Millwood Landing Golf RV Resort, Ashdown, Arkansas

                                   Monday 5/20/2013

We left the Dallas area at 11:00 AM, and took I-30 across Lake Ray Hubbard toward Arkansas. We had originally planned on going north into Oklahoma, and then on into Iowa, but my 40th Class Reunion is scheduled for July 13, so we changed our plans a couple of months ago. I was hoping the reunion would be late summer, and we would go through Iowa more toward fall like we always do. I missed my class reunion 5 years ago, so I wanted to make it this time. It just has messed up our schedule forcing us to stay further south in hot weather, instead going north to cooler weather. Such is life!

I took a picture out my side window of the lake. I wish there was a way to take picture out the side window without the shadows! Oh well you get to see Joe's side view this way.

Halfway to our destination, a rest stop showed up just in time for lunch. We were glad to leave Dallas, as a severe thunderstorm was on it's way to the big city. I thought Mallery sensed the storm coming, because she had been very keyed up on the drive from Dallas. When we got to the rest stop, I literally had to drag her on a leash to get her to walk and do her duty. I had never seen her act this strange at a rest stop. It was around 1:30, and as we now know, an hour and half later, Moore OK got hit with the EF5 tornado. I believe Mallery was sensing that storm.

The farther we got from Dallas, Mallery slowly calmed down. The landscape turned from rolling plains to rolling trees

Here we are entering Texarkana, TX. and Texarkana, Arkansas. The metropolitan area has a population of 143,486 people.

Before we enter into Arkansas, I saw the star of Texas and the Texas state shape on all the interstates in Texarkana.

I never saw a sign as we came into Texarkana, so the water tower had to do!

From Texarkana we took Hwy. 71/ 59 which runs north on the state border until you get further north into Arkansas. We have driven through the NE corner of Arkansas, when traveling from Iowa to Alabama, but we have never stayed  in the state. So this is officially our first time seeing Arkansas. It was 17 miles from Texarkana to Ashdown, Arkansas. Ashdown has a population of 4,723 people. This is the closest town to our campground, where we get our groceries. I am glad I stocked up on food before we left Dallas, because stores in this town don't carry a lot of the stuff I purchase to eat.

It was another 14 miles from Ashdown to our next neighborhood. We chose this campground, because it is an Ocean Canyon Campground, which we are a member of. We can stay up to 3 weeks free here. We bought our membership to Ocean Canyon about 1 1/2 years ago, because with this membership we could also get Resorts of Distinction and Coast To Coast memberships for $150 each annually. We used the CTC and ROD all last summer on the west coast. When we leave this park in 3 weeks, are initial membership cost will be completely re-cooped from getting to stay free or at $10 a day from the  three memberships parks system. We did not renew our membership with ROD this year, because there aren't any ROD parks on our route for the year. If we want to renew our ROD membership, we can, but we will have to pay a penalty of $150. Another reason we didn't renew our ROD membership is that many of the parks have dropped out of the system. These are some of the things that when you join, they don't tell you about. When we joined there were 1/3 more ROD parks than there are now.

As we pull onto the road to Millwood Landings Golf RV Resort, Joe said, "And another guard shack unattended"! To our surprise there was someone in it waiting for our arrival. 10 bonus points goes to Millwood Landing Golf RV Resort.

We asked the register to give us a spot with no trees.  The young lady drove us down to the lower section of the park, and pointed out lot #15, and we said it was OK. We knew severe storms was coming our way and we didn't want any tree limbs falling onto us. My sister had a huge tree fall onto her house one year during a storm and a  couple of very large branch came through the roof like a giant sword right above her bed and in a closet. She was so glad she went to the basement. After bringing our Nest down to the site we noticed that site #15 had a layer of red mud on the cement pad. We decide to take # 17 instead, and left a message with the office of the change.

Come along now, as we walk the park to see what we have available during our stay. The resort only has 32 sites, though 10 more sites are in the works.  This is a view of  our Nest across the pond. You can see the new site area in front and to the left of our Nest. The utilities are in, but the sites have not been paved yet. It has rained twice now and all the mud comes flowing down toward the sites next to us. We were really glad we chose site #17 over #15.

There are 12 older cabins that sit in front of Country Club Lake.

View of playground, and swimming pool. Note the cinder block Pool House. This is where we were instructed to go for severe weather, which we did go to, two times the following day.

The pool in the park is one of the largest pools we have ever seen in any of the resorts we have stayed at.

Behind the big pool is the baby pool.

View from the front of the Pool House toward our site.

This is the Millwood Country Club in the park.

The Country Club building holds a Pro Shop, the Club House, a restaurant, and a bar. Joe came up here on Thursday and played poker. Usually it cost $5 to play Texas Hold em at most parks we have stayed at. When Joe asked how much it was to play, they told him $40. He would have backed out, except it would have been embarrassing to say that was too much, so he played. Guess what, he came in 3rd and won $120.00, but walked away with $80.00 minus the $40 entry fee. 

The Greenside Grill is the restaurant that is in the Country Club building.

In the back, there is a deck looking toward the golf course.

View from the Country Club deck. The cost to golf is $20 for 18 holes, plus a golf cart is included. It isn't any cheaper to play 9 holes. Joe went out on Friday and played 18 holes of golf . He came home and said that this was the first time in his life that he played 18 holes by himself. He used $20 of his poker winning to play.

Sales Office

 4 new cabins also on Country Club Lake.

View from our site across the pond to the other section of RV sites.
 We have been just relaxing while I get caught up again on this travel blogs diary, as well as laundry, mail, bills, emails, reading other people blogs, and ordering supplies, and giving Mallery a bath and maintenance hair cut. After we leave here, we will not be staying anywhere longer than a week, so it is too hard to synchronize our mail and online orders to arrive during those stays. We have missed mail too many times when we have them sent to places that have a short window of stay. I know I am about a week behind in the blog, but you haven't missed much!