Mountain View, Arkansas - Day 2

After we finished spending the majority of our day at Blanchard Springs Caverns, we came back to Whitewater RV Park and relaxed for a little while.  Once rest time was over, we took the dogs walking in the city park.  We found a stream that had enough water for the dogs to have a little fun.

This RV Park is surrounded by city park space.  Walking thru the campground to the back, we found the beautiful stone amphitheater.  It isn't used that much anymore, but it sure looked like a great place to spend some time with the dogs.  There is a trail back there, but we only walked a short distance since it was getting late, and we had no clue how long it would take us to hike (I know, the sign said 45 minutes).

City Park (to the west of RV park)

On Saturday morning, we decided to take the dogs walking over in the city park to the west of the RV park.  Mostly, I wanted to make sure they had a chance to do whatever they might need to before I took them into an area that probably wasn't the best dog bathroom areas.

Abby always wants to get into the water!

I looked at the number of trees....and then saw this sign...and wondered if my 'flying disc' would end up coming back at me every time I threw it?  But, if you wanted to play Disc Golf, hey go for it!

Ollie hanging out in the stream - I think she is munching on grass (maybe part cow).

42nd Annual Bean Festival

I was asked when I arrived to check in if I was coming to town to attend the "Bean Festival".  Having no clue what he was talking about, I asked about it.  It's a really big thing for this small town!  And since we were about 4 blocks away from downtown, I knew we would have some time on Saturday to go attend and check it out.  

Saturday, we went to the bean festival. First, what is a "Bean Festival"? This particular festival is about:

1) A cookoff of pinto beans - people enter the contest to cook the best recipe using pinto beans

2) Someone judges them to see who's the best is

3) Art vendors (like an arts and craft festival)

4) Live mountain music

5) Food vendors

All outdoors, all dog friendly.  So seemed like a good way to spend part of the day.

We walked around quite a bit of the area to see the various sights.

Mountain music played in front of the courthouse. Soon, we settled down in a nice spot to watch the "Outhouse races" (this I had to see just to find out exactly what it was!).  I think the dogs were ready to relax a bit, but I was told by others there at this festival that 20,000 people were there!  If that is the case, then there were a lot of people there.

Ollie says, "Did you say outhouse race?"

Ugh, I better get comfortable!

Many of these don't look much like outhouses to me - but they were much easier to push!  This looks like an outhouse to me!Outhouse races, "Go #2"

These last two look like traditional outhouses to me!

The dogs enjoyed being in the crowd as much as a dog can!  Good thing is they were on their best behavior. Eventually, we stopped at a vendor to grab some corn dogs (Abby loves corn dogs).  There were a few people that were laughing because the dogs were so good at following the corn dogs.

On the walk back to the RV park, Abby spotted - What is it?  You can tell she isn't sure.

Abby started to figure out it wasn't real.  But still wasn't sure.

So that pretty much wraps up our time in Mountain View - the rest of the day was mostly relaxing time.
 

Whitewater RV Park

This is probably one of my favorite places we stayed along this trip.  Why?

• The park had friendly neighbors
• Electric, water, sewer hookups at the campsite
• WiFi (all the private RV parks we visited had WiFi)
• Green space on our campsite
• Picnic table
• Clean bathrooms, showers
• Washer and dryer available (and I used them for 1 load of laundry)
• Friendly RV staff
• Close to town, walking distance if you don't have issues walking uphill a few blocks
• Beautiful areas to walk our dogs adjoining the RV park (this park is surrounded by city park spaces)

For more photographs of Mountain View, Arkansas, click Here!

On Sunday morning we rose early and headed out about 9am to our next stop.  Taking highway 14 east and 25 north most of the way out towards Memphis, TN.  Stopped for gas in a small town called Newport with a population of 4000.

We are now starting our trek back home.  Our next stop will be in Alabama – join me for my next blog post coming soon!