re-prioritized because of rising waters. Much of Burns park has been closed off, and there;s an influx of people coming to the campground since they're getting run out of flooded parks.
There's a problem with this. Burns Campground is on higher ground, but the road leading into it is not. The golf course next to it is flooded, and the rising waters are threatening to cross the road.
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| It's a potato pic, but the flashing lights came around on Wednesday evening around 10:00pm. We had some heavy rain, and the road out is in the watershed. The road was covered with running water for a few hours. The ground is saturated, and there's nowhere for it to go. They told us that we didn't have to leave, but we might get flooded in. I watched 5-6 campers leave in the next hour before falling asleep. |
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| I woke up at 4:00 to see if I could get out. They closed the gate to keep people from coming in. They must've forgot that people need to leave. Thankfully it was opened by 6:00am. |
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| Shitter's full |
