How will we do at Table Rock State Park with no electricity?

We were sad to leave our electric site at Beaver Lake, because our next stop had no hook-ups of any kind. But we were glad to move to an area on Table Rock Lake where we had some telephone service. Google maps gave us two routes for the trip between the two campgrounds. We chose the longer option when we realized the shorter route had roads so narrow they didn't even have center lines. We drove the winding and narrow Arkansas roads into the winding and narrow Missouri roads to Table Rock State Park. It was 85 degrees when we arrived, and without electric hook-ups we couldn't run the air-conditioner. We used our gas burner for the first time to cook lunch. We knew it was going to be hot in the trailer, so we opted for some shopping at the cool outlet mall in the afternoon.

We had tickets at the Sight and Sound Theater for the 7:30 performance. Even an hour before the show, cars were lining up to get into the parking lot. Yes, this was another sold-out crowd for these popular biblical performances. It was a spectacular show with immense set changes that filled the front and sides of the theater. We were on the fourth row and had to look behind us at times to see all  the scenes of "David." Fun facts that we learned from the program: 24,000 yards of fabric were used to create the costumes, Goliath towered in at 22 feet tall, and 32 sheep and eight goats were on the stage in David's flock. They also rode horses up and down and aisles, with one person in charge of cleaning up the horse poop before intermission.

The show finished at 10:00, but it took us 30 minutes to get out of our parking lot. Back at the campground, it was 85 degrees inside our trailer without air-conditioning. So we were glad we brought two pre-charged fans. We ran them both with the windows open, and slept comfortably. After ten hours without electric hook-ups we were at 96% capacity on our lithium battery. The solar panel generated 12 amp hours in a camping spot that was partially shaded.

We were up early the next morning to go for a bike ride before it got hot.

The water was like glass in the marina when we left at 8:00. But windy waves were breaking on the shore by the time we finished our ride at 10:00.

It was too windy to put the kayak on Table Rock Lake, so our best activity seemed to be eating! The camp host had strongly recommended Billy Gail's for breakfast, so we followed his advice. We ordered the five-egg omelet to share. The menu had a note attached that explained that they were adding $1 to the price of every egg entree because of the egg shortage. We also ordered a 14-inch cream pancake. That was the biggest pancake we had ever almost consumed. There's no way we could have finished both the omelet and the pancake! Everything was very good, and we will join the camp host in recommending Billy Gail's. We didn't feel like we could eat anything else today.

We definitely needed to work off that hearty breakfast, so our next stop was the Ruth and Paul Henning Conservation Area. It was already 85 degrees, so we appreciated the shade in the one-mile Dewey Bald Trail. At the half-way point we climbed the fire tower for 360-degree views of Branson.

We heard rustling in the dry leaves and spotted the orange cheeks of this skink.

He posed for us on a log showing off the wart-like bumps behind his front legs.

We also walked the 1.8-mile Glade Trail and Streamway. With more elevation and more sun, we realized we forgot to bring anything to drink. What a rookie mistake! So immediately after the hike we stopped for drinks and some groceries. It was a restful afternoon trying to photograph the blue jay that lives in our camping site, but Denisa was unsuccessful. So we'll settle for a picture of the bright yellow flowers that were blooming on the trails.

Even though we vowed not to eat anything else for the rest of the day, we broke our vow. We had read about the Pickin' Porch Grill that had free acoustic guitar entertainment from 5:00-6:30 some evenings. So we ordered the sticky ribs dinner and did a little dancing to some fine free Branson entertainment. This is the second eating establishment we would recommend in Branson!

We finished with a walk around the campground, and an evening watching Oklahoma City Thunder basketball on television. We were rooting for them to win the NBA championship! We were also monitoring how much electricity our solar panels were generating and how much electricity we were using. Mark installed a smart shunt, and the following picture is what a typical screen looks like when he checks it. Our lithium batteries were at 83% of their charge. This also tells us that currently we are using more amperage than the solar panels are producing (-0.39 amp). But at this rate and at the current state of charge, we can still have 10 days without our battery being drained to zero. Unlike lead-acid batteries, it is all right to let a lithium battery get down to 0%.

Mark was also checking the controller, whose screen looks like the picture below. The solar panels are currently producing 1.21 amps--which probably means it is late in the day or our solar panels are shaded.

We were completing two days without any electricity, learning how many amps it takes to run our water pump, and using USB charged fans and lights. Our battery was at 83%. So we used more electricity than our solar made, but our lithium battery can store enough to run our refrigerator on cloudy or shaded days. 

The second morning we woke to no wind and cool temperatures, so we took our bikes on the Table Rock State Park bike trail for another six miles. Our turn-around point was at the visitor center right next to the lake.

Our two days without hook-ups was a success. We learned that it is good to have activities away from the trailer in the heat of the day. By opening up the windows and running the fantastic fan, we can cool things off in the evening. Our 12-volt refrigerator is our biggest user of electricity, and so far the solar is doing a pretty good job of keeping up with that. We are learning about boondocking and solar, and we're ready to head to our next campground on this ten-day test run.

Tripping to Eureka Springs

While we were camped on Beaver Lake, we designated a day to do some sight-seeing around Eureka Springs. Among the stops in this beautiful area, was Thorncrown Chapel. 

A glass chapel in the woods is a nice place to sit for a spell, and enjoy the quiet. Their brochure calls this "a thin place" where the line between heaven and earth is thin.

The next stop was a 100-foot-tall CCC fire tower that is almost 100 years old. We paid four quarters each to open the gate for the privilege to climb all those steps for the view from the top.

Denisa left the tower first, and Mark took her picture from the top. She's the white dot in the middle of the green lawn at the base of the tower.

Denisa couldn't help herself from taking a picture of the flowers blooming at the base. The red, purple and yellow made a nice contrast in the flower bed this morning. 

The next stop was the Christ of the Ozarks statue. This 67-foot-tall statue is on the grounds of the outdoor amphitheater that houses the passion play in Eureka Springs.

Visitors can also walk through the grounds of the holy land tour and petting zoo. While we didn't take the tour, we did walk through the gate of the Jerusalem Wall into the biblical village.

A surprising display on these grounds is a piece of the Berlin Wall, which was taken down after the Cold War. The German words on this section come from Psalm 23.

The last stop inside this interesting complex is the Bible Museum. While our expectations were low, we both agreed that it was very interesting. We spent a surprising amount of time inside the museum. It held hundreds of rare and antique bibles, including the tiniest bible and the oldest bible. One bible was hand-written on deer skin, another on calf hide. But the one thing we took a picture of was a picture that included every word of the New Testament typed in such a way that the shading made a picture of Jesus.

A close-up of the face shows the tiny words that make up the picture.

Now that we've explored the outskirts of town, it's time to go downtown. We discovered that parking in downtown Eureka Springs is hard to find on a Monday afternoon in early May. We can't imagine driving, and then trying to find a parking spot on these curvy narrow roads in town on a summer weekend. One of the iconic sites of downtown is the narrow flatiron building.

Spring Street is the main drag through town, and is located in a valley with steep rock walls on both sides. We saw steep staircases on Spring Street, so we climbed the steps to see where they would lead. They took us to a trail that parallels the stone walls of the mountain. This is the only town that we can remember that has a trail that looks like it is in the mountains, while we could still look down on downtown. 

We let our noses determine where we ate lunch. After eating on the patio of the restaurant that smelled the best, we left downtown. We drove up the steepest road (in this town known for its steep streets) to get to the top of Eureka Springs. At the very top of town is the Crescent Hotel, built as the "crown jewel of all lodgings." It went out of business during the depression in the 1930's, and was a cancer hospital for some time. But recently the hotel was restored, and is once again lodging visitors to Eureka Springs.

Across the street from the Crescent Hotel is St. Elizabeth Catholic Church.

We enjoyed a walk around the gardens and through the stations of the cross.

The last stop of the day was just as unique as the rest of the town of Eureka Springs. This crocheted totem pole is actually a tall tree stump covered in crocheted granny squares.

Back at the campground, we couldn't wait to see how our solar panels were working. We had unplugged the trailer from our electric hook-ups before we left this morning, to see if our solar power could keep up with the refrigerator's appetite for electricity. Even with clouds and being parked in some shade, we were glad to see that the solar panels had kept our new lithium battery at 100% charge. It has been a successful trip to Eureka Springs!

Lake Leatherwood and another day of testing our solar power

This morning was foggy along the White River that runs behind our campground on Beaver Lake. We would like to kayak down this placid river, and then paddle back to our camp site. But if they release water from the dam, this river widens to double its usual width and the current increases to something impossible to paddle back against. We found a web site of the water release schedule and saw that it is controlled by the need for electricity. When temperatures go up and customers need more electricity to run their air-conditioners, water is released through the hydro-electric turbines. A hot day was forecast, and we heard the siren blow at 8:09 a.m. That siren announces that everyone should get off the river because the water level will be rising fast. We walked the 200 feet to the boat dock near our trailer and watched as the river covered the sidewalk and boat launch area quickly. The 45-degree water released from 200 feet below the lake surface felt cool on a hot day. It keeps the trout happy, and people come to fish the White River to catch their limit of fish that are less than 13 inches or more than 16 inches long.

The White River was not a possibility for kayaking, and we also decided against the huge Beaver Lake with its heavy motor boat traffic. Instead, we headed to Leatherwood Lake in a Eureka Springs city park. The water was completely smooth when we launched our kayak.

We paddled the 2.5 miles around the outside edge of Leatherwood Lake. We love spotting wildlife from the water, and this green heron was mirrored in the shallow water beneath him.

The coloring and markings of the green heron was worth two pictures!

We also spotted a two-foot-long gar resting in the moss, and many more rolling to the top on this sunny day. After Mark's repairs on our aging kayak, we're watching for leaks on this kayak trip. The good news was we stayed reasonably dry.

After a very nice ride around Lake Leatherwood, we dried out the kayak. We saw a fluttering mass near the water's edge where we were rolling up the boat.

That fluttering mass was a large group of butterflies, enjoying something tasty along the soggy shore line.

When we see the detail and colors of a common butterfly wing, we are reminded that we continually wander into more of God's wonders.

We stopped by the city park office to get advice about the best hiking trail in the area. We were greeted by Sasquatch, sitting on a bench outside of the park office.

Sasquatch was too heavy for that bench, breaking it right in two.

The ranger's advice was to hike the 3.2 mile Miner's Rock Loop through the Ozark woods. It started at this rock bridge near the trail head.

We were in the forest most of the hike, but we enjoyed some nice mossy rock formations along the way.

Our hike took us to something called "the north hub of the gravity project trails." We didn't know what that meant until we did some research. An organization named "the gravity project" runs shuttles that take mountain bikes and their riders to the top of these mountains so they can allow gravity to roll them to the bottom. The north hub is close to the drop-off point for the mountain bikers.

From the north hub, a biker can choose how difficult the trail will be that they ride--or should we say gravitate--down. One choice is the easy green trail #6.

Another choice is trail #4, a medium hard mountain biking trail.

Only experts should choose trail #7, the double black diamond. If there's any doubt about how hard this trail will be, it starts with a rock jump platform that curves straight into a tree.

A map at the top outlined the green, blue and black bike paths down on the gravity project. We are on the Miner's Rock hiking trail on the outside edge of the map below.

We crossed the bike trails on our way up and down on the Miner's Rock Loop, and we found more jumps. Mark is standing where a bike would jump down to the dirt trail far below.

Even though it was 70 degrees and we were in the shade most of the hike, it felt warm. We found this deer also searching for the shade under a rock cliff beside our trail.

The lizards on the trail seemed to relish in the hot sun.

We scared up more than one lizard on this trail. Other than scaly hikers, we had this trail to ourselves on a weekday afternoon.

About a quarter mile before the end of our loop, we finally found Miner's Rock.

It was a nice shady place to rest and take a few pictures.

The holes eroded all the way through the rock, made for perfect peek-a-book pictures.

In our experiment to see if our solar power could keep up with our refrigerator power, we unplugged the trailer from our electric camp site before we left that morning. We were unplugged seven hours, and our solar panels kept our battery at 100%. That means we were making more electricity than we were using. We cheated on this test to check our boondocking skills, because we were hot after our hike. We plugged into shore power and ran the air-conditioner for a bit, and microwaved some things for dinner. We will miss both of these two appliances when we are truly without plug-ins, because solar power cannot run those two high-energy items.

On our last day at Dam Site River Campground on Beaver Lake, we enjoyed the beautiful clouds over the White River right below our camp site. We are blessed!