A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 128 miles from Russellville, Arkansas to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Author: David
Travel from Russellville to Hot Springs, Arkansas
We drove our coach 128 miles, about 2 hours of driving, from Russellville, Arkansas to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading east then south then west:
An interactive map of our route:
We had planned to take a more direct but curvier highway route, below, but it was raining heavily, so opted for the slightly longer but safer Interstate route, above:
Rain off the slide topper:
A bit flooded next to the wet bay:
After bringing in the slides, there were a bunch of leaves on the topper:
Our truck hooked up to our coach; the tow bar lit up:
Lake:
We saw a new icon on the Mobileye guidance system, which I had to look up; a little yellow eyeball, indicating that the device had low visibility:
Unsurprising, since it was rather rainy and foggy:
The name “Toad Suck” amuses us:
A break at some truck parking:
Breathe in:
Fuel stop:
A stop we regretted, as we didn’t get the advertised fuel discount, and the pump limited us to 35 gallons, so we did three transactions:
I-30:
Overpass:
Our destination:
Our coach about to back in to our site:
Lake Dardanelle State Park
We stayed at Lake Dardanelle State Park in Russellville, Arkansas. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A delightful lake and campground. The nuclear power station across the lake was totally fine.
Dates:
- Check in: 2023-10-22
- Check out: 2023-10-29
- 7 night
Weather:
- Cloudy, rain on last few days
- High temps ranging between 74-82°F, lows around 59-66°F
- Negligible wind
Noise:
- No road noise
- Distant train noise (across lake), minimal horns
- A little neighbor noise
Site:
- #1, back in, asphalt
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front
- A little unlevel side-to-side; used hydraulic jacks
- Asphalt driveway about 60 feet long by about 12 feet wide
- No site on passenger side; grass and big trees, about 30 feet wide
- Grass and big trees on driver site, about 40 feet wide
- Concrete patio, about 20 x 12 feet, with picnic table and charcoal grill
- Fire pit
- Two tent pads
- Clean site
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, super-conveniently located
- 65 PSI water, super-conveniently located
- Unthreaded sewer connection, somewhat conveniently located (2 10-foot pipes needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- T-Mobile: 55 Mbps down, 17-37 Mbps up, 68 ms ping
- Verizon: 25 Mbps down, 18-24 Mbps up, 98 ms ping
- AT&T: 105 Mbps down, 15 Mbps up, 70 ms ping
- Starlink: not used
- Campground Wi-Fi: none
Amenities:
- Trash and recycling bins nearby
- Lake
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Delightful state park by a lake
We had a back-in site on Loop A, with a nice view of trees and the lake…and the nuclear reactor cooling tower. This is fine. We were also there during the monthly testing of the emergency evacuation siren. This was also fine. Other than that, it was pretty peaceful. The site was a bit unlevel side-to-side, but not too bad. Walking by the lake and taking the trails through the forest was pleasant. We would absolutely stay here again and try to get sites 10, 12, 14, or 16 that back onto the lake. We camped at Lake Dardanelle State Park in a Motorhome.
Campground map:
An interactive map (you may need to scroll it, as the campground might be off the top of the map; look for Campsite Road opposite Ramp Loop):
Our site:
We used our pop-up tent, as there were some bugs (though not as bad as some places):
There was a tent pad connected to the site by a short path (a little hard to see under the leaves):
The power and water utilities were super-convenient; the power was right next to the power on our coach, and the water was right next to the wet bay. The sewer needed two 10 foot hoses, which is fine:
The site post, with a rotating Reserved/Available sign, and a yellow note we added to let the camp host know we’d checked in:
The leveling control panel when we first arrived, showing a side-to-side slope:
Other sites:
This pull-through site at the end of the road, #16, would probably be the best site, with unobstructed water views:
This (#14) would also be an excellent choice:
A Tiffin Allego Bus in site #12:
Another nice site (#10):
Garbage and recycling bins near our site:
The lake:
Nuclear One across the lake; it actually has two power plants — the first uses the lake water for cooling, and the second uses this cooling tower:
Evacuation sign:
Lots of squirrels roaming the grounds:
Swampy area:
A blue heron, swallowing a fish:
Bathrooms under construction:
The nearby marina:
Meadowbrook trail:
Sunset:
A very nice state park. We’d be happy to stay here again, hopefully in one of the sites at the end of the road (see the pictures above).
Video: Choctaw, Oklahoma to Russellville, Arkansas motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 248 miles from Choctaw, Oklahoma to Russellville, Arkansas.
Travel from Choctaw, Oklahoma to Russellville, Arkansas
Back to our regularly scheduled blog posts, catching up with travel from October last year. Where we left off, we were in Oklahoma.
We drove our coach 248 miles, about 4 hours of driving, from Choctaw, Oklahoma to Russellville, Arkansas.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading east:
An interactive map:
I-40:
“Speed limit 75, no tolerance”:
A stop at a rest area:
Paladin:
Crossing the Arkansas River:
A VW microbus:
“Welcome to Arkansas”:
Another rest area:
Crane:
Fall foliage:
A motorhome and vanlifer:
It’s that VW microbus again!
Fun with zoom:
Causeway:
Lake Dardanelle State Park entrance:
Checking in:
2024 travel plans
I hope you enjoyed the posts reviewing 2023. So what’s in store for ’24? Sights galore, and more!
We spent the holidays in the panhandle of Florida, in Carrabelle. We are now heading south in Florida, with several days at Universal and Disney theme parks, dry camping in the Everglades National Park, and a sea plane trip to the remote Dry Tortugas National Park for Jenn’s birthday. And that’s just the first couple of months!
After that, we’ll be heading inland, visiting Georgia for the first time, and revisiting Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, ending up in Paris, Texas for an Escapees gathering for the big solar eclipse in April.
We’ll stop in Red Bay, Alabama on the way back east to get a new custom desk installed for Jenn (hopefully), and other maintenance. Then reach the east coast at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in May. We’ll then head up the coast through North Carolina and Virginia, with a stop at NIRVC in DC for annual maintenance, and to visit friends there.
Then we’ll head west, picking up additional new states, Maryland and West Virginia, revisiting Tennessee, then a bunch more new states: Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis. Then sprinting through South Dakota and Montana to Washington for our annual health checkups and family time in August.
After that, we’ll go south through Oregon and California, with our annual visit to Disneyland in October. We might fly to Hawaii after Disneyland, or might defer that to 2025; to be determined. Another notable thing in October will be staying at a 55+ RV park in Arizona; I’ll be turning 55 years old in May, so we’ll finally be able to stay at age-qualified parks.
Continuing east, we’ll close the loop around the country through New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana, ending the year where we started in Florida.
A big circuit of much of the country, visiting 12 new states, plus 13 we’ve visited before, for a total of 25 states. Which will bring the total number of states we’ve visited to 35. Just 15 to go! (Or 14 if we do make it to Hawaii.)
This route will be our longest yet, at 11,858 miles, if we stick with the plan. For reference, we travelled 9,945 miles in 2023, 8,772 miles in 2022, and just 2,300 miles in 2021 (starting in September that year).
We’ve currently made campsite reservations up to the end of July, with a few gaps and a few beyond that, since some places allow booking up to a year out, some six months, and some only three months. And sometimes circumstances force us to re-route. So all this is very much subject to change, but that’s the plan for the year.
What’s more, we already have a tentative plan for 2025, too, again circumnavigating the country, picking up most of the remaining 15 states. And an even more tentative plan to visit Alaska in 2026, which will probably be the last state (as mentioned, we’ll probably fly to Hawaii sometime in 2024 or 2025). But more on those next year!
Here’s a map that shows the state outlines, colored time zones, our travel route, and pins for stops. Our route begins in the panhandle of Florida, and goes generally anti-clockwise around the country, ending up where we started:
Another variation of the map, that shows more detail, but the states are less visible:
It’s going to be another busy year. I hope you’ll follow along via this blog and the YouTube channel.
Video: 2021-2023 motorhome travel timelapses in 10 minutes!
Was the 2023 timelapses video not fast enough for you? Hey, I understand; 40 minutes is quite long, even at 20x the original timelapses speed. This video combines the 2021, 2022, and 2023 timelapse videos, and makes them eight times faster (i.e. 160 times faster than original timelapses), so you can see about 20k miles of motorhome travel in about 10 minutes!
2023 stickers
On the passenger-side slide-out, we have a large sticker with the Sinclair Trails logo, a map of the US showing the states we’re visited, and stickers with the SinclairTrails.com domain name and @SinclairTrails social handle:
The states sticker consists of separate stickers for each state, applied to a base sticker. Our rule used to be that we have to spend a night in a state for it to count (and only since purchasing our coach), though we’ve recently relaxed that a bit to just having done something in the state, e.g. camp, eat in a restaurant, or explore something. Not just driving through. Though we still do plan to stay in each state. Once we have done something in a new state, we add its sticker. So far, we’ve visited 23 of the 50 states:
We’ll probably have to replace these stickers at some point; the earlier ones are looking very faded.
Visiting Alaska is going to be a major project. And of course we can’t take our motorhome to Hawaii, but we’ll count that when we next visit there.
On the driver-side slide-out of the coach, we have stickers for each of the National Parks we have visited, that being another of the goals in our travels. We visited 8 more parks in 2023 (plus revisited several), so have visited 35 of the 63 parks; still lots to go:
Of course, we’ve also visited numerous National Monuments, National Historic Sites, and other classifications. With 428 parks of various types in the National Park System, not to mention parks administered by states, forest services, etc, we had to cap the memorializing of them somewhere! National Parks are the goal; others are gravy.
However, inside our coach we have a framed board with a wooden map of the US, around which we add stickers and pins for any kind of attraction we visit. It’s populated a bit more since last year, though still lots of space for future attractions:
The wooden map has pins for states we’ve visited; the pins feature the state flags:
2023 selfies
I thought it’d be fun to create an animated GIF of selfies and other pictures of Jenn and me from 2023. We’ve been to some interesting places!
2023 special posts
While most of the posts on this blog are about modifications, travel, campgrounds, and attractions, I sometimes post about other topics. This is a summary of those posts from 2023. (See also those from 2022.)
As with previous summaries, for each I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details.
The two most frequently asked questions:
How we work full-time in our coach:
Open Roads fuel discount card:
Open Roads Freedom Pass toll transponders:
Second anniversary of buying our motorhome:
Towed from Santa Rosa to Moriarty, New Mexico:
