Keeping Up With Us: 2012

The week after school ended (we end when Rich ends), we took a week-long camping trip to Beaver Lake, near the town of Eureka Springs in Northwest Arkansas. The town was founded as a Medicinal Spa Resort around the multiple natural springs on a steep mountainside. During the camping week we spent two of the days in town, visiting EVERY SINGLE ONE of the preserved springs. The first was Grotto Springs, which is preserved in an underground cave. Very slippery--Ben took a good spill and was pretty wet down one leg. It was cool, almost chilly in the grotto, and there was a little candle/shrine with prayer request papers folded all around. Not sure who the prayers were directed to. Eureka is a town very unlike the rest of Arkansas with more New Age and alternative lifestyles represented. And so very beautiful. The kids were entranced with the natural woodland landscaping around the springs, climbing all over everything, seeming to think they had discovered a magic kingdom.

The town itself is sometimes called Little Switzerland, built on steep mountainsides, with very Victorian architecture, a lot of natural stonework supporting the houses in the cliffsides. The day we walked around historic downtown (where all the art and tourist shops are), we took the puppy with us. Ponca attracted the attention of every passing tourist. She decided it was hot, and tried to lay down in every shady doorway. We lunched at The Patio, dining area of a nightclub... (had to have a choice for which Ponca could join us). There wasn't a wide variety to choose from, but the man who functioned as head waiter, cook and cashier made us welcome. He brought a bowl of water and some dog treats for Ponca, gave the kids drinks with giant fluorescent (nightclub variety?) straws, and tipped Ben a dollar when Ben hopped up to help the waiter pick up something he had dropped.

We ate our picnic lunch at (above) Crescent Spring, which was right next to historic Carnegie Library. Apparently Andrew Carnegie funded multiple libraries through out the country, as long as the town could provide the land (and maybe the building), he funded the rest.

Carol is at such a great age, which includes giving kisses on demand and absolutely loving her Dada.

Harding Spring had some great landscaping for photos. Addie took this one of us. Not bad!

Seemed like an appropriate picture. Note scrunch face--Carol's default when she sees a camera.

Most of the springs had the spring water directed into a water fountain. IT tasted like normal water to me, but the signs said many "miraculous" cures had been documented and credited to drinking and/or applying the spring water. One person was even cured of blindness.

At the end of the day we got ice cream cones and relaxed in Basin Park. We lifted Ponca up to get a drink out of the Basin Spring fountain, and she ended up going swimming in it. Just like a Lab. We also washed everyone sticky chocolatey faces and got cooled off. The first day in town was really hot. We probably should have actually spent that day at the lake because the rest of the week became chilly and windy.

We camped down on an island by Beaver Dam. The first night we took one of the only available sights. the next day we moved to a vacated sight that had more shade and seemed to be more sheltered from the wind. It had a great view of the lake and the kids playing on the shore as well. First night, we had a thunderstorm and the lightening was getting really close so we woke the kids up and loaded them into the truck for about 30 minutes. Fortunately our great tent stayed dry. And Ponca, unlike Charlie, is not affected by thunderstorms. The next night in our new campsite, there was another thunderstorm. It was mostly wind but since the wind was up to 70mph and we were under a big tree, we bundled the kids into the car again. Night number 3, another thungerstorm! This one had hail and lots of lightening. This time I checked the weather on my phone. Severe T-storm warning, lake wind advisory, hail... Into the car!!! Funny thing: in spite of all the interrupted sleep, I still slept better on this camping trip than I ever have, because we brought our full sized mattress from home. So I was sleeping on a bed comfortable enough to not wake up every 15 minutes to readjust. And the lightening over the lake was an amazing light show!

A flock of geese swam along the shore by our campsite at least twice a day and sometimes came up on shore looking for food. After feeding them and getting pretty close, the kids decided they were going to try to catch one. They ran all over the beach behind them in this picture, and managed to catch this gosling. The Daddy/Alpha Male of the flock wasn't very happy, of course, and hung around, waiting for a chance to get his baby back. He finally decided to try intimidation and charged, 6 ft of wingspan stretched out, head down. Ben took on the challenge without batting an eyelash, and ran straight toward the goose, hollering. Guess who won the face off! My 4 year old! No fear at all, not even a little healthy fear... After their fun, when the flock got close again, the kids turned the gosling loose and he rejoined his traumatized family.

After our 3 nights of thunderstorms, the weather forecast said the overnight low would be 47. That didn't seem like a big deal at first, until we considered the windchill. At 65 and 70 it was chilly because the wind was blowing so hard. And that sheltered campsite we had picked? Yeah, not sheltered now. The wind changed directions and we were probably in the worst of all sites. We went to town because it was too cold to swim, and while there we went shopping at the local Animal Shelter's thrift store. We got extra blankets, long pants and long sleeved shirts for everyone. We had some of these things, but not everyone had long sleeves AND long pants, and the long sleeves we did have were t-shirt thin. It is June in Arkansas. It's supposed to be nasty with heat and humidity by now. The night it got cold it was also so windy that we couldn't light a camp fire OR our camp stove to cook dinner. So we loaded our cooking stuff up and found an empty site on the opposite side of the island. No wind at all. We topped off our dinner with a cup of hot tea.

So that day that it got really cold, I took Carol's diaper off to take her potty and then pulled her pants up with no diaper and promptly forgot about it. And she had a dirty diaper with no diaper... So her only long pants were dirty... Rich suggested I sew her a pair of pants with fishing line and a fish hook, and I remembered I had needle and thread from my cross stitch kit. I used a stadium blanket I had gotten at the thrift store, we hung out in the tent, and I stitched her up this cute pair of fleece pants, which were warmer than the other pants anyways. I was pretty proud. If I can do that I really ought to take up sewing, I guess.

Next day it was chilly still so we went hiking to this little dam on the far side of a quiet lake. It got hot while we were hiking so we had watermelon afterwards, and went swimming when we got back to the campground.

One of our best camping meals was marinated venison steak, fried potatoes, sauteed squash, and black eyed peas. At another meal Rich fried little sunfish whole, and we picked 'em clean, event he eye balls.

Libby has been asking to run in a race for about a year now. I ran in a fundraiser 5K last spring, and we've been waiting for one she could run in. This one, a fundraiser for African Missions, popped up on the radar at a good time on May 5, and so our whole family decided we would run it together. No training. The kids were off with a bang, and all of them ran the whole first mile at a fast clip... then there were two more miles to push through. We alternated jogging and walking for the last 2/3 and came in strong with a sprint at the finish. It was a good, character and team building experience. The race committee spontaneously awarded our family a medal for being the only entire family to cross the finish line. That was a really awesome way to end a really long run for our tired kids.

We found out at the end that Addie's tennis shoes were hurting her feet because they were too small, so we went directly to the shoe store for some new shoes when it was over. Ben got to "run" piggy back" part of the race. Way to go, Daddy.