Queen Wilhelmina State Park
Queen Wilhelmina was our backup plan and turned out to be a nice little spot to stay the night.
When we were planning the trip, Q.W. was our first choice but they had been booked up. But after we found out about the burn ban at Lake Fort Smith State Park, we tried again and they had some openings. About a 2.5 hour drive from Fayetteville, AR, Queen Wilhelmina has a nice central lodge that has a restaurant as well as hotel rooms you can stay in. But since it was 27 degrees and 18mph winds, we chose to sleep in our tent. Kidding... that was the plan all along (but I mean if I had $200/night laying around I wouldn't have said no to a warm room).
There are a few campsite options you can chose from -- we stayed at a drive up, water only site. Since there are five of those spots available, they were a bit close to each other, but had everything you needed nearby. We attempted to keep warm by the fire for as long as we could (Rye stayed bundled up in the car), but I bailed around 8:30pm to take the dog into my sleeping bag and escape the wind storm.
As the wind died down in the morning, we woke up to a chilly 30 degree morning, made a fire and breakfast, and headed out for a hike. We went down to Lover's Leap, which is a short 1 mile loop to a look out point. There were a few other trail heads that lead from the lodge as well. After our short walk, we headed back on the road to finish the 7 hour drive to Austin.
I enjoyed our little stay at Queen Wilhelmina. Would definitely like to return and explore the area a bit more.
