I forgot to mention this last night: while we were driving around scoping out the park, we saw a crazy amount of deer. They were everywhere-lots of little babies. It reminded us very vividly of the time that we were at Mt. Rushmore. When the evening program concluded that ranger stood in front of the monument and urged everyone to be safe driving home and watch out for the deer. She talked about how many they were, and we were pretty spooked by the time that we got to our car to start off on our 2 hour drive to the hotel. We drove slowly while Robby and I diligently searched for deer-and never saw a one. However, tonight there were tons everywhere!
We slept wonderfully well. Keaton was awake right at 7. She said that she had been waking up at 7 the last few mornings so that is why she was an early riser today. That was fine since we had lots of things planned for the day.
We had our breakfast-poptarts, granola bars and cereal. We took a little walk-though the sprinkling rain and occasional lightening did speed up our walk some. Then we went to the Visitor's Center to walk around. Next was another drive around-we had intended to stop at the playground, but the sprinkles were a bit heavier by this time.
Soon we were loaded back up and pulling out. We hooked the car up at the parking lot. Robby had on his rain coat, but I was too lazy to get mine. A rain coat was going to protect me from the crazy lightening that I kept seeing. We were hooked up quickly and then headed towards Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park.
Robby and I are listening to the best audio book ever on our drive so no part of the drive seemed to take long at all today. Actually, I wish that we were a bit further away from our destination so we could finish the book tomorrow. Maybe we can listen some tonight.
Prairie Grove was a neat stopover. We went through the visitor's center. They had a neat spot where you could identify old items and win a prize. Of course my people were all about that-a butter mold, hat pins, glove stretcher, candle snuffer-we didn't miss a one. Campbell, Keaton and Whitman were super excited to earn their free postcards...and yes, we had bought postcards earlier in the day!
Despite the misting rain, we headed off on a one mile walking tour around the park. We saw lots of things but mostly just enjoyed the walk and the views. We had just started on the walk, when Campbell remembered that we should bring Bentley. She had been in her kennel since she couldn't go in the visitor's center. Robby ran back to the car and got her, so she also enjoyed the walk.
Bentley has been funny lately-in the camper she pretty much always lays on the couch on her blanket. Today her blanket was on the floor, and she grabbed it and brought it to the couch and tried to put it on the couch herself. Today while we were driving she stayed in that spot mostly and would sometimes go to her spot between Robby and I on the floor. Her new spot today though was in my lap. I gladly appreciate the warmth-possibly she has heard me say that my lap is never too small for my babies. I was talking about the kids though.
After Prairie Grove, we stopped at Walmart to find Campbell some water shoes. We had bought her some that were too small. We then tried to go up a size, but those were too large. We finally settled on the larger pair, but did walk to the men's section. Thankfully, they had a size that did fit her perfectly. They are decent looking water shoes, now hopefully everyone is set with some shoes for this weekend.
Our next stop was at Torchy's Tacos for lunch. It is like a Tacos for Life but it has a bar. The food was good-I really enjoyed the cheese dip and the fried cookie dough that we ended our meal with. However, I am not sure that the stress of finding an adequate parking spot is worth it for me. Robby doesn't seem to mind this additional stress but everyone turn I worry about us getting stuck (now, we wouldn't ever really get stuck-we might just have to unhook the car in the middle of the street which probably cause a lot of unnecessary stress.)
And after Torchy's we just drove on into Oklahoma. We had a bit of a drive, but our destination was for more food. This time it was Crumbl Cookie. Reagan had first mentioned this place-I told her to find one and we would go. The closest one to home is NW Arkansas. However, she ended up going this week on her Denver mission trip. Reagan actually said that she was too full to get her own, but she did bites of her friends cookies.
We knew we were at the right place when we saw the line. I think that we waited about 40 minutes in the line. We bought plenty of cookies-when we walked out of the store, Whitman looked at Robby and asked "how much money did you waste on cookies?" That boy is my child. We probably didn't need two dozen cookies-they are so large that Campbell, Keaton or Whitman could not even finish their cookie today.
They all had a chocolate chip cookie. Robby and I split an oreo sandwich cookie along with a cornbread cookie. And yes, we read that right-a cornbread cookie. So far it was our favorite cookie (I plan on having one as a snack tonight though so my favorite flavor may change). We also have a nutella, sugar, key lime, and one more that escapes me at this moment.
We were still full from our cookies when we made it to our campsite. When Robby checked in, the lady told him-your site is a bit flooded and we have have to move you. Robby asked if they could just move us now to which she replied that she didn't have anything to move us to. Ok, that was new to hear and a bit unexpected.
We drive on to our site-I see first that our loop road is no longer a loop. It was under water. We stop in the middle of the road and find out spot. Of course, this being the 4th of July weekend, there were at least 20 people watching us. They offered to help, they chatted, and they stared. Oh, gracious!
We have to have the car straight to unhook it, so Robby was able to head towards our site and unhook the car. Then he unhooked the car dolly and moved it to the back of our site. He was able to easily back in-listen, those 20 people were still watching us so backing in without much drama was needed!
The dolly is now hooked back up and pretty much we are ready to pull out if the water rises. We aren't worried about it rising to our camper-we are about a foot higher. However, the issue is our electrical box-it is nearest the water.
After setting up, we took a walk. Two things were noticed-we are pretty thankful that our site was completely under the water and the second thing is that Bentley likes to eat goose poop. Back at our site, we had a bit of supper-just leftovers or sandwiches. Actually, Whitman did say that I made him the best grilled cheese ever tonight so that was a win-he says that often though.
A bit ago, there was a knock on the door. A ranger man-our electrical box was getting to close to the water so they asked Robby to hook up to a nearby one. Thankfully, he had enough extension cords to do that...if they knock again it will probably be asking us to move.
I follow some rv folks, and the mom talked about how she didn't sleep the night that they were on the beach because the water was lapping at their rug, and she was afraid that it was going to get higher. Now this water may get higher, but we are in no real danger. There is one camper that really has no way out of his spot right now since there is water surrounding him-we decided that we would have left before that happened.
I guess we are living on the edge tonight-maybe Robby should sleep in his shorts just in case he has to answer the door at some point. Oh days like this are times when I am thankful that I have a blog-we will be able to go back and read about today and laugh. There won't be much laughing if we have to pull out in the middle of the night though! (And we just read on a facebook that where we are going is experiencing flooding too-our campsite is high, however the inflatable thing on the water that the kids have looked so forward to may not be happening! We have already promised our people that we will get them back here if they miss out on that!)
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