Hosted by Mark Koep the Campground Views podcast brings camping to you with stories, destinations, people and adventures about the outdoors and travel. Episode 1 introduces the concept and takes you on a journey to Mountain View Arkansas and Whitewater RV Park. (http://whitewaterrvpark.co/) Owned by the Wadley family the park invites guests to discover blue grass comfort in the Ozarks. Our tour is led by Becky Wadley and paints an inviting story of the town, the park, the area, and why they choose to buy and run this location.
Visit https://www.campgroundviews.com/ to discover more amazing locations.
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Hey there, it’s Mark Koep with CampgroundViews.com So this is a first episode a first crack at helping you discover how amazing camping is. So my wife and I, we started RVing in 2009 and our RV experience was probably uniquely different from a lot of other folks in that we were young. I had a virtual business that allowed me to work from anywhere and we had a conversation as a married couple on what will we do if we had all the money in the world. And the answer that we decided through our conversations was that we would travel. And while we didn’t have all the money in the world. So we said, well, how can we travel? I said, well, we could buy an RV, go travel around for a bit. I can work virtually as long as I have an internet connection, I can still engage with my clients and continue to make money.
Speaker 1:
And so we headed on that path. And about a year later we bought an RV, sold everything we owned and hit the open road for this amazing lifestyle. There are a lot of bumps and bruises along that route. And our first day out, 150 miles into our drive, we had our first blowout and then another blowout a few hundred miles later and then another one a few hundred miles later. Further. And I’ll share those stories with you as we go along. But the whole purpose of this this podcast, this video, whatever you want to call it, I don’t care. It’s it. Let’s talk about camping. It’s all about camping and why is it all about camping? Because camping I believe is one of those last things that we have in our modern lives where we can still get together with our loved ones, with our friends, with our family, and go enjoy the open spaces of this country.
Speaker 1:
Doesn’t require technology to do it doesn’t require a big budget. Anybody can do it. You can go on a tent, you can go in a big old coach. It doesn’t matter. You’re still getting outdoors. I personally love camping. I love the outdoors. I love being able to go experience these places. It is that last refuse that we have as a people. So I love it in our whole purpose through campground views, through our creations is to make it more accessible. As you can see, I’m recording this from inside my own RV. We are fulltime. Our viewers had been arguing since that fateful trip back in 2009 here we are coming up on our 11 year anniversary in June and we have visited in this entire country at least twice and through all of the lower 48 States stayed in some of the most amazing locations and there are so many great amazing locations throughout the U S and so in this podcast. In these stories I want to share with you some of these destinations, some of the pieces that make camping amazing or share with you insider secrets. We’ll talk to manufacturers, we’ll talk to the park owners, we’ll talk to anybody in any everyone who can help you better experience the outdoors. So I’m open for feedback. If you like it, subscribe. If you don’t like it, subscribe and tell me what you want me to do to make it better. My name is Mark hip, I’ll be your host. And today we’re going to dive into a
Speaker 2:
Unique area. Then invites you to come discover amazing location.
Speaker 1:
Ok, we have Becky Waldly from Arkansas who’s going to share her amazing destination with us. So first off, thank you for joining me here today. Becky.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:
So give us the rundown. Where are we going and why are we going there?
Speaker 2:
We’re going to Mountain View, Arkansas. It’s a tiny little town, about two hours North of the capital city of Little Rock in Arkansas. This is a place that my husband and I have vacationed with our kids for a couple of decades now. And it just kinda got into our heart and we found an RV park up there that we liked and we purchased it. We just purchased it in September. So we’re brand new at the whole campground thing. I mean, at least at owning a camp ground, but we been camping up there for a while. So the main attraction to, to mountain view is folk music and bluegrass music as well. You’ll see there, I’m on the homepage, we try to talk a lot about the music because that is, I’d have to say it’s probably 80% of the reason why people come to mountain view. Literally when we bought the park in September, our first kind of operating week was in October where we were going to the town and getting utilities set up and stuff like that. And literally it was like 95 degrees on a Monday morning, like 10:00 AM there were people out of the town square just playing their folk music. So it’s a really unique place in the wall.
Speaker 1:
So tell me, where does that come from? How did that start? And, and you know, this, this will be an interesting story. Tell us how we got here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I’ve done a little bit of research about mountain view just because of the whole, I actually have another blog that’s an RV blog. And so I kind of know the value of doing some research and stuff. And this is just something that people have done there for decades and decades. And I think it goes back even into the 18 hundreds. That’s where you know, there wasn’t TV, there wasn’t radio, there wasn’t anything to really entertain yourself. And so these people just started playing folk music. They would bring it out there, literally guitars upright basis banjos, fans. There’s even people that do harmonicas and fiddles and stuff like that. They entertain themselves with the music and they, they did it in their town square and it’s just kind of continued over the decades. So that’s how the tradition got stoned part of that thing.
Speaker 1:
And so, I mean, I’m gonna, I’m gonna push you a little bit on this one. So for folk music, if somebody doesn’t know what folk music is, you know, what, what is the general concept of folk music is it’s simply you get somebody with a banjo or what makes folk music folk music.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So, so I, as a, as a visitor to a mountain view and also as a musician myself I would, I would call it bluegrass. I’ve always called it bluegrass. And again, when I started doing kind of the research ’em mountain view, you know, it’s kinda like people saying, if you say its mountain, if you say it’s bluegrass music, they get a little, they get their feathers ruffled a little bit because it’s really folk music. And the best, as I can tell, the difference between the two is kind of the storylines. You know, it’s the old time storylines in the folk music versus just the bluegrass music is more of a style. But I think you and I would probably call it bluegrass music. I know there’s a difference and I know I’ll be in trouble for saying that, but as a musician to me it’s, it’s a lot like bluegrass music. So they do a lot of you know, it’s heavy with the banjo and the fiddles and stuff like that and more kind of traditional music, I think than bluegrass. So it likens back to maybe the forties or so, something, something in that time era.
Speaker 1:
So tell us a little bit about mountain view then. Is it a small town? Is it located in the mountains, in the Ozarks or on what’s the surrounding area like?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so it’s, it’s a town of population of about 2,800 as of the last census. So I always say, and I’ve said this on my website as well, that if you ever, have you ever watched the Andy Griffith show? It’s a, it’s a lot like that where people are out on their front porches playing music, except that mountain view has a town square where they I actually have a quarter Ash when people go out to play and they have what they call the pickin park where it’s back. Yeah, it’s back behind the town square. I think it’s called Washington street park or something like that, but we all call it the pic and park people go back there and play. But it just, the town just kind of likens back to a time that kind of passed, you know, it’s a simpler way of life.
Speaker 2:
It’s a really slow paced town. People are going to greet you, you know, you walk across the street. If you’re even look like you’re trying to walk across the street, traffic will stop for you. And I have festivals, that’s the pickin park that you’re showing now. So in the summertime there will be people literally everywhere in there and so they’ll group up in their chairs. So you know, if you come to mountain view, you’ve got to bring your camping chair with you, you take it out to the pick and park, which is what you’re showing now. Literally people will be in groups of maybe six to eight people with their instruments and stuff and you can sit around, there’s a group right there, you can sit around and watch people play there that, I can’t even believe the picture that you’re showing right now. It’s, it’s normally covered in people. So that has to be like a, I don’t know, an early spring picture or a super hot day, one or the other, because there’s normally 50 people or more out there. Just play in and
Speaker 1:
Watching music happens. So yeah, it looks like, it looks like a quiet day when this was captured. Who knows when, when Google captures these images. But I mean, it does look like an absolutely beautiful small meeting. Okay. And so your park, you’ve owned this park for a year, right?
Speaker 2:
We’ve owned the park since September, so not even six months at this point. So
Speaker 1:
Yeah. And what’s the story on whitewater RV park was in an RV park before was did you build the park? How did, how did you get this, this crazy idea to buy an RV park and operator?
Speaker 2:
You’re right. First things first. I don’t recommend buying an RV park in September. The season closes down literally at the end of October. So I’m, you know, it’s given us some time off from the regular season to be able to get some renovations done that needed to be done. The question is what made us buy the park, right?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So what would you say you are RV before, right?
Speaker 2:
Yes. So, so I actually have an RV blog. Don’t know if it’s okay to plug that here or not. But so we bought our RV about, Mmm, three years ago and started the arguing pretty, pretty intensely. I mean our, our biggest year was like 26 weekends in one year. So and I say I’m from Arkansas. I was born in Mississippi, but we moved when I was an infant. So this is all I really remember. So the RV blog, I’m a CEO, but the no tab is homeless where we take it.com. My theory was where we take it out, where we take it.
Speaker 2:
There we go.com. So, so here’s the deal. My husband and I are entrepreneurs. We work for ourselves, we’re self-employed. So we’re always looking for that ride off. You know we, we started at our being and I said, Hey, if we’re going to be in this RV, let’s figure out a way to write it off, right? I mean, why wouldn’t you do that to write off your travel? So I started the RV blog just thinking, Mmm, you know, it would give us an opportunity to travel to places we hadn’t been and be able to write those trips off. So I started the RV blog and the more I got kind of immersed in the RV community the more I just kind of love the lifestyle. And I met some great people. You know that a lot of RV bloggers and stuff like that and we continue to go to mountain view maybe two, three times a year.
Speaker 2:
And yeah, I just told my husband, I was like, look, if we want to make this full time and really make our Hey, there’s your website on there, if we want to make this a full time thing, we need some kind of residual income. The blog was making a little bit of money, but I said, why don’t we think about buying an RV park? And let’s see if we can put down some roots and you know, we’re better to do it then. The mountain view, we love it already. We know we love it there. So why not try that? We found an RV park that was closed down. So I guess this goes back to your earlier question, the history, whitewater RV park where I believe it was built in the 60s, in the mid sixties. Best as I can tell from the County records.
Speaker 2:
It was originally whitewater travel, Clark and several couples owned it. The last one of course was the one that sold it to us. Ms Pauline, she’s been an incredible help to us to try to help us get the place up and running and kind of learn how to run the park. It’s an older park. Some of the sites are closer together. We tend to not book people close together when we don’t have festivals, which is about three or four weekends out of the year. We have a really big festival. The rest of the time was space people out pretty well cause we’re campers and we know how those old parks are and you don’t want to be starting then. So we make sure that people aren’t. But so yeah, the, the park was in a little bit of a state of disrepair.
Speaker 2:
You know, my husband and I were fixer upper people, so we got to fix her up her park. And that’s actually a photo that I took. So you know, you can see how close the pads. So our together we’ve, we’ve done work where we pressure washed all the pads. We, you know, made sure all the electricity worked and all the water worked and Mmm. We’re working on re graveling the place. And so every place there has what they call a pick shed. So you know, you bring your instruments, you go in there, you, you, you can play in the pick and shed. We’re actually working on a renovation of our picking shed. Yeah. Right there. Okay. we’re working, this is my work career. You can see they’re really
Speaker 1:
Done.
Speaker 2:
They were working hard and getting things done. Well that actually it was an outdoor weekend. So we had spent the whole weekend working on the grounds that weekend and everybody was exhausted by this point and figured the guys have weekend, the football wasn’t gonna already thing. So anyway, so we’re, we’re in there, we’re renovating everything, we’re bringing everything up today. We’re working on the, you know, the pick, the picnic tables, all kind of need a little bit of a little help. So we’re getting those done and working on things this week. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So that’s a cool story. So your RV years, he decided to buy this RV park. You find this park that’s shut down and you’re pouring your time and energy into, into building it up and you’re in a really unique location. So I’m loving this. So let’s, let’s go back a little bit. Cause there’s going to be some folks listening to this who have the same idea, right? They’ve been our, it’s actually the typical thought of every RV or when they check into an RV park, they say the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, yeah, we could do this crazy idea and you’ve gone down that, you know, so we can do this. You found the park, you’ve built it, you’ve opened it up. Take us a little bit deeper into that journey. You shared that you’re looking for some residual income and operating a business, but being our viewers and being free versus tying yourself down to a property that had to be a big mental shift for you. Correct.
Speaker 2:
Yes. So, you know, I did think about it. I’m, I’m so part of what I do as I’m a self employed income, and I said, I’ve, up until I bought the RV park, I’ve been a realtor. And so you know, I’ve, I’ve always worked from home and, and I’m also aware of the deal and how that goes. And so while we were in the midst of our contract negotiations, I told my husband, I said, you know, this is gonna bring a screeching halt to our RV eating habits. And so, and it has you know, we’ve kind of evaluated, we think that that’s probably gonna be a one to two year thing. I don’t know that we’ll get back on the road and the capacity that I’d like to, you know, it’s every RV or stream to hitch up and get out of the, you know, get out of Dodge and I’d love to do that. But now we have a little bit of an anchor, but that’s OK. We’re still doing, you know, we’re still doing the renovations to the park and working on that and we still spend weekends away inside of Arkansas. We will likely still take a you know, a two week vacation somewhere to the coast or something like that. So
Speaker 1:
So give us a journey idea. So folks who haven’t been to Arkansas who are just hearing about this area now, and they’re like, Hey, this is, this is sounding interesting to me now, what would you advise them? Now we’re obviously we’re including whitewater RV park in mountain view, Arkansas, but what’s the journey that they should think? I mean I’ve seen Blanchard Springs, caverns nearby. What should they be thinking? Hey, this is the journey I’m going to go on to enjoy mountain view and in that area.
Speaker 2:
Right. So I know a lot of people, at least it seems a lot of people that I’ve met that like to RV are also outdoorsy kind of nature people. So the things, the other things that you can do here, obviously not everybody plays music and not everybody plays bluegrass music. And let’s be honest, I’m not going to listen to it in my car, but my husband made a point this morning as we were talking to, you know, we were talking about this interview and he’s like, what kind of stuff are you going to say? I made the point to him that I am a musician. You can see the guitars on the Waller rod histor mine. I’ve played guitar for over 30 years and I go to this town square and I, I eat this stuff up. I could watch these people. I feel like a kid in a candy store and I don’t want to play.
Speaker 2:
I don’t mean I would eventually like to learn the music just because now it’s kinda my job to know it. But again, I just feel like it’s Santa Claus sitting there, you know, I mean, they’re, they’re playing this music in a style that I don’t understand. And so I’m telling him this and he said, you know, you need to convey to, he said, you know, I’m not that person. I am, I don’t play music. I don’t know music. I don’t understand music. But he said I could sit there and I don’t care if it’s 105 degrees outside, I could sit there and listen to these people play all day. So you’re asking about the larger, the bigger picture of things that you can do in mountain view. You know, if, if music isn’t your thing and that’s not what you want to do, let’s go back to the natural side of it.
Speaker 2:
Our park is actually the only park in mountain view and there’s, there’s a good handful of RV parks, oddly enough. And it sounds 2,800 people. I think there’s like six or eight RV parks. It’s kinda crazy. Ours backs up to a city park where they actually have a walking trail. So the city has made this walking trail. Yeah, right there. You see if you can see the green, the little green lines that are right beside him. I walking park there that, I mean my RV park, that’s a walking trail right there. Now what backs up right to that is also a disc golf course. And there’s also, you can see right above my park if you’ll go back over to the right. Yeah. There’s softball courts and all that. There’s the stone County amphitheater. If you go on, no, go back down.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah. That’s, get the County fairgrounds with Arabic. Go back down to my park. Wow. Right above it. There’s a little green marker that says city park amphitheater. It’s a stone amphitheater that was built in the 60s. It looks like it’s been there for a swear 150 years. It’s, this thing is so beautiful. There’s also a nature hike back behind there. There you go. There’s a nature hike that goes back behind this amphitheater where you can walk, I think it’s like two miles back behind there. So that’s kind of in the city. They also have a swimming pool in the city. There’s the, the park kind of surrounds our RV park and so there are swing sets and that kind of stuff right there for kids. We don’t really have one in our part, but you literally can walk through our property to the city park where there are, you know, there’s entertainment for kids.
Speaker 2:
That’s kind of in the city of mountain view also. There’s the white river is I want to say it’s about five miles from our RV park. So five miles North there’s, Oh, it’s like world-class trout fishing there. People come from, yeah. People come from all over to do their trap fishing and the white river, so cold and that river, even on a hot summer’s day. So we took our kayaks out there, so there’s actually a tributary, I think you can see it right there, maybe called us silver Creek. We took our canoe and kayaks out there last year and paddled around some. And I mean it’s just you pack a picnic, put it in your canoe and you paddle up the stream a little bit and you just go find a, you know, Cove somewhere and have a great afternoon, enjoy nature, you know.
Speaker 2:
There’s also, you can see there on the mat Blanchard spray, ms caverns. I wanna say they opened that in the 1970s. Mmm. They built several trails that you can take through the caverns. Absolutely stunning. It’s for all levels of fitness. So you know, even if they have a handicapped route that even if you’re handicapped, you can do in there. It’s real light activity. They have some that are more kind of crawl through the caverns. I haven’t done, no, I’m not really that kind of person. I would love to, but I, I might get a little claustrophobic, but the, we’ve been in the caverns multiple times. It’s absolutely beautiful. Perfect thing to do on a really hot summer day. Perfect thing to do on a cold, rainy day. It’s a constant 55 degrees in there year round. So that’s a great reprieve from the heat.
Speaker 2:
And also around the Blanchard Springs caverns, they have a walking trail, I believe it’s called mirror Lake. You can walk around the trail. They also have they also have where you can go walk in a streets and stuff like that. The water, y’all, you wouldn’t believe the water here. It’s just crystal clear. I mean, you can, you put your feet in it, you can stand up to your knees deep in water and it just looks like you’re just staring at your bare feet on the ground. It’s so clear. Mmm. It’s just, it’s just an [inaudible] absolutely stunning natural area. Not too far from there. Is the syllabo bike trail where I’m now, I’ve just learned about this. I’m not really sure. I think maybe Northwest of where you’re showing on the map. And Oh, there we go. Cilla S Y L a Cilla Mo. Emma. Yeah. Bike trail. I want to set, no, I’m not even gonna say how long it is. I haven’t really done the research on that. Nope, that’s not it. Oh, that gunner pool that you’re showing there. That’s, that’s actually kind of cool. We went there last year and just seven stream all day and threw rocks, you know, didn’t rock skipping.
Speaker 1:
So this is all national forest here outside of mountain view.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it’s Ozark the Ozark national forest,
Speaker 1:
All the stuff, all the events you can go on there. So you’re making me want to go to whitewater RV park. And this was our whole intention with this was to open up people’s opportunities to go explore amazing places. So is the park open year round you opening open seasonally and how do people connect with you to make a reservation come stay with you?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So we still haven’t decided about the year round thing for now. Our plan is to be open year round, but it’s kind of a, I’m not really an all seasons place, Arkansas. It gets pretty chilly in the winters and sometimes it snows. Our son is running the park, so you know, if, if someone wanted to come in the month of December, if we had decided to close, we’d sure accommodate them. We just send our son back up there. And if someone wanted to come, they could go to whitewater RV park dot C O and actually book their own reservations from there. A lot of folks that do you come to our camp ground or sometimes senior citizens might be a little bit older. If they’re not comfortable with booking their own, they can find our phone number on the website and give us a call. We can book them from there as well. So either online or by phone
Speaker 1:
When, as you can see the rates are really reasonable. We’re talking about $30 a night for an RV site plus tax, which is you know, incredibly affordable. So a very unique location. Becky, we appreciate your time today and folks find some amazing destinations and if you’ve enjoyed this, first off, reach out to Becky, go standard park. We want to help all these park owners get you out and discover these great places. And if you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. Becky whitewater RV park in mountain view, Arkansas. Thank you for your time today. Thanks so much, Mark. There you have it. I hope you enjoyed that. And that’s mountain view, Arkansas. We’re going to be bringing you a lot more of these places that you can go and discover that are either out of the way or right in the obvious spots, but unique location that you can go in a tent and RV or even stay in a cabin and discover what makes America great. My name is Mark Koep. Our company is Campgroundviews.com and our purpose is to get you to enjoy camping and discover more. Thank you. Have a good day. Be safe, happy travels.
