Family Roadtrip to Arkansas

Last month, we went on a little family weekend trip to meet up with some of Tyler's family who live in other parts of the United States.  The meeting place was in Arkansas where our family rented a vacation home rental by owner for everyone to stay at.  Tyler, his sister, and I drove from the Oklahoma City metro area on the Thursday night before the rest of the family was due to meet at the rental home on Friday afternoon, and had intentions of camping half way through our trip to Arkansas somewhere in Eastern Oklahoma.

We stopped at B'dubs for some wings to eat on the road, and headed off into the eastern sunset.  Yes, it was an all encapsulating sunset - and it was indeed still a beautiful sunset in the eastern skies.  (This is why I love Oklahoma).

As you might have guessed based on the clouds in those beautiful sunset photos, it begain to rain just before we reached the area we initially planned to camp.  Oklahoma was having a big increase of scattered thunderstorms that week, so we thought we'd be able to miss it by choosing another camp location.

Since it was already late, we decided to just keep driving into Arkansas until we got tired of it.  

Tyler found a campsite on the phone GPS called Mt. Nebo State Park.

It sounded like an okay place to camp for the night, so off I-40 we went toward Darndanelle, Arkansas and Mt. Nebo.

It had become extremely foggy, and the campsite was up in the mountains.  The further up we went, the worse the fog.  The turnbacks on the roads were really sharp, so it was a little bit intense.

When we finally made it to the campsite, this is what the scene looked like.  Strangely it wasn't too dark to walk around since the fog intensified the street lights.  It was a little bit eerie, and really, really quiet!

We got the tent set up and had the most peaceful sleep listening to rain fall on the tent sometime in the middle of the night.

The next morning, the fog was still around and this is the scene I woke up to:  beautiful pine trees soaring through the fog.  It was so foggy you couldn't really make out colors, nor see anything in the distance.

Tyler made us coffee, and we walked around the campsite.  I happened to notice some peculiar activity and come to find out there was a wedding planned there that afternoon or evening.  

After coffee and packing up our tent, the three of us decided to take a hike on some of the trails branching from the camp site.  This house was just off the trail, but I thought it looked so interesting in the fog.

(Okay, you may notice that we don't get a lot of fog in Oklahoma...and when we do it is just in the early morning until the sun burns it away...so the concept that this fog stuck around for hours just fascinated me!)

The trail was really beautiful, but also a little dangerous because the rocks on the trail were really slippery with moss and water!

A sweet doe stopped and watched us as we passed. 

My man on the trail!

How can one resist taking a turtle picture when there is a turtle available?

On our way back from the trail, the rain really started to pour and our clothes, shoes -- everything, was completely soaked for the rest of the ride to Hot Springs Village!

Keep your eyes peeled for the next post about our trip at the Ron Coleman Quartz Mines!