Touring the Ozarks through the eyes of a 9 year old (lots of pics)

**leeinmemphis** · 10-24-2010, 19:36

Hey everyone,

Last weekend I went to the Ozarks and decided to return this weekend with my son for a camping trip. I have been wanting to do some motocamping and figured this would be a great chance. We left Memphis Saturday morning just before 7 and hit the road.

All loaded and ready for travel

Matching jackets....can u see us now????

loaded up

It was about a 200 mile trip to the campsite and surprisingly my son only wanted to stop once on the way. I was very impressed by how much he wanted to ride this weekend.

Stopped and had lunch

Got to the campground in the Ozark National Forrest Blanchard Springs. This campground was rated by a website I found as one of the top 10 public campgrounds in the country. We setup our hammocks

This is the creek that ran by our camp site

This is the watercrossing we had to go through to get to the campground. There was a chance of severe weather overnight and was warned by the Park Ranger that we may have difficulty getting out in the morning.(heck it's an adventure right?)

After we got our camp setup we decided to run Push Mountain(most of these pics were taken by my son)

resting atop Push Mountain

We then rode on up to Mountain Home Ar and Bull Shoals

After arriving at Bull Shoals I looked at the clock and decided it was time to start to head to Mountain View for dinner.

We ate at a local Mexican restaurant and then walked around the town square. On Saturday evenings the locals come out of the hills(literally) and do some pick up music in the town square. There were several groups there yesterday. This group was doing mostly gospel:

This group was playing lots of Bluegrass music.

We then decided it had been a great day and headed back to the campground for some R&R. My son REALLY wanted us to build a fire so this is an example of what a real Charlie Brown fire would look like lol

Last night while sleeping we had some rain(nothing severe) and had an absolute great nights sleep. It was my first time to ever sleep in the hammocks and probably the 5th night for my son. Woke up the morning got all packed and headed back home. Made it about halfway home before the rain started but we still had a great ride.

And just to sum it up here is a summary of all the damage for the weekend.

Gonna have to let everything dry out for a couple of days before I can pack it back up.

All in all this was one of the best trips I have ever taken. I'm definitely hooked on motocamping and the hammocks. We are already talking about when to return in the early spring.

**Lando** · 10-24-2010, 20:44

The Blanchard area is awesome. Very fond memories of that place (I used to live in that area)
Glad it was a good trip and good hang!
A little further up the road from Memphis is the Buffalo river area. It is is comparable to the Blanchard/Sylamore area and worth a trip if you have never been there.

**leeinmemphis** · 10-24-2010, 21:02

Originally Posted by Lando

The Blanchard area is awesome. Very fond memories of that place (I used to live in that area)
Glad it was a good trip and good hang!
A little further up the road from Memphis is the Buffalo river area. It is is comparable to the Blanchard/Sylamore area and worth a trip if you have never been there.

thanks for the info. Got any areas in particular you could recommend? Thanks.

**lizzie** · 10-24-2010, 21:14

Thanks for posting those pics - that looks like quite an adventure, and neat to see a boy bond with his pop, especially around hammocks!

**BLUEFIN 774** · 10-24-2010, 21:14

Great photos and a very interesting trip report. Thanks for sharing it with us. Looks like you both had fun.

**Lando** · 10-25-2010, 07:17

Steel Creek or Kyles Landing are nice for camping and there is a large herd of Elk in that area. I think they are mostly at Steel Creek.
The entire area is great, but a lot of the roads in are gravel and can be rough. Not sure if you want to take your bike down some of those roads, so it may be something to look into. Both places are near Jasper, Ar. which has a few places to eat...etc.
My recommendation is to go and start exploring. Plenty to be seen up there.
Also, Gunner Pool rec area near Blanchard is another great place to camp. I think it may be a gravel road into there as well. It has been a few years since I was up that way.

**Lonely Raven** · 10-25-2010, 07:48

That sounds like a great adventure for a 9 year old! Great report!

I love your garage by the way...if I ever get mine cleaned up (we had a small electrical fire at the house so everything is torn up!), I'll have to post photos...especially since it's going to be my "skunkworks" for DIY Gear.

**Tbull55** · 10-25-2010, 12:36

Looks like a great trip you and your boy had! I use to have an 05 road King and had always wanted to motocamp, could never get any other riders up for it! Had two kids, sold the bike and bought an ATV. Now I am getting ready for a different type of moto camping!

Thanks for the report!

tbull