Car Camping at White Oak Lake State Park (and other things)

Weather in Arkansas during July and most of August has been very hot and dry. However, this last week or so, we've had some rain and cooler temperatures. We had an opportunity to get out for some early season camping.

Mrs. Gavagai loves day hikes, but she hasn't really been overly excited about camping. There are a lot of fine places for car camping and day hikes in Arkansas, and if that's all we get to do together, that's great. But when you can hike into a campsite and spend the night in the deeper forest, it really opens up some amazing places and experiences in the woods that you can't get to on day hiking trails alone. I'm hoping to baby-step her into more adventures. In previous posts I have talked about how we have expanded the distance of some of our day hikes. Mrs. Gavagai has built up confidence in her ability to use a female urination device (she uses the pStyle). In order to get her some experience sleeping outside in a tent, on this outing we stayed at a state park with access to flush toilets and running water.

Another activity we have been slowly doing together is filling up our Arkansas State Park Passport book. Arkansas has many state parks (52), and to promote them, a few years ago, they initiated the passport program, "Club 52" where people can get a unique stamp in their Passport book at each of state parks. This program was initiated in late 2022 and there are people who completed it all before the end of 2023. We won't get the speed record, but we're knocking them out a few at a time as we are able.

Hats off to whoever came up with this program. There are state parks we have been to since the launch of this program that we would never have otherwise visited. White Oak Lake State Park is one of them. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and will very possibly return to explore more in the future.

Those are photos taken by Mrs. Gavagai from our campsite. We camped right next to the lake. It was lovely. You can rent kayaks at the lake. There are biking and hiking trails. There are also a few other state parks nearby. We visited Poison Spring and Jenkins Ferry historical state parks on our way home on Sunday.

We did a short hike on Sunday night, but we generally just took care of camp chores and relaxed. I may have also done a little fishing from the pier by our campsite.

Car Camping Gear

It's different packing for two than for one, and it's also different packing for a car camping outing than for backpacking. First, let's talk about the tent.

Tent

Mrs. Gavagai has anxiety and trouble sleeping. My favorite way to camp is in a hammock. There are ways to do two people in a hammock, but I don't own that gear and it's not something I wanted to invest in out of the gate. She has indicated that she would be willing to sleep separately from me, but I also know that the idea of me sleeping somewhere apart from her, would increase her anxiety. For those reasons, I decided a tent would be the best option for us. Tent makers call tents a two-person or three-person tent, but most people opt for a three person tent to sleep two people, and even use a two-person tent for one person. I had a three-person REI tent that was around 15 years old, but the waterproof coating on the tent floor was delaminating at the seams and generally sticky and unpleasant. It's a shame because it was a quality and well designed tent.

For that reason, I headed out to Ozark Outdoor Supply to look for a new tent. I lucked out because OOS had a Labor Day weekend sale on their tents. I chose the Big Agnes Copper Spur UL3. I paid $405. It's listed for $600 on REI.

The Copper Spur is a double wall, free standing tent with two doors and two vestibules. The UL3 is a three-person version. They also make a UL2, for "two people". The two of us fit comfortably in the UL3. I can't imagine trying to pack three people into that tent.

The packed weight is 4lbs, 13 oz. I did something I don't recommend, which is to head to a camp outing without having set up a tent at home, but this was a very low risk trip. I also set it up without reading the instructions to see how intuitive it was.

Setting up this tent was not very difficult, though I did confuse the head and foot end at first. The poles are all connected with shock-cord, which is fairly standard these days. The four primary poles are also linked with a hub. There is an additional pole that crosses the primary poles to help spread the roof of the tent, giving you more head room and generally opening the space inside the tent. The main tent has large mesh doors with amazing zippers that are very easy to zip and unzip.

The poles and connecting points on the corners of the tent are color coded, which makes setup easier. The tent fly also has color coded connection points. The doors on the fly can open up very wide, which allows maximum airflow. They can also be propped up with trekking poles in "porch mode". There is also a vent that can be propped open at the top of the tent near the foot end. In very bad weather, it can be closed with velcro.

Big Agnes Copper Spur UL

The interior of the tent is very well designed. We each had pockets near our head on the side, just passed the door and two small pockets on the corners of the tent roof. I put my phone up there to read my e-book. "Turning the pages" was a little awkward because the phone couldn't detect my finger through the mesh. Also, the seams made it difficult to read the words in some places, but not terrible. I don't really do movies or videos when I'm camping, but if you do that on your phone, that might actually work better than reading. These roof pockets have two slots, so you could put your phone and even a small charging brick up there. There was also a large loft at the foot of the tent. I threw all of our stuff sacks in there, but you could use it to dry clothes.

We had an early morning rain shower. It wasn't a downpour, but it was enough to have water collected on the fly. The fly did its job.

The tent also came with some stakes like I have never seen before. They were smaller than MSR Mini Groundhog stakes, but they felt very light and strong to me. They also had a different design than any stake I've seen before. They are called Big Agnes Dirt Digger UL stakes, apparently. I'm a fan.

I was wrong. These are 6" stakes, which is exactly the same size as the MSR Mini Groundhogs and Zpacks Sonic 6" stakes. Here is a photo with the two side by side.

Here is a different angle on the Dirt Digger stake to show it's unique design.

It's somewhat like an I beam. They weigh 8 grams on my scale, the same as the Zpacks Sonics. I was impressed with their holding power. The soil at the park was rocky. I had to hammer the stakes into the ground with a log. My one complaint is that the tent comes with 8 stakes, but to fully stake it out, you should really have 12 stakes. One for each corner (4), the fly doors each need one unless you're going to have them wide open all the time (2), and there are six additional guy-out points to help pull the fly away from the inner tent and maximize air circulation (6). I had extra stakes because I basically threw every camping thing I own into the truck. Haha.

So, even though this tent is on the heavy side for a single person to carry as a backpacking tent, you can split the load if two people are using it, where one person carries the poles and stakes and the other person carries the fly and tent. Just don't get separated. The pole and stakes weigh less than the tent and fly, but either load will weigh less than even a lightweight trekking pole tent.

Oh! One final note on the tent. We did have some rain in the early morning. I think it rained for a little over a half hour that morning, so it was enough to get the ground and everything that was outside wet. We got up to use the bathroom and it was sprinkling. I wasn't sure if the rain would persist, and I prioritized getting Mrs. Gavagai to the restroom over closing the tent doors. But by the time we got back to the tent, it was a fairly steady rain and our tent doors were wide open. Some water got into the tent, more on her side than on mine, but things weren't soaked. If it had been a real downpour, the interior would have been drenched. We lucked out. Once the doors were properly shut, there were no leaks and we didn't have condensation issues in spite of the high humidity. However, these conditions were not a great test of condensation issues because it was so warm.

Overall, I recommend this tent if you want a comfortable and well designed tent for two people. I would not recommend this tent to sleep three people.

Cooking for Two

I have some old MSR brand pots and cooking utensils. I was able to break those out for this trip. We made mac and cheese on the Saturday night. Sunday morning, I made some curry chicken with rice (made by Right on Trek, which has gone out of business). I'm not the best chef, even at home, though I don't mind cooking. But I'm really not a good chef at camp. My typically method is boiling water and adding it to freeze dried meals, then waiting for them to reconstitute. Cooking in pans on a tiny backpacking stove is not ideal and I hate doing camp dishes. It's too easy to not follow proper Leave-no-trace guidelines, so I typically don't tempt myself to cheat. The meal on Saturday night was adequate. I cut up Spam. I should have fried the Spam before adding it to the mac and cheese, but I was lazy. It was still edible, but nowhere near as tasty.

I spilled a good portion of the curry on Sunday morning while trying to stir it. I should have grabbed the pot holder and held it securely while cooking it, but I was dumb and thought I could stir it. I knocked about a third of the pot and some portion of the ingredients onto the ground, sadly. It tasted okay, in spite of that accident.

The proper way to clean up a mess like that at camp is to scoop up the spilled food and dispose of it in your trash. I scooped it up with my poop trowel. I got it as well as I could without leaving a big hole in the middle of the gravel bed at the campsite. If we decide we enjoy car camping, perhaps I'll spring for an upgraded stove kit.

State Park Nights on a (Warm) Holiday Weekend

This particular weekend was Labor Day weekend, so the park was busy and crowded. Even so, people were relatively respectful and quiet at night. Even when people aren't being raucous and loud, they definitely make noise around a crowded camp area with conversations around a campfire and dogs barking, and general rustling around with this and that, lights flashing around from flashlights or vehicles. Mrs. Gavagai had a little trouble falling asleep with the sounds of the camp activity around us. This is another reason that I prefer camping in more remote locations where you aren't surrounded by other people and their devices. The deep woods is quiet and dark and peaceful at night. In my humble opinion, earplugs are a must. Mrs. Gavagai doesn't normally use them, but she opted to use them on this particular night, and I think she slept better for it when she finally did fall asleep. 

This night of camping was warm. I didn't use any blanket of any kind all night, and spent the majority of the night just in my underwear. I put a lightweight t-shirt on in the early morning as temperatures dropped into the 60s outside. We had a breeze, and the tent was well ventilated. Mrs. Gavagai almost always sleeps colder than me. She used the UGQ Quillow quilt for most of the night. She alternated wearing a hoodie or not depending on if she got chilled. In the early morning, I brought her an extra quilt because she was cold, even with the lightweight Quillow and her jacket.

The Other State Parks

On our way home, we stopped by Poison Springs Battlefield State Park and Jenkins Ferry State Park. Both of those state parks are historical state parks related to the Camden Expedition. I think these historical state parks and markers are of interest, and worth visiting and learning about. However, I do wish the State of Arkansas would do something about the markers placed by the Daughters of the Confederacy, which are clearly skewed to a pro-confederacy perspective. Their markers talk about the valor and heroism of the Confederate soldiers who "gave their lives for the cause." In my view, this would be like a "Daughters of the Nazis" group trying to erect monuments in honor of the Nazis. The Confederates were fighting to preserve the enslavement and subjugation of black people. It was inhuman and immoral. There is no "two sides" to the discussion.

We should be aware of the history, but let's not glorify and honor the men who were fighting for evil.

I think that's all I have for this post. We enjoyed our stay at White Oak Lake and hope to make it back there eventually. Next time we'll bring our kayaks and paddle around.

Thanks for stopping by,

Gavagai