The state of Arkansas gives out a free parks passport. Get stamps in five parks to earn a sticker! Get stamps in 25 parks, you get a deck of cards! And get all 52 stamps, you get a T-shirt. All of these items are decorated with the decidedly uninspired Club 52 logo.
My nephew and his family recently accomplished this goal in an impressive way — they visited all 52 Arkansas State Parks between the time their youngest child (their seventh) was born and when she turned. 52 days old. This inspired me to visit all the parks and get my passport stamped in each. I’ve already been to about half of them, but unfortunately without getting stamps. I’d have to start all over.
On this day, I drove down to McGehee to find a King Rail at a state wildlife management area. Then I drove down to Lake Village, 29 miles north of the Louisiana state line, to Lake Chicot State Park. According to my GPS, and I have no reason to doubt it, “Chicot” is pronounced “Chico.”
The park is on the north bank of an oxbow lake that is 22 miles long and averages a mile wide. It’s on old channel of the Mississippi River.
The road to the park is in serious need of repaving. The visitor center was just a gift shop, watched over by a woman who seemed surprised that anyone showed up. I asked about trails in the park and was pointed across the parking lot where a one-mile paved trail looped through the woods.
I wandered the trail, birding as I went. From there, I drove down to the lake and walked out onto a dock.
And that was pretty much it. There were campsites and a few rather shabby looking cabins, but nothing else. It obviously exists for campers and fisherman. I saw 20 species of birds, the most exciting (I guess) being Neotropic Cormorant.
51 parks to go. (I hadn’t yet fully developed my park-visiting plan, so I didn’t get my picture taken with the sign, but I’m not driving six hours round-trip just for that.)