July 3, 2026-Plant Mission Trips and More State Parks

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Robby and I were up early this morning moving around the camper quietly so we wouldn't wake up Marley (she definitely heard us) and so we wouldn't wake up Whitman (it would take a bomb to wake him up.) Robby worked on the outside, and I worked on the inside, and soon we were hooking the car up.

We had about an hour drive to our 8th state park to visit on this trip. Robby had read that it was one of the smallest state parks, and indeed it was. I scoped out a nearby church for us to park out, so we parked there, woke Whitman up, and walked to Lower White River State Park. 

It took us all of about 10 minutes to walk around the museum in the park and that included me going to the bathroom. This place was so small that they didn't even have a bathroom. I believe that we were the first visitors that had come through today. And yes, when I handed the visitor center worker my passport book to stamp, I was very careful that he didn't have my book long enough to read any of the words that I had written-I didn't want to get in trouble again.

Then we had around another hour until we made it home. Robby and I went to work-he always talks about how he possibly has ADD when he works in the yard, and I feel that way about when I work emptying the camper. Today, he got out the tractor to put up the tow dolly and ended up mowing the yard. And as I worked in the camper, I would take one load in the house and then work in the house for a bit before going back for my next load. It took us longer to finish fluttering around doing all of the things, but when we were done the camper was empty and clean, the yard was mowed, and the house was straight and fairly clean.

Robby ran a few errands, and then he picked up Graham from the airport. He landed around 4, and the boy had stayed up all night since they had to wake up at 3 this morning to get to the airport. Graham came in and took a nap, and now he went to play basketball with Anderson-and no, I didn't let him drive. 

Robby dropped Graham off at home then I left with him to pick up the girls. We were home long enough to get Graham's clothes in the washer. They are now dry and folded ready for him to put up. The girls arrived around 5:30, and we brought them home and ate supper.

Campbell was able to stay at home until about 7:30, and then she missed her people too much and went to meet everyone to play volleyball. Keaton thought about going too, but I think that she was too tired, or maybe she just missed Bentley and wanted to stay home with her.

I'm sitting on the couch with my feet up on a pillow-my feet are tired today! Robby just walked by the window with the blower, Campbell is at volleyball, Graham and Anderson are at basketball, and Reagan left this morning to go back to camp for the rest of the summer. 

July 2, 2026-Plant Mission Trips and More State Parks

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So we will start with the story of the day...we were at Parkin State Park, and I had the ranger at the desk stamp my little passport book. As he handed it back to me, he said, "Have y'all been to a lot of parks today?" We politely answered telling him about our trip.

Then he asked, "Why does Lake Poinsett need a little TLC?" So as he was stamping my passport book, he read my comment from the park right above: "Quaint park but needs some TLC." It has a few lines to write, but I just write a few words about each park. He continued by saying, "The reason I ask is because I'm the Assistant Park Superintendent for Lake Poinsett."

I believe that I could have died right then and there. I guess I will be much more careful about what I write. We told him exactly why we had both agreed that park did need some TLC-road conditions, campsite maintenance, trial signage. He was nice, but I think I hurt his feeling some. 

From now on I will not write anything negative about anything again! Ha! He was a nice guy though and showed us some pottery from the park and taught Robby and Whitman how to throw the atlatl (an Indian spear type thing) Whitman was able to throw it pretty good on his second try while Robby didn't make it as far as Whitman. Then we went on a 3/4 mile walk around the mounds in the blazing sun-it was hot!

And yes, when we left Parkin State Park, I wrote in my passport book, "A sunny Toltec mounds." 

Back to the main part of the day-we again had a little bit of a slow morning. Robby and I walked to the horse camp area. They have lots of campsites, plus they have 3 huge stables to keep horses in. It was completely empty, but I would love to see it when it is full of horses.

Then we loaded up for our Parkin State Park visit. It was about 30 minutes away from us, and we just stopped there before coming home. When we made it home, Whitman immediately took a shower because he was so hot from our walk. 

Then for the rest of the afternoon we just vegged out. I crocheted and read and napped. It was wonderful. We all played SkyJo for two rounds before cleaning out the fridge for our supper. Once again, we have eaten not really any of our meals that we have brought to eat-I take that back, we have eaten our two frozen meals. So I'm not really sure how we had enough leftovers in the fridge to eat for supper tonight.

Robby and I just got back from a walk to the cabins that we stayed out about 10 years ago on the Dennie family trip. Now, he is picking up some outside things, and we are about to eat tonight's ice cream-yes, we weren't too concerned with our suppers on this trip because we brought a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream for every night!

July 1, 2026-Plant Mission Trips and More State Parks

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I woke up at 3 to go to the bathroom, and the light beside Robby was on. He hadn't noticed, but the sheet was wrapped around his head. By the time I came back from the bathroom, Robby was awake and looking at me trying to figure out why I turned on his light. I assured him that I don't even know how to turn his light on, but this morning he figured out that the power must have blinked last night which causes his light to come on when the power comes back on.

Robby and I walked a little bit this morning. We were going to walk on one section of the road, but it was already in the sun so we opted to walk the other way. This section was down and then up a big hill, but there was some shade, so it wasn't horrible.

We came back, woke up Whitman, and headed off to Hampson Archaeological State Park. It took us about an hour to get there. First we walked around the state park-it was a nice little museum about the Indian things found in the area. 

However, what was so neat in this town (Wilson, Arkansas) was that everything around the town square was built in Tudor style-there is a really nice restaurant plus a swanky hotel. We just walked inside of it really quickly. Also, there is a store that we browsed around too. I think the town has had few wealthy investors who have fixed it up-they really talked up their Christmas decorations and their spring tulips too.

We then went back to Lake Poinsett (I think that is where we were) and collected the camper. It took less than an hour to get to Village Creek State Park. Robby and I went in the visitor's center when we got here, and then we drove on to our spot. We are close to the lake, but we are in full sun which has been fine.

Whitman did some reading, and then we drove all around Village Creek. We drove up and down every road in this park. After that we drove to Wynne-there we stopped to get a pizza, pick up a burger, and to get gas. The dogs came along for this trip, and it was quite successful. Marley used to be pretty terrified of the car, but she has really gotten used to it.

When we came back to the camper, we ate our supper. Then Whitman and I played a game which we lost. I crocheted some and right when it was about to rain, Robby and I took the dogs on a short walk. It only rained for about 10 minutes, so far.

Now, we are all getting ready for bed and getting ready for our nightly ice cream!

June 30, 2026-Plant Mission Trips and More State Parks

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This was one of our slower days which was perfectly fine with me. We had one state park that we were going to see today, but they were closed so we pushed that back til tomorrow. Robby did some work this morning, and then Robby, the dogs, and I headed off for a trail.

We walked the Blue Heron Trail which was supposed to be 1.1 miles long. We, however, took the wrong trail to start with and walked to someone's house. We went back to the beginning and started over on the official trail. It was hotter today, but we made it back to the car in good time and with minimal ticks-I had hoped that we had left them all at Crowley's Ridge, but we did not.

We came back, and I read and crocheted. We eventually woke Whitman up, and this afternoon we drove to the nearest "big" town-imagine our surprise when we saw a Sonic there. Of course, we felt like we needed to support the local businesses and had ourselves a Sonic drink.

We came back to the camper, and Robby worked while Whitman and I played a board game. Then Whitman read some while I also read a bit more. It is almost 6:30 now, and I'm actually cooking supper as I type this blog-well, the microwave is cooking supper. Last night Whitman had a frozen pizza while we had our butter chicken frozen meals. Tonight, it is a big chicken pasta meal that I'm heating up. 

We haven't heard much from the mission trip kids today-Campbell did say that they were having lots of breaks because it is so hot outside. Reagan did have her return dentist visit, and she said that it was much easier this time than having 3 cavities filled at once.

June 29, 2026-Plant Mission Trips and More State Parks

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Robby had a call this morning so he tried to quietly sneak outside to do it. Marley heard though and asked to join him. She stayed out there with him until he finished.

Then we walked Spider Creek Trail at Crowley's Ridge. It was about a mile long, but I made it a little longer when I realized that I didn't have my phone. I had just had it, and my short pockets are so shallow that it just fell out. We turned around and started retracing our steps. It didn't take too long thankfully for me to find it, and we were back on our way.

After our trail walk, we came back to the campsite to brush the dogs. We could already see that there were quite a few ticks crawling around them. We were able to get most of them, off, but man, we have dealt with ticks all day. Hopefully, we have taken care of all of them.

We soon hooked the car up and headed to a new stop. First, we stopped at the post office to mail off a book. Then we stopped at our 37th state park-Herman Davis. It didn't take us long to explore since it is just a statue on a corner block in Manila, AR.

We then drove on towards our next stop which was a spur of a moment stop-the boyhood home of Johnny Cash. We weren't too sure that we were going to make it when the GPS started to direct us down a dirt road. We skipped a few dirt roads, but eventually ended up on one when we headed to the home.

The tour guide was good, and the tour was short, so afterwards, we went back to the visitor's center and walked around there. We ate our very late lunch in the camper, before driving on to our next stop — Lake Poinsett State Park. 

We pulled into our site here and didn't see too much of the park since we will do some more exploring tomorrow. Whitman and I played a game before supper, and then Robby heated up a pizza for Whitman and butter chicken for us. Now we are watching Johnny Cash's movie Walk the Line. 

June 28, 2026-Plant Mission Trips and More State Parks

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It was a perfect night of sleep last night. I fell asleep before anyone else in the camper plus I had a great nap today, so I am very well rested and might stay up later than Whitman or Robby tonight. When we woke up, Robby and I took the dogs on a trail that is right next to our camper.

The Dancing Rabbit Trail was just about 1 mile since we only did half of it. It had a neat swinging bridge, but Bentley was not interested in the other bridges at all. They had holes in the metal which she did not like-I was able to get her across the first one, and she improved with each one that we had to cross. 

We came back and had our breakfast, and then we went to the visitor's center and walked around this state park, Crowley's Ridge, some more. This is the first time that I have seen a state park with an inflatable water jumpy thing-I'm sure there is an official name, but I'm not sure what it is. It was 20 an hour, and no, we didn't let Whitman see it. He wouldn't have enjoyed it by himself, but with his sisters he would have loved it; however, it was 20 an hour-kind of pricey.

Now this state park does have an interesting group cabin area-there are 5 bunk house type cabins which are really pretty plus a dining hall all for 300 dollars a night. We even talked to the man at the visitor's center about it because it was just intriguing. Our little family might be big enough one day to need the group camping cabins here.

Despite the water contraption, this is still a pretty state park. We came back to the camper and woke Whitman up. After he had his breakfast, we went down the road about 8 miles to Lake Frierson State Park. It is just another state park with a lake. It is mostly a fishing lake because there were only 7 campsites. We did walk one short trail, before heading back to our campsite.

This afternoon I did crochet a bit and read some, but I guess my body is just wired for a Sunday afternoon nap. Back at home, Reagan and Anderson went to church and to eat at Grannymom's house. Robby said that Anderson washed their cars as well. We did get a report from Campbell this afternoon-it is hot, she bought a fan, and her air mattress doesn't stay filled with air though she sounded like she was having a blast. We have seen pictures of Keaton and Graham, but they haven't checked in with us.

Tonight we drove to Jonesboro for a hamburger for Whitman at 5 Guys and for ice cream for all of us at Andy’s. Then we came back to the camper and played a game. We played Castle Panic, one of Whitman's new games. It is a good one, and I even think that Robby enjoyed it.

Now, we are in for the night except for occasional potty outings for the dogs. I am going to crochet a little bit and possibly read some more. Except Robby think he might have saw a bobcat on his lost dog potty visit so thinking both dogs can hold it until morning!

June 27, 2026-Plant Mission Trips and More State Parks

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The morning started early with Campbell and Keaton having to be at church at 8 to leave on their mission trip to Austin. We left in time to pick up some doughnuts on the way. Keaton only ate some of hers because she was worried about her stomach being upset on the trip-I understand that. 

The rest of us were not worried about this because we all had our fill of doughnuts. When we came home, Robby went to work getting things ready to leave while I started getting ready for myself to leave. I left to meet Dana and Grannymom to go to a baby shower for Josh's baby. It was in Star City so we had a bit of drive, but it was a sweet little shower. 

While I was gone, Robby took Graham to the airport for his flight to Denver and then onto San Diego. His flight leaving Denver was delayed, but he landed safely albeit 90 minutes late. He had a smaller group on his mission trip, but he was excited for sure.

I made it home earlier than Robby had expected. It didn't take too long for us to get everything ready to leave, load up Whitman and the dogs, and to leave. We told Reagan and Anderson bye, and then we headed towards Crowley's Ridge State Park. 

We had a super easy drive except for the few miles of detour that we took-Robby knew immediately that we weren't heading the right way, but it took a long while for us to find someplace to turn around. Thankfully, we found a gas station which worked perfectly because the dogs needed to potty, and we also needed gas.

We made it to the campground around 8 or a bit before. We are at the end of the loop, and even though there were neighbors right next door watching us back in which adds to the stress, we did perfectly. Robby backed up like a pro. 

We got all settled, and then Robby and I took a short walk around the campsite. We came in and started on our supper-hot dogs. While we were eating, Campbell and Keaton made it to Austin. We cleaned up after supper, and currently the dogs are laying on the bed with me!