Bellah Mine Corps of Engineers Park, DeQueen, AR

After our broken windshield earlier today, we were anxious to get parked for the night. There are several Corps of Engineer parks in this part of Arkansas so that was going to be our choice for tonight.  The map showed several in the vicinity of where we wanted to stop, so we chose Bellah Mine Park in DeQueen, Arkansas.

Going into COE parks is always a little iffy - we're never sure if they'll have sites big enough for us but we had read that this one could accommodate us so off we headed down the long, narrow country road, hardly wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass.  About 5 miles down, we came to a sign for Bellah Mine Park and entered with a sharp left-hand turn down a hill.  On the top of a hill in front of us is an unmanned ranger booth. Usually there will be a map of the sites so you can see how the park is layed out, but nothing here. So Dennis got out and started walking around, surveying the sites.  I was a bit freaked out since the motorhome is now on a fairly steep hill, with our 5,000 lb. car still attached. I sat in the motorhome ready to jam my foot on the brake in case we started rolling backwards!

We discovered they had some wonderful new big-rig friendly sites along the lake. The road going down to them was not so friendly, but it was doable if you unhitched your towed car.  Unhitching the car on the hill was another reason for an anxiety attack, but in the end, it all worked out.

The sites here are terraced, we took a lower site with a few steps down to an area with a picnic table, BBQ grill, and a firepit.

Dennis scavanged for wood so we could have a fire, then a friendly camper nearby pulled up in his pickup truck and gave us more wood. He lived in Texas and had brought his own firewood - Mesquite - ummm, love that smell!  We got our fire going very well, so well that pretty soon the smoke alarm in the motorhome went off.  We had left the windows and door open and the place was filling up with our campfire smoke!

We woke up to a very nice sunrise over the lake the next morning. All this for $5 a night!!  Can't beat it!