Remember how I said we were going to start no later than 8am. Yeah so at 9:30 we head out. Crap we got a late start. Well it's a 10 hour drive so 7:30 will be our arrival time. We get back on the expressway and head west. This is the day that we've been dreading. This is going to be our long drive day. The others were just preping us for this drive.
I got the directions from google and our gps is now fully charged. We don't use it much so that the battery won't die on us. We plan to just stop at the rest area to eat lunch. We don't plan on any stopping or site seeing on the way. We know that when we get to Arkansas we'll just set up camp and go to bed.
So we travel the same road that we took from Nashville to Maryville. We see the same giant cross along the road. We pass the power plant that I say we should look into moving by. We really enjoy the ride. The kids are doing great again with their games and movies. After about 4 hours we stop to eat lunch. It is again over 100 degrees out. We make our sandwiches and eat as fast as we could. We do not want to sit at the picnic tables or in the camper. We eat and are on our way again.
After about an hour we get to where we need to turn off the expressway and head northwest to Arkansas. The whole reason for our Arkansas trip is a wedding. Matt's cousin was getting married. Matt's uncle moved to Arkansas about 5 years ago after retiring from the Air Force. They traveled across America at that time and found that they loved Arkansas. It really is a beautiful place. We planned to spend the rest of our trip there. The part that we were really looking forward to was spending the next week with family. Matt's cousin that we haven't seen in a long time was going to be there. The last time we saw her was before Adam was born. It was the summer of 2000. Matt couldn't wait. She had never seen our kids and we had only seen her oldest boy who was only 3 months old at the time. We planned to stay at a campground for the first four nights and then go to Unlce Rob's for the rest of the week.
On one of my phone calls with Uncle Rob he had said how there are no expressways in Arkansas. I guess I never really paid much attention to it or that it didn't really matter at the time. So we finally get to the Tennessee border and cross into Missouri. Missouri ?!?! Yup Missouri. We will only be in Missouri for 1 1/2 hours then we'll go into Arkansas and then back into Missouri then back into Arkansas. WHAT?!?!?! I had read these directions a few times, but I guess I must have just "looked them over" because that's just plan crazy! We stop to get something to eat at Pizza Hut in Missouri. It's about 5:30 now and I figure we have about 2 maybe 3 hours to go. Ok so maybe I was wrong and we'll be there by 8:30. So as I said it was over 100 degrees out that day. We go into Pizza Hut and one of the AC units are broke. Good times! It was about a cool 98 in the dinning area. We ate as fast as we could and got out of there fast. We were back on the road in about 45 mins. We were all still in very good moods and was enjoying the ride.
So picture being on M50 or 223 for about 4 hours. Up hills, down hills, around curves and though some flat lands. The drive was nice until we left Missouri, entered Arkansas, and left Arkansas and entered Misslouri. By this time it was 8:30. We were now back in Missouri and not sure why the heck we left Arkansas once we got there. Hey Unlce Rob said that the roads were crazy down here and they looked like the men were drinking when the made them. Yeah that's exactly what it's like. You drive for 4 hours and only go 150 miles. The thing that really gets you going is the fact that you go though one little town and the speed limit goes 60 to 45 to 25 in all of a mile. You leave that little town and you do 25, 45, then you see 60. Ten minutes later you have another little town and it goes back down again.
We've now been on the road for over 10 hours and we are really starting to get tired. Matt and I start to talk about how great it would've been to live in the country and have some animals. Then our conversation startes to sound a lot like it did on our drive to the Smokys. It's starting to get dark and Matt is getting upset because he don't want to have to find the campground in the dark. I call the office and leave a message only this time the man calls me back. I tell him where we are and he says to call him when we see the Welcome to Arkansas sign. So after about another 45 minutes and me becoming a "dream killer" for my husband, We turn onto the road that the campground was off of. I call the guy back and he stays with me untill I see the sign for the campground. I tell him that we turn and he says "ok now it'll be about another 9 miles and about 40 minutes." WHAT!!!! I hang up and Matt is really mad now. Not only am I a dream killer but I can't give directions or pick a good campground. This sounds just like the last few miles of our last day long drive.
We make it in about 30 minutes and the guy is waiting with a flashlight to help us get in our site. Matt asks if there is a pull though. No they only have four sites. The guy goes up to the window to talk to Matt and smells like a bar. He is trying to give Matt directions on how to back into the spot but keeps saying you got to go this way or that way. I get out because I don't want my husband to kill the crazy drunk man. I get us backed into the site and we get set up. It is now 10:20. Our 10 hour drive was really 13 hours. We were very tired and Matt really didn't like any of us by this time. He wasn't happy that I got a campground that was so far away from everything and everyone. We did what we could that night and went to bed.
Want to see what we saw the next morning???
These little guys were right in front of our camper.
This was the firepit. There were only four sites and they shared the firepit.
They rented out these cabins. We didn't spend any time at the campground so this is really all the pics I have.
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