Lake Ouachita State Park - 2020 Vacation pt2
After our first weekend of vacation was finished, we packed up and headed toward the middle of Arkansas. Our destination for the next five nights would be Lake Ouachita State Park. We had never explored that area of Arkansas, and we were looking forward to it.
We arrived in time to catch most of the Chiefs game (gotta have priorities 😁). We were actually surprised that we had a good enough cell signal to stream the game from our site, without using the weBoost. There are few areas in the park that have decent cell coverage, and luckily, our site was in one of those areas.
Our site for the week was number 17. From there, the bathrooms and showers were less than 100 yds away, and the lake could be reached with a short walk. If we are fortunate enough to make it back to this park some day, I’m sure that we will try to get the same site.
The park is only about 20 miles north of Hot Springs. That was convenient, as it provided a nearby location to do laundry, and we headed into town one day to check out the National Park. Also, if we just needed to pick up something from town, Hot Springs Village was only 13 miles away, and had a grocery store, hardware store, etc.
The weather did not cooperate during our week long stay. We ended up getting rained on for two days straight. Consider that we spent one other day in Hot Springs, that only left us with a couple days to enjoy the park. We spent one day driving around, and checked out Three Sisters’ Spring. Other than that, we spent quite a bit of time around our site. We were hoping to check out the trails, but time did not allow. It’s amazing how much time can be spent sitting in a chair, and watching the lake. Even more amazing is that with the time spent doing so, it was not enough. We ended up wishing for more time at the park.
This was one of the few opportunities that we had to camp when it was not a weekend. I think that is another thing that made this week even more special. There were quite a few people at the park, but it was far from being full. On top of that, the people that we met there were amazing. The park hosts were also super helpful, and we talked with them on several occasions.
Our week at Lake Ouachita State Park was an example of how simplicity can outweigh amenities. Granted, there were several amenities at this park; trails, a marina, etc., but we did not utilize those. We simply enjoyed the peace that was offered from sitting by the lake in a quiet setting. That in itself was enough to make this one of our top camping experiences this year.