Miles traveled: 280
Hours on Road: 7
States covered: 2 –Texas, Arkansas
Chrissy left long before any of us got up, by 8:00 a.m., I believe. We didn’t get up until 9:30, and we got up then only because we wanted the free breakfast downstairs that was served until 10. Then we hung around in our hotel room until we were forcibly removed at checkout time. Cal and Trey spent the morning wrestling. At one point, Trey went flying off the bed, totally prone, and just like the road runner, once he reached the end of the bed, instead of continuing forward, he dropped straight down. The beds were pretty high, too, so he had a good three-foot fall.
It has become Parker and Cal’s favorite pastime to get Trey to freak out. Granted, it isn’t that hard to do, but they torment him until he gets this angry deep voice in which he snarls, “I will kill you.” I suppose the fact that I laugh at all this may one day come back to bite me in the ass.
We spent three hours getting out of Texas, and once we reached Arkansas, it appeared to be a state that cannot make up its mind. On one road, the speed limit said 55 mph, then within 20 feet it said 45 mph, then within 10 feet more it indicated a corner approaching and the speed limit of 30 mph. If only we’d stopped I bet we could have gotten all three signs in one photo.
We found it strange that in towns that appeared to offer nothing, there were some immense houses. Parker said one day he’d have a huge house. This was during one of Trey’s rages, so he went off on how Parker will never have a big house because they require big money and he’ll never be successful. So Parker said Trey would never be invited to his big house. At this point Cal piped in that he’ll be the guard at Parker’s house. I had to call him on that, asking him why he didn’t strive to have his own big house. Why did he just aspire to guard Parker’s. His response went something like, he would guard Parker’s house against Trey; that is what he’d be the guard for.
Several times during this drive, and on several earlier drives, Trey accused Parker of giving him the finger. Parker claimed he gave him the ring finger, to which Trey replied that he “saw the wart” so it had to be the middle finger. At one point Trey even grabbed hold of the middle finger, citing the fact that, if he was able to catch that finger, that must have been the one that was sticking up. This is how most of the car ride has gone.
Aunt Chrissy had guaranteed that at some point we would see an armadillo. We finally did in Arkansas. It was dead. I was the only one to see it as we passed, so the boys made me turn around so they could see it and Parker could photograph it. As it turned out, we saw six more dead armadillos along the road. They don’t appear to be very road savvy. That, or people around here aim for them.
We went to Crater of Diamonds State Park before we headed to our campsite. I had been told that the campgrounds at the state park were closed due to renovations, but I wanted to make sure before we set up at the other site. We got there around 4 p.m. and found out that they close at 5 and that the campground was, indeed, not open. I saw a sign leading out to the diamond fields that said they’re open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., so I was confused about the information I was given inside, but I didn’t feel like diamond hunting at the moment, so I didn’t question it. Besides, Cal was not feeling well and had remained in the van while Parker, Trey, and I went to view a video on how to search for diamonds. We plan to head there early tomorrow and search all day, barring any deaths from overheating. Signs around the mine indicate that temperatures out in the field can reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit. I believe it. It’s stinking hot here.
After we left the park, we went to look for our campsite, which was located on Greeson Lake, which is a result of the Narrows Dam. We found the dam. We found Parker Creek. We found the campsite for Parker Creek. We did not find Narrows Campground. We drove about 10 miles along the road to the left of the dam and decided to turn around when the road turned to dirt. On our ride back along the way we’d come we saw some people pulled over in what appeared to be a picnic area. I stopped and asked if they knew where the Narrows Campground was. The woman turned toward us and, with a very heavy drawl and very few solid white teeth, said she did not know. Meanwhile, the guy with her called over to his friend who was about 30 feet away and asked him if he knew. I could see the guy using hand motions to indicate a turn here and a turn there, and I could hear that he was speaking, though I couldn’t hear a word he said. He went on for nearly a minute, and when he was done, I asked our black-toothed friend what he said. Again in a very heavy drawl, she answered, “He said go back down the hill and it should be right there.” It was like watching a translated Japanese movie where the people’s mouths go on and on in Japanese, but all the American translator says is, “The monster wiped out the village.”
We finally found the campground, though no sign ever indicated that we’d find it down the road we took. We just guessed. What we found was a nearly empty campground with no site reserved for us. We drove around it twice and never saw a site that had the same number we’d been given in our reservation confirmation. I stopped a man who was walking around outside his RV, and he confirmed we were in the right place, but he was certain it was a first-come-first-served campground, so he couldn’t understand how we’d reserved a site. He was sympathetic to our plight, but not helpful in the least. We were rapidly losing our taste for camping: too much driving around, the inability to find out where we should set up the tent, and the exceedingly high temperatures were major turn offs. The night before in Dallas, it finally cooled off to 96 degrees by 10 p.m. This day wasn’t looking to be any cooler, and you just can’t sleep in heat like that.
We decided we’d head to town where we hoped we could get some phone service to call Faja and have him look up a place for us to stay. We had passed the Queen of Diamonds Inn on our way to the Narrows Dam, but Parker insisted that the place looked too much like a dive. As we drove back into town, Cal said he was feeling really crappy, like he might throw up. I told Trey to give him a bag, but he said he already had one. Parker kept telling him to open the window and throw up out that. I kept asking if he was REALLY going to throw up, or if he just felt like he was. He wouldn’t answer me, but then Parker started yelling, “He’s barfing, he’s barfing. Open the window.” I pulled over to the side of the road and reached back trying to open his door, but it wouldn’t open. I was yelling, “Get out of the car.” Parker was yelling, “Open the window.” Trey was yelling, “It’s leaking through your bag.” All this yelling, and Cal kept puking, and the vomit kept leaking out the bag he was using. I finally got out of the van and opened his door, and he kept puking. I could see the vomit all over the floor and down into the rail along which the door moves back and forth. He finally got out and continued to vomit on the side of the road. I yelled that he should have gotten out. Parker lectured that he should have opened the window. Trey just stood there holding the empty bag he tried to give Cal. Poor Cal kept puking and very nearly started crying with all the yelling going on. Hearing him so upset worked to shut me up. I found my sympathetic mother voice and told him it was OK. No, I didn’t say that. I should have. But what I said, in my sympathetic mother voice, was that he should have opened the door and gotten out; that he should have told me he really was going to vomit and that I should pull over to the side of the road. I said it in a nice voice, but I continued to lecture. The poor boy. The one bright spot was that once he finished vomiting, he said he felt much better.
A little farther down the road we got cell service, so I called Jeff and told him our plight. I asked him to check out the Queen of Diamonds Inn. He said would, but he also needed to attend to his spaghetti, so he’d call me right back. We continued on the road to the Inn, noticing a Sonic along the way, and by the time we reached the parking lot, Jeff called us back and said the Inn wasn’t too expensive and it had some very good reviews. That did it for me. It even had a pool. We were given room 44, and after checking it out and deciding we’d made a great decision (Parker had been thinking of the hotel across the street when he said it was a dive), we went to Sonic for dinner. Trey has been begging to go to Sonic this whole trip, so I killed two birds with one stone: dinner for the family and shutting Trey up. I’m pretty amazed that a fast-food joint was even located in this town; it’s not a thriving metropolis.
I took the Littles swimming after dinner but we came inside when lightning started flashing. We’re all inside right now writing. The boys were supposed to have kept journals about our trip. Today is August 15, and Trey hadn’t written in his since August 5. I told him he’s going to look at his journal as an adult and think, “What a slacker I was.”
Trey was sitting at the little table in the room to do his writing, and he started to feel cold from the air conditioning, so he decided to turn it off, or turn the heat on, or something. Whatever he did, the dust on the wall unit began to burn, so Cal went over to try to remedy the situation. Only, whatever was burning had created enough smoke that the smoke alarm began to sound. This caused Trey to run across the room to get as far away from the area of trouble as possible and Cal to stand perfectly still looking nervous, while Parker said, “Great, now the firemen are going to come.” Cal finally turned the unit off altogether and I opened the door and fanned the alarm, and shortly the alarm stopped.
Now Trey is so offended that I wrote about this incident, he’s writing in his journal that every five seconds, “Mom says the F word. She’s so immature.”
For corresponding photos, go to:
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1980227027/a=2740108027_2740108027/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
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