We awoke in our campground, Kaibab Camper Village, still being 45 minutes or so away from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  And this campground is the closest campground to the North Rim that isn’t part of the national park. 

I have always heard that the North Rim is very different from the South Rim.  I really wanted to do the North Rim this time around because we had visited the South Rim ten years ago.  Back then, I didn’t feel like we had been able to see it well enough. 

We were there in early May, and it was snowing.  While we had brought coats with us, we were still cold, and no one really wanted to do anything other than take a quick look and get back on the shuttle bus.  Most of the family didn’t see a point in going back to the Grand Canyon because they weren’t in love with it the first time, but I managed to convince them by promising to go to the North Rim.

Let’s just say, the North Rim is NOTHING like the South Rim.  There are no shuttle buses.  There are no hotels or “Grand Canyon Village.”  There is nothing very commercial about the North Rim AT ALL.  When you drive into the park, you have driven through miles of national forest on pretty much one road.  After you make it into the park, you still have about 20 minutes of driving to go before you reach the Visitor Center (though you do pass a national park campground or two), so you pretty much continue to just see more empty national park land. 

You finally make it to the Visitor Center and are just surrounded by Ponderosa pine trees, a rustic lodge, and other small rustic cabins for rental.  There’s a trail to take along the edge of the canyon, so we walked that. 

We were greeted by a Navaho man while walking back from the trail and stopped to visit with him for a bit.  We learned that his tribe is actually named “Dine” (sorry – not sure how to get accent marks on there – pronounced di-NAY.). He explained to us some of the history of his people and how he lives on the Navajo reservation near Page, AZ, while he isn’t working at the Grand Canyon for six months.  After talking with him and viewing the amazing lodge, we headed to take the scenic drive. 

We thoroughly enjoyed the scenic drive, but we were all rather tired from our Bryce Canyon experience from the day before and certainly didn’t want Alex to overdo it, so we didn’t even quite complete the drive.  We still saw amazing views and were all really glad that we had come to the North Rim as it was a much slower pace and more enjoyable experience for us than the South Rim.  And don’t worry – Alex wasn’t allowed to get anywhere near the side of the canyon if someone wasn’t holding onto her for dear life!

Rebecca

We slept well, but I woke up still not feeling great with a cough that makes you feel all of your insides will come out.  I finally decided that I was ready to go to an urgent care, but the only one in Moab said that it didn’t open until after 1:00pm, and we needed to be out of there that morning.  Hopefully I’ll find one that will work with our schedule a little better.

We had a long drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and we wanted to stop by Capitol Reef National Park on the way, so we headed out early. 

Capitol Reef was about two hours into our drive, so a great stop on our way to the North Rim.  When we reached Capitol Reef, we saw signs indicating that large rigs weren’t able to drive on the scenic drive there, so we started looking for a place to park the RV while we took the Pilot on the scenic drive.  All of a sudden, I was treated to the sight of fruit trees. 

I was so excited to see something so green growing fruit!  We saw several orchards of various kinds before we decided to pull over on a little side-pull off.  We thought maybe that was a decent place to leave the RV for a little while since we hadn’t seen any signs indicating where was a good place to leave it nor signs indicating that we couldn’t park there.

We hopped into the Pilot and headed to the Visitor Center.  There, when I showed my National Park Pass, I asked about leaving the RV where we did.  The ranger indicated that we may get a ticket leaving it there.  When I asked where we could park it, she didn’t have an answer and just apologized.  Unfortunately, we decided to forgo the scenic drive, pick up the RV, and keep driving down the highway through the park.  It was beautiful and a disappointment that they didn’t have a setup for parking larger rigs like many parks do.

After leaving Capitol Reef and taking a look at the map (I absolutely wouldn’t travel without a map – they are so much more valuable than just having a GPS), we decided that we could swing into Bryce Canyon National Park on our way to the North Rim. 

We arrived, parked the RV at a special lot for large rigs, and drove the Pilot into the park.  At the Visitor Center, we decided that we wanted to do the Queen’s Garden hike in conjunction with the Navajo Loop trail.  It takes you down into the canyon, where you hike around in the bottom for a little while, and then hike back up.  Despite not feeling my best, I thought I could handle the hike and the difficult trail back up.  This was the same trail we did in 2015 at our first national park stop with kids in backpacks.  It had been an awesome trail!

We grabbed our water backpacks, snacks, and ponchos and hiked down into the canyon.  The temperature was amazing – cool but not too cool, and of course, without that humidity that we are accustomed to in the Southeast. 

The trail is just under 3 miles total, and we had 0.6 miles of that that was hiking back up.  We started out well, taking breaks as needed.  We were keeping an eye on Alex and encouraging her to stop when she needed to.  After several stops with breaks, we noticed that she didn’t seem to be doing well – and then of course, she passed out.  We did all the normal – lay her down, elevate her legs, rub her legs to get the blood flowing more toward her heart and head.  It was several minutes before she finally came to. 

After she came to, we kept her lying down, gave her water, let her rest for a while.  When we finally tried to sit her up, she passed right back out.  Not a good sign. 

Eventually, some of us started hiking further up the trail with Charlie, Annette, and Isaac staying with Alex.  I kept my eye on them while I was going up the switchbacks, but they weren’t making much progress.  She’d walk a few feet and pass out again.  A very helpful Good Samaritan (Paul) and his wife stopped and helped Charlie and Isaac carry her up portions of the trail.

However, I eventually turned a corner that we hadn’t been able to see past and realized that we still had quite a ways to go up.  Needless to say, I went ahead and called 911, knowing there was no way she was coming out of that canyon on her own two feet, and we weren’t going to be able to carry her that far. 

After a ranger and two medics came to check her out (deciding that her vitals were all good – she just couldn’t stay conscious if she sat up), the rescue team arrived with a unicycle stretcher type thing.  They loaded her up and got her out of there, got her into the car, and we were FINALLY on our way back to the RV. 

She was never injured at all – just a flare-up of her POTS due to her pulse getting too high and probably dehydrated despite her efforts to stay hydrated (she has to work extra hard at staying hydrated compared to a normal person).  By the time we made it back to the RV, she was staying conscious but shivering from being chilled. We tucked her into a bed with lots of water, a snack, and whatever she needed to be comfortable.  We then headed off to our campground near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. 

A big “Thank You!” to all of those who prayed for her on Facebook.  I really didn’t want to alarm anyone; we weren’t alarmed at all.  A special thank you to Paul and his wife, the ranger, EMS, and rescue staff at Bryce Canyon.  I know this is something they train for and probably have to do all too often, but we really appreciated their attitudes and willingness to be educated about POTS and let us make our own decisions regarding not transporting her to the hospital.  This is just another day in the life with Alex and POTS!

Rebecca

We arrived in Moab, Utah after another beautiful drive, settled into our campground and actually slept in a little the next morning since our timed entry ticket to get into Arches National Park wasn’t until 10:00am. 

Arches is one of the national parks on this trip that we haven’t made it to before.  We spent several hours driving around in there, did a few short hikes, and took lots of pictures, of course.  (One of my least favorite jobs is trying to decide which of ten various shots of the same thing I want to keep.) 

Canyonlands National Park was only about 30 minutes or so from Arches, so we drove over there after finishing with Arches.  They were both beautiful.  I’m constantly left in amazement and wonderment at the beauty that God has created. 

I’m feeling more than a little overwhelmed at everything we are seeing and the fast pace that we are doing it in.  My personality prefers to do deep exploring and really get to know a place.  We aren’t doing that at all right now – just trying to see the beauty of a lot of places in a short amount of time. 

Maybe we are tickling the minds of our children, planting the desire to come back and see more of some of these places.  I know that’s what is happening to me.  Traveling at a quick pace just makes me want to come back and see more, but hopefully it will help me to narrow my focus in future travels.

Rebecca

June 4 took us to Mesa Verde National Park. I have wanted to see cliff dwellings since prior to our 2015 trip, but we just couldn’t fit it in the last time. I had even thought about canceling it again because it wasn’t really on our route, but the kids and I sat down and watched a library video on the different national parks of the Colorado Plateau, and they became very interested in Mesa Verde. This time, we were making it a priority.

The drives to many of these places have been stunning. It’s often hard to find time to write the blog or go through my pictures because I can’t take my eyes off the scenery.

Our first thought about Mesa Verde was that the park was much larger than we had imagined. And, we understood why it is known as Green Tabletop. This high desert plateau was much more green than the other areas of the high desert we had visited so far.

Our first stop was the Visitor Center. I realized that we wouldn’t be able to walk through any

of the cliff dwellings that were open for tours due to my neglect to schedule it in advance. Lesson learned – but we still had an amazing time. We learned a great deal at a ranger talk that we went to that overlooked what they called the Spruce Tree House. Evidently this one did used to be open for tours, but the cliff face above was deemed unstable, so it is no longer available for tours.

We learned at Spruce Tree House that this area was inhabited by Ancestral Puebloan tribes from around 500 to 1300 AD. They chose not to stay in the Mesa Verde area because they had determined through their spirituality that this would not be their permanent home. They all moved on to settle in other areas of Arizona and New Mexico.

Here are some thoughts on Mesa Verde from Dominic:

Hi, I like Mesa Verde because of the history and monuments. There were 21 tribes there, but they moved because it was not their permanent home. They would grow gardens on top of the plateau. They planted corn and pumpkin and beans. Some of the tribes built their homes on top of the plateau and some of them built their homes on cliffs.

written by Dominic Whisonant

The campground that we stayed in on our way to Los Alamos was at a national monument. Most of these campgrounds are inexpensive and don’t have a lot of frills, so they’re great for one night. Unfortunately, this one didn’t have showers, so there was some disappointment.

We made it to Los Alamos by 9:00am, just as they were opening. Most of the kids weren’t very familiar with the Manhattan Project, so we did some explaining.

Most of the town structures that were built by the government during World War II aren’t still standing. They were put together quickly and not meant to last long periods of time. Fuller Lodge was an older building left over from a boys’ prep school that was in Los Alamos prior to the government taking over. It was used as a lodging place for important guests and such that came to visit Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. We were also able to view two houses that were reserved for General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

I wasn’t aware that Los Alamos has continued to be a government project site. The Los Alamos National Laboratory is located there. I did ask one of our guides what is studied at the laboratory. She replied that there is epidemiological research as well as studies in renewable energy, national security, space exploration, etc.

We were also able to visit the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos. They had many hands-on exhibits with a great movie that educated us all more about the Manhattan Project, originally known as Project Y, and the science behind it. Most all of us found the museum fascinating and didn’t want to leave. It was really hard to pull some of them out of there when it was time to get going!

One of the things that we have found challenging on this trip is trying to keep up with the grief counseling that we’ve been participating in. A month or two before this trip, Alex was trying to decide if she would be traveling with us. She finally looked at me and said, “I can’t go two months without talking to my grief counselor.” For some reason, I hadn’t even thought of that. Charlie and I began participating in group therapy through an organization in Charlotte called Kindermourn (https://www.kindermourn.org/) back last July. We also got each of the kids seeing their own grief therapist through the same organization in July. In November, after their football and cheer seasons were over, they also started with group therapy, which they have all found very helpful and not wanted to miss a session. I certainly couldn’t expect them to travel with us for two months without participating in their therapy, so we arranged to have some phone/video sessions while we are traveling. I thought it wouldn’t be too big of a deal for us to be driving down the road and let a kid go into the bedroom in the RV with a white noise machine on outside the room for privacy during a telehealth appointment. However, I wasn’t prepared for the lack of cell service that exists out here, so we’ve had to try to schedule appointments and traveling around each other to make sure that we would have at least some kind of cell service. That has meant multiple occasions of getting a kid to the RV for an appointment while the rest of us are seeing the sights. It was one of those crazy coordination days when we were in Los Alamos, but we succeeded, and the kids are continuing to get their therapy.

Today was the first day that my cold started letting up – over a week of not feeling well at all.

Annette put together a few of her own thoughts.

Today we went to Los Alamos where the Manhattan Project (project Y) took place. Los Alamos is also where the Oppenheimer movie was filmed. It was very interesting walking around town and getting to see some of the historic buildings, homes, and the history museum about the project. I learned a lot from what I saw and heard.

One of my favorite things I learned was about how they determined the homes for people; they had based everything off of points and there was a formula that helped determine the points each family or individual would have. One point for each dollar of monthly salary plus two points for each month of service. Everyone in the town had a job. The men worked, women had to work and take care of household chores while still being a mother, and even the local natives had a job. Throughout the entire town there were only two houses that had bathtubs which were made out of cast iron; everyone else had showers. The General and his wife would invite their friends over to have a bath since they lived in one of the two locations that had bathtubs. The reason why there were only two bathtubs was because they were made of iron, and they didn’t want to use too much iron since it was needed for the war.

Prior to the war, a boarding school for wealthy boys existed in Los Alamos. Each boy had to have his own horse and care for it. They attended class, received wilderness training, grew up there and much more until the U.S. government took over. There was one boy, a member of the last graduating class, who realized what was happening with the government takeover. He decided he wouldn’t tell anyone about what he knew so that he could graduate. This man went off to college, and after getting his degree, he returned back to work in the labs. I found this story quite fascinating. 

Annette

Charlie has become quite the morning person on this trip.  I think he’s pretty much stayed on Eastern time, which has helped him to get up earlier in the morning.  He’s been enjoying getting up early to the cool and quiet air and going for a walk. 

I, on the other hand, haven’t managed to get up early at all unless I had to so that we could make it somewhere at a certain time.  It’s not that I stay up late either – I’m just exhausted from this cold and have needed more sleep in these last 8 years or so than Charlie has.  I guess it’s all the sleepless times dealing with 10 children that have been catching up to me.  Anyway, the result of Charlie’s early mornings have been some neat pictures and conversations with other campers.  At the Great Sand Dunes, he managed to get some beautiful sunrise pictures.

All we had left to do at the Great Sand Dunes on Monday morning was to tour the visitor center.  We learned a great deal about the formation of the dunes due to the unique sand deposits in the area, the winds, and the various mountains surrounding the dunes. 

Charlie and the kids explained a lot of the informational movie to me as I ended up cutting my visit short and sitting in the car because of feeling so yucky.  After getting the kids’ national park passport books stamped, we headed south to finish our journey to Santa Fe.

The drive was beautiful, just as it had been for most of our travels.  It’s amazing to see the ruggedness and isolation of southern Colorado.  Charlie and I definitely decided that the mostly treeless areas weren’t really for us.  It’s hard to imagine the native people and homesteaders managing to survive in such a harsh area.  The idea of trying to grow a garden in this high desert environment just doesn’t even seem possible. 

We finally made it into Santa Fe and drove to find the Loretto Chapel. 

While we made it to the chapel with the RV still intact, we realized that we should have researched parking for an RV better than we did.  We ended up parking the RV at a shopping center and driving the Pilot to the chapel.  It was so impressive!  For those of you not familiar with the story of the miraculous staircase built for the Sisters of Loretto in Santa Fe, NM, I’ll give you a short synopsis.

The sisters were having a chapel built and realized toward the end of the construction that no plan had been developed for a staircase to the choir loft.  Their architect had died and so they sought solutions to their problem from other area carpenters, but no one was able to build a staircase for them in the tiny space that remained.  The sisters then prayed a nine-day novena to St. Joseph for his intercession in providing a staircase.  On the last day of their novena, a carpenter showed up and offered to build one for them.  When his work was complete, there was what seemed to be a floating staircase leading to the choir loft built in the shape of a helix.  The carpenter then disappeared without ever giving his name or receiving payment for the job that he had accomplished.  Many experts have examined this staircase and have been unable to determine how it is being supported.  It is completely free-standing with no central support of any kind.  A few years later, another master craftsman did install a railing on the staircase as the initial staircase had none and was rather intimidating to those trying to traverse it.  At that time also, one support bracket was installed to help maintain the staircase. 

We were all in awe viewing the chapel and staircase.  The first thing that I thought of when I walked in was that I had to light a candle for Damien.  He would have loved seeing this chapel as he knew the miraculous story of the staircase.  The beauty and reverence of this chapel really touched Charlie and I, who experienced several emotional moments.  While I definitely struggle with thoughts of all the little things that Damien was never able to do, being in such a special place as this brings me many reminders of the unfathomable wondrousness of where he is, which gives me much peace and comfort.

Santa Fe was a city in which we could make a Sams/Costco stop as well as get an oil change for the car, so we managed to get most of our errands done before leaving for the backcountry again. 

While driving toward our next destination that evening, I searched for a campground. We’ve been staying in more basic campgrounds occasionally instead of in Wal-Mart parking lots like on previous trips.  I am loving hearing the question, “Do they have showers?” from the teenage boys!  That’s not unusual to hear from our girls, but it sure does make a mom feel good to know that her teenage boys actually do want to take a shower!

Next stop: Los Alamos

Rebecca

It is always interesting when traveling to see what kind of churches we find where we can attend Mass.  This time we found a Mass that worked great with our need for sleep and recovery as well as our need to get on the road.  In Banby, CO we attended Our Lady of the Snow.  It was a truly beautiful Ascension Mass, and we felt so fortunate to have found this church. 

After Mass and a much-longer-than-anticipated stop for coffee, we hurriedly packed up the camper in record time since we only had 15 minutes before we were supposed to check out.  I think it took us more like 20 minutes, but we departed quickly and headed south toward Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

The kids REALLY wanted to visit White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico.  We stopped there in January of 2020 when we were driving back from Arizona.  You can see the fun we had at White Sands on my YouTube page: https://youtu.be/cq-v-RlF4M8?si=2icuWlOt2_cU3j03  .  They had so much fun there that they really wanted to return and show the park to Charlie, who hadn’t been able to travel to Arizona with us.  Anyway, White Sands is much farther south than we are able to travel on this trip, so I had to say no to a visit there.

In exchange, I thought we could go visit the Great Sand Dunes in southern Colorado.  They weren’t very far off the path to Santa Fe, so we decided to make it a stop.  We found a campground and left the RV there and went to explore the Sand Dunes. 

I had done some research to make sure we could do some sledding on the dunes like we had at White Sands, but I didn’t realize that we wouldn’t be able to drive within the dunes.  If you want to sled on the dunes, you have to hike out through the sand for 2 miles or so.  Needless to say, most of us are fairly drained of energy from fighting these colds, so we knew there was no way we would be hiking through loose sand to do some sledding.  We admired everything there for an hour or so and then headed back to our campground for dinner and bed.

The Great Sand Dunes were definitely worth stopping at!

Rebecca

May 29 and 30 were just big driving days for us.  We usually try to stop and see something along the way, but Charlie was in driving mode – so we plowed forward driving through Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas on the 29th and then Kansas and Colorado on the 30^th. 

Ryon and Nathanael, as well as many others, had warned me about how boring Kansas and eastern Colorado were.  I’ve been in eastern Kansas (Atchison) many times (two in the past year as a matter of fact) and it is anything but flat, but I prepared myself for the Kansas prairielands.  While they were indeed flat with many windmills, they definitely have their own beauty.  When traveling, I often think of early people, both natives and settlers, coming into these areas and what they must have thought when entering new territories.  Having always lived in the Southeast, I am accustomed to pine and hardwood forests with plenty of hills and curves.  Chester even bills itself as the “city on the hill”.  Anyway, I enjoyed the beauty of the grasslands in Kansas and Colorado.  But let me also state for the record, that anyone who thinks South Carolina roads are bad, hasn’t been to Colorado.  Yes, the highways have plenty of potholes, but I didn’t expect the interstate to be in such bad shape.  That was definitely not a fun ride in an RV that doesn’t have the kind of shocks that are needed for roads like that!

Once we made it past Denver, the uphill climbing really began.  We had been in a steady ascent probably from somewhere in Oklahoma, but with Denver at a “mile high” (5280ft), we were definitely going to do some uphill work to get to our campground in the 8000+ft range.  Driving US40 to Granby, CO was definitely some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.  The RV was willing to go about 45 up that highway (yes, Charlie was then wishing we had bought a diesel), but we made it up without any problems.  Slow and steady will often work!

Since our plan was to spend a full day at Rocky Mountain National Park, I had searched for a campground.  Most of what came up was on the popular east side of the park in a city called Estes Park.  I hadn’t found much in Estes Park that looked like where we wanted to stay, so I searched for campgrounds in the Granby, CO area, more of the western side of the park.  We found a YMCA facility called YMCA of the Rockies that had a nice campground with many other things to do there.  They also have rental cabins and yurts.  The view from our campsite was like nothing I had ever seen. 

Saturday, we went into the park.  My cold had not improved, and this was probably the worst I had felt.  Charlie, AnaClaire, Isaac, Dominic, and Alex all caught my cold, unfortunately.  We decided to see what we could do anyway.  We spent most of the day driving Trail Ridge Road, which took us through Alpine, Subalpine, and Morane levels of ecosystems.  It was all mesmerizing.  We also took the drive into Bear Lake where we decided to stop and do a little hiking.  Fortunately for us, they had a great, easy hike around the lake.  It allowed us to get out and move, hike through some snowy spots, enjoy the beauty of the lake surrounded by the mountains, and breathe in some good fresh mountain air.  I had not at all felt up to hiking but was really glad we decided to do that trail.

Soon after entering the park, we were treated to the sight of a bull moose.  I had waited weeks to see one moose on our trip 10 years ago and hadn’t been blessed to see any when we were in Maine.  By the end of our day in the park, we had spotted 7 moose:  2 bull, 2 cows, and 3 babies!  What a way to start our trip in the West!  We also saw a few female elk, mule deer, and a coyote.

Around 5:00pm we headed back to our campground.  I climbed into bed as soon as we got back, around 6:00pm, and stayed there until 8:30 the next morning.  I’m most definitely ready to be done with this cold.

Blessings,

Rebecca

Hot Springs National Park – our first national park stop on our trip! Although I believe I visited here as a child on one of my many trips to Arkansas, I don’t have many memories of it. Charlie and I thought it would be a lot of natural pools of hot springs in a wooded setting, but that isn’t what this park is at all! Much of the park is made up of the historic bathhouse buildings. There were some scenic drives in the hills overlooking the town and definitely some hikes in there that looked like fun, but I wasn’t up for them since I wasn’t feeling great due to this irritating cold.

We considered taking advantage of one of the bathhouses to experience the relaxing effects of the hot springs, but the price deterred us. Maybe I’ll come back one day with just Charlie, but multiplying the cost out by 8 was just too much.

Some good friends of ours, the Perry Family, who we know from the Carolinas but who now live in Oklahoma, joined up with us in Hot Springs to give our families some time together. It was a perfect day spent with friends walking around the town, hanging out at the campsite, driving the scenic road, and cooking hamburgers.

I really enjoyed seeing the architecture of the older buildings. So much beauty was built into these old bathhouses. I’m normally pretty dismayed at most of the structures that have been built since World War II in this country. They seem to have been built only for function and not to add more beauty and interest to a place. But here, in older towns like Hot Springs, you can still be treated to beauty built into the buildings.

I feel so blessed to have been able to spend a day with the Perry family. It was needed by us all. Their kids line up well with our kids, and having their son Simeon with us just reminded Charlie and I so much of Damien. Simeon and Damien had a lot of good times together. All of these kids are growing up so much!

Rebecca

We left Jacksonville on Monday morning heading toward our next destination of El Dorado, Arkansas.  We knew it would be a heavy driving day.  Our typical goal is to drive no more than 8 hours in a day with a significant stop in the middle of the day.  El Dorado was over an 11 hour drive, so we knew it was possible that we would drive farther than the 8 hours. 

We decided that we wanted to stop somewhere along I-10 and see the Gulf of America (or Mexico – whichever way you lean).  If we were going to see the Atlantic and Pacific, we may as well hit the Gulf too.  But of course, it was Memorial Day, so we knew it would also be very busy.  We also didn’t want to go too far out of our way, so we chose to stop at a state park in Spanish Fort, Alabama so that we could put our feet into Mobile Bay, which we’re going to call part of the Gulf of America.  We decided it would count enough for us to check that off our list. 

You know how, when you’re packing for a trip, you’ll often convince yourself that you “really don’t need that.”  Well, I packed all kinds of first aid stuff as well as remedies for various ailments.  For some reason, I talked myself out of packing my homemade fire cider – probably because it is something I keep in the refrigerator at home and fridge space is precious in an RV.  Well, wouldn’t you know that I woke up on Monday morning feeling like I was coming down with a cold.  I immediately started taking the Vitamin C, elderberry, and immune support things that I had packed, but I sure was wishing I had packed the fire cider.  Usually I can take some fire cider and more often than not, my symptoms will be gone within 24 hours.  Needless to say, I ended up spending the last several hours of our trip lying on my bed in the back because I just didn’t feel well.

We made it all the way to El Dorado on Monday night, parked at Wal-Mart, and went straight to bed.  Tuesday morning, I woke up not feeling any better, but not feeling any worse either.  My grandmother had lived most of her life in this town in south Arkansas.  My dad was born and raised here, and I spent a week every summer of my life visiting my grandparents there. 

One of the highlights of El Dorado is something called a “Spudnut”.  These are a doughnut made with potato flour, from my understanding.  They are an amazing treat that we have always looked forward to when on a trip to El Dorado, so that was our first goal of the morning.  They were fresh, warm, and scrumptious.  Even some of my gluten-free people decided to suffer the consequences for this treat.  Just to note, none of my gluten-free people have Celiac’s Disease.  They typically just feel better when not eating gluten. 

Next came a drive-by to see the old family home and the graves of my grandparents and other relatives, and then we were headed to a place my kids have been begging to go to for years: Crater of Diamonds State Park.  This is literally a place where you can walk out into a field and do your own digging for diamonds.  Their rule is, “Finders Keepers!”  There are diamonds found there pretty much every day.  It is the crater of an ancient volcano where diamonds were spewed out of the earth millions of years ago.  Evidently, 10% of the diamonds found there are found lying on the surface of the earth.  There had been a decent amount of rain there recently, which increased our chances of finding something.  While we all had a great time, we didn’t find any diamonds, but 4 were evidently found just today (these were all very small, but plenty of significant size are found there). 

Finally we headed to our destination for the next couple of days, Hot Springs National Park.  This was one of the places to visit on Annette’s bucket list.  Charlie found us a perfect campground within the national park that actually had full hookups. It was beautiful and peaceful – a perfect place to settle in for two nights!

Tomorrow will be the day for exploring Hot Springs National Park!

Rebecca