always room for one more at the table

Our journey is drawing to a close, but not without more adventure. We drove nine hours today...through Birmingham AL, Tupelo MS, Memphis TN and numerous little towns during our last couple hours on 2-lane roads. The landscape changed from hilly to flat to very hilly. We ended our day at Blanchard Springs Caverns campground in north central Arkansas.

Once again we found this place by Googling and once again it didn’t disappoint. It’s managed by the National Forest Service so it was rustic yet well designed. Each campsite was remote enough to feel like we had the place to ourselves but there were clean restrooms and running water within a short walk . We got in right at dusk but we are really good at setting up quickly. While Chris set up the tent and unloaded the equipment, I started supper.

We ate a “traditional” camp meal—spaghetti! It’s actually a simple meal and easy to clean up. This time we had some guests join us. Chris suddenly stopped and told me not to move. About 10 feet away, heading toward us was a little skunk. He must have heard it was Italian night. Then after supper, I was doing the dishes and Chris had gone to the restroom. I thought it was him coming back, making a lot of rustling noise, when I looked over at the trash bag we had hanging on the clothes line. There was a large raccoon reaching into it. With a little shriek and a “get away from that,” he scurried off, only to revisit us later as we were in our tent playing cards. We watched him try to get into my camping supplies in a large Rubbermaid container (the food supplies were in the car). He raised the lid and started rummaging when we yelled out. It was his last chance to grab something, so he snatched a bag of paper cups. I don’t know what he was going to do with that, unless he was having a keg party or something! We put everything back in the car and went to bed.

Even though it was pretty humid, we slept so soundly until the thunderstorm rolled through in the middle of the night. Not much rain, just a nice reminder of being in the great outdoors.