A funny thing happened on the way thru Arkansas!

Due to obligations at the farm, my brother and family could not get away to meet us until late in our trip. Their timing put us together in, of all places, Arkansas! From my earlier days of traveling on business, I remembered how beautiful the Ozark's were and wanted to see them again. Daiv did his fabulous planning for this part of the trip almost a year ago. We were all meeting in Devils Den State Park, deep in the Ozark's, on a lake surrounded by caves to explore and horse trails to ride on. Well, we arrived as planned, but the lake had been drained, the caves were closed to protect the bats from White Nose disease, and the horses were taken back to their stables in another town! Now what? We made the best of it, we hiked to a few of the caves to view from the outside, did some geocaching, and swam in the pool. The State Park had a beautiful facility, with nice campsites, cabins, and a lifeguarded pool. We cut our visit short by a day and all headed to Hot Springs, AZ.
At this point of the trip, we were having some camper battery troubles. We think the intense heat thru OK may have shorted out the battery and it was no longer taking, or holding, a charge. What this meant for us was that instead of using the power lift to open the camper, the hand crank had to be used, which was not an easy, or quick task, especially in the heat. To save us the hassle, we all got a Yurt to share in Hot Springs. A Yurt is round tent like structure used by the Mongolians for thousands of years. There were 6 double beds in our air conditioned Yurt, plenty of space for all 8 of us to get a good nights rest.
We spent a fun and informative day at Hot Springs National Park. The cousins, Ryan, Alexis, John, and Rose, all worked together to become Junior Rangers and earn their badges. The Park was set within the town. I guess actually, the town grew around the Park, but the historic bath houses took center stage. The spring water, coming out of the ground at 143 degrees, was thought to have healing properties for all sorts of ailments. Water stations were located throughout the town, and a steady stream of locals were filling up their containers for free. What a neat resource to have available in your town!
We followed the Earlings to Little Rock so we could get our battery taken care of at the local Sears, but since they needed to keep it overnight to try to give it a charge, we joined the Earlings at the airport Holiday Inn. The cousins were happy to have one more night together to swim and play. Hopefully they will make it out in the morning back to NJ, but the impending hurricane is hampering their flight plans. We may see them again in Nashville!

We hope all our family and friends stay safe through the hurricane. And that our NJ home weathers the storm. I don't think I could live in the camper much longer!