Skiing in Arkansas
I love water sports. Water sports on a beautiful 40,000 acre lake amidst the mountains is even better. We have been traveling to Lake Ouachita, Arkansas, for several years, and we have always gone googly eyed at the houseboats we see docked at islands throughout the lake. This year we decided to fork up the change and experience the lake this way for ourselves. With a super large group of family and friends, a couple of teenagers, a kid, two babies, and two ski boats, we were on our way. And what an amazing trip it was.
We loaded up our car and our kids and drove to Crystal Springs Resort, where a few of us stayed in the Fisherman’s Choice cabin. A simple and inexpensive cabin, it gave us access to everything we needed and was a great place to start our trip. This gave us a few more days on the lake without breaking the pocketbook. It also gave us a home base for our friends who were driving from different areas to join us when they could, and a place to wait for our houseboat to be ready to sail us away.
Beauty
While we were waiting to board our ship, we dined at the surprisingly delicious restaurant at the resort. I say surprising just because I didn’t expect a campground type resort to have this great of food! It was the perfect place for us to wait while everything was being prepared on our houseboat just a block or so down the street. We liked it so much that we went back after our houseboat landed to have a final dinner with friends!
The Deck
We stayed on board the Shirley Ann at Wake Zone Luxury HouseBoat Rentals, and fit surprisingly comfortably with such a large group. When we loaded into the boat, the staff was extremely helpful and did all of the heavy lifting. We drove our cars directly in front of the boat and the staff unloaded them and brought our luggage offshore. They parked our cars for us in a safe parking lot near the boat launch. We were on our way to the center of the 40,000 acre lake very quickly! We opted to pay an additional fee to have a boat captain guide us to our location and help us tie up. Although most of us are boat people, we decided having an expert that is familiar with the Lake would be beneficial and help us to start our trip in relaxation mode. Our captain found us a perfect spot near a great cove for wakeboarding, where we could still see the sunset.
The boat was docked, and we were left on our own, although we didn’t exactly have to fend for ourselves. We did experience a few mechanical problems with the generator, but the Wakezone Luxury HouseBoat rental staff came quickly to help us, even coming late at night once. We also had an issue with one of our ski boats that we had brought from home, and we were able to have a mechanic actually come out to us on the lake to fix the problem. The problems we faced didn’t stop us from having a wonderful time 🙂
 Parker and Me |
 Taking a Break |
We all fit in the kitchen – barely!
The boat was large enough for us all to fit comfortably, and if you ever felt like you needed space, the open deck above provided an amazing haven! The rooms were very small and obviously meant only for sleeping, but that was just fine with us. We relaxed in the hot tub, played on the slide, went skiing and tubing, and watched the amazing sunsets over the crystal clear water. I can’t wait to go back!
Check out our family trip video 🙂
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