Friday August 7th 2020

Today was basically a travel recovery day used to get acclimated to a new location. Last night it took a little while to get used to all the traffic after being away from roads on the Arkansas River for two weeks. This campground is on the side of busy Interstate 55 with an active train track somewhere in the area too. While I slept all night, I suspect it wasn’t a deep sleep. I was very slow to get going this morning.

My main accomplishment for the day was making a few more reservations. I made another four weeks of reservations at three different places. There is still a gap of a little more than two weeks in August that I haven’t booked to keep a little flexibility. I’m still bouncing back and forth between going through Tennessee or Mississippi as I head for Florida. I’m going to stay in the Memphis area for another week after I leave here on Sunday. Then …

Walking around the campground today I observed another change that I attribute to the pandemic. There are not a lot of planted flowers in the campgrounds. I’ve noticed the absence of flower gardens at many of the campgrounds I’ve stopped at this summer. Campgrounds usually have flowers planted around the office and other buildings. Some even decorate the area between sites with planted flowers. This summer I’ve seen a lot of empty planters or bare dirt ground. Not being familiar with the campgrounds, I couldn’t be sure, but I stayed at this campground in the summer of 2018 and remember multiple flower gardens. This year they are empty. I suspect it is a question of cost or available staff to maintain the beds. The other possibility is timing. The whole season was in question when the flower beds should have been planted.