Arkansas, Fayetteville: Trampoline Games and Lazy Lake Lounging

After three weeks in Arkansas, we decided to spend another week in "The Natural State" because a friend of ours from London had planned a visit to see us. Sophia had arrived on 1st July and after spending some time in both Hot Springs and Fort Smith, we headed to Fayetteville to see Kyle's sister (Kelli) and her family (Clay, her husband, and Samantha, her daughter). To get to Fayetteville, which was located in northwest Arkansas, we first drove to Little Rock from Hot Springs in order to eat lunch at a restaurant called Flying Fish.

The drive to Little Rock only took an hour and we found ourselves parking in downtown Little Rock soon after arriving in Arkansas' capital city. For lunch, Dan ate a "poor boy loaf" with catfish, which was basically a sandwich that had a long bun and breaded catfish fillets inside. Kyle ordered a combo basket that included breaded shrimp and catfish fillets. Both meals came with french fries and we also decided to share some cole slaw and fried okra. Sophia ordered a large salad with shrimp, many vegetables and Italian dressing, something that she really enjoyed tasting during her trip.

We started to get really scared because the bubbles seemed to be coming from a couple of really large creatures

After eating lunch, we got back on the highway to drive the remaining three hours to Fayetteville. There was a scary moment during the drive; we almost ran out of gasoline (that's the same as "petrol" for the British people reading this), but we made it just in time to a roadside gas station outside a town called Clarksville. Once we had filled up Kyle's mum's (Judy's) car - by the way, she very kindly let us borrow her car for the entire 10-day visit with Sophia - we felt much more relaxed about getting to the Doss family home without having to hitch a ride to a gas station along the way. Who knows, we may have avoided a situation whereby some creepy redneck would have pulled over and really loved English accents so much that Dan and Sophia may possibly have been found in a few years after having been locked away and forever reciting Shakespeare or, more likely, passages from the Bible.

We drove west for a couple of hours on Interstate 40 from Little Rock to Alma, a town outside Fort Smith, and then we decided to head north on Scenic Highway 71 for the last part of the drive. The road meandered through the Boston Mountains and provided us with beautiful scenery. The forests surrounding the highway and the small towns that we passed through were extremely green and thick as a result of the heavy rains that had been falling over the past couple of months. Since we had arrived in Arkansas, there were thick clouds trapped above what seemed to be the entire state of Arkansas, or at least wherever we seemed to go.

Arriving in Fayetteville was a wondrous occasion. It was mid-afternoon and the sky was nearly completely blue with only a couple of thin clouds floating above us, therefore marking the first nice day that we had encountered since entering the United States on 15th June (there were some nice days previous to that day but they seemed to be "overshadowed" by the cloudy days). Trampoline jumping was most definitely required on such a beautiful day so we decided to join Samantha and her friend, Erin, to help continue breaking in the large, round gift that Samantha received last Christmas. Sophia and Kelli also joined in on the backyard fun that afternoon.

The most fun we had was playing a game called "Add-on", whereby players did a new jump or crazy move of some kind on the trampoline after repeating all of the previous jumps or crazy moves that had been performed by the person who took their turn before he or she did. Things got a little berserk and Dan, Kyle and Sophia were all quite sore for the next couple of days, from using muscles not normally used. Kelli had gotten used to jumping on the trampoline, having been off work for several weeks already (being a school teacher definitely has its advantages!), so she was not sore like the three of us were.

We have mentioned the Doss family but we haven't mentioned ALL of the members. The fourth member of the family was Sassy, a female beagle that was adorably cute. She had a friend sleeping over and Layla, the friend, was another female beagle that belonged to Erin; Erin was sleeping over with Samantha and she had brought her cute dog with her. Dan and Kyle are still arguing to this day (whilst writing this journal entry) over the spelling of Erin's dog's name, so we may refer to Leila sometimes as Layla, or vice versa. Of course, we may not refer to her at all in the rest of this journal entry, so you will have to just read on below to see.

Kelli and Clay have been a subject of a previous journal entry (see our Fort Smith, Arkansas journal entry if you haven't read it already), but we should introduce them properly. Kelli is Kyle's sister and Clay is Kyle's brother-in-law. They are both slightly younger than Kyle and were a lot of fun to be around. One of their favourite pastimes, besides enjoying cold alcoholic beverages, was playing board games, and they had many to choose from when we visited. Playing games was always a necessity when Kyle visited his sister's family and was something he always looked forward to; Dan and Sophia were happy to join in on the fun, too. With Kyle's niece being as sharp and witty as she was, Samantha was a strong contender against the adults and her friend Erin was not bad competition, either.

The first game of choice was Cranium Hoopla, which we all played for an hour before moving on to the card game Poophead, one that we have mentioned in a few previous journal entries. As mentioned, everyone played the games and we also consumed some beverages (beers for everyone but Sophia, Samantha and Erin - Sophia had white wine and the kids had nothing) while we played.

Everyone also ate a lot while we played because Kelli had made her delicious Texas caviar, a dip that consisted of chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro, hominy, sweetcorn and black beans. She had also made a couple of plates of yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that everyone couldn't eat enough of... our mouths were watering just writing about them and we really hope that Kelli will send us on our way with some when we start our road trip from Arkansas on 4th August! Hint, hint (if she is reading this!)...

When light had fallen outside, all of us went to shoot fireworks. Clay, Kelli and Samantha had several leftover ones from the 4th of July and they wanted to shoot them off with us, so we went outside the city limits to shoot them in order to avoid getting arrested by breaking the law and lighting them inside Fayetteville (now that would make a good story for this travel journal!). There were quite a few large ones that were scary to fire into the sky, but Clay showed us the best and safest way how - light them and run like mad to get out of the area - so that we were able to set some exciting ones off. Kelli, Samantha, Erin and Sophia enjoyed watching and lighting the tamer fireworks, like sparklers and small spinning lighted tops that floated a couple of inches off the ground.

Breakfast the next morning was delicious and was the first time that Kyle was able to try Clay's cooking. He made scrambled eggs with cheese that were out of this world and Kelli made a chopped fruit and walnut salad that everyone enjoyed. After eating, we took Sophia to Target so she could do some more bargain shopping; we headed to Pack Rat (an outdoor camping store) during that time, while she shopped.

Kyle had a $50 (approximately £25) gift voucher that he had received from Judy for Christmas in December, and we used that to purchase a couple of padded mats to go inside the tent that Kyle's dad, Leon, had bought for our road trip across the southwest United States. We also exchanged a couple of trek towels that Judy had bought for Christmas because each of us had one of our own that we had purchased in the UK last December. We hadn't had much use of the towels because most of the hostels and guesthouses that we stayed at in Asia provided towels to us when we stayed at them. Therefore, the ones that we were carrying were still in really good shape.

When we returned to the Doss abode, we were ready to go to the lake. The weather was gorgeous, but hot. Since it was just after lunch, we all wanted to cool off by swimming at Beaver Lake. The lake was an hour's drive from Fayetteville and we hopped into Judy's car with several inflatable rafts, towels, packed lunches - peanut butter and jelly (that's the same as "jam" for the British people reading this) sandwiches - and a cooler full of ice water. Clay was unfortunately not able to join us because he had to work, but we were able to enjoy a fun afternoon with Kelli, Sophia and Samantha.

Beaver Lake was beautiful and Kelli took us to a private little area where we unpacked our stuff and went for a swim. There was no one near us and there were only a few boats on the part of the lake where we decided to plant ourselves. We spent a few minutes inflating rafts and innertubes so we could float lazily out on the water for a couple of hours. The water was very clear for a lake and it made Dan's and Sophia's first time swimming in a lake much easier than they thought it would have been. The sun was hot and the water was cool, a perfect combination.

At one point when we were floating in the water with Samantha - Kelli and Sophia were laying out on the edge of the water - we spotted some very large bubbles coming up a few feet away from us. We started to get really scared because the bubbles seemed to be coming from a couple of really large creatures. We had no idea what it could be; Kyle thought it may have been a large alligator gar, which is a long fish that looks similar to an alligator and enjoys chomping on things, including people.

Dan was the one to first suggest that the bubbles were coming from people and, soon after, a couple of hands popped out of the water. The hands were covered in black rubber gloves and looked really creepy sticking up from the depths, even to Kelli and Sophia from the shoreline. It turned out that a couple of scuba divers had gotten a little bit lost and had come up to see where they were in relation to their boat.

A few hours in the sun was enough for everyone and we decided to leave the lake around 6:00pm. During the drive back, we made a few stops, first at a homemade candy store, second to a farmer's market and third to Wal-Mart. That evening back in Fayetteville, we went for dinner at Acambaro, which was Kyle's favourite Mexican restaurant. The place did not let us down and we enjoyed a very large meal there; their chopped steak, onions, cilantro and tomato tacos were delicious and both Dan and Sophia enjoyed trying these for the first time. When we made it back to the house, Sophia went straight to bed, but we tried watching a movie with Samantha. Neither of us could stay awake for long so we put the movie on hold, despite Samantha's impatience with us, and we all went to bed.

The next morning, Dan and Sophia rode bicycles (Kelli's and Clay's) to Harp's, a grocery store, in order to buy some bread and ice for the next part of our trip. We made some sandwiches for lunch with Kelli's delicious tuna mayonnaise, which was mixed with walnuts, celery and green olives. Sophia made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because she didn't think she would like the tuna concoction. Once the food was prepared, we packed the car and got on the road, heading towards Eureka Springs, our next stop in Arkansas. Be sure to read the next journal entry to find out what we did along the way and also what we did there when we arrived. You'll find out about lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), as well as ghosts in the old, quaint town.

After visiting Eureka Springs, we ventured into the state of Missouri, to see some friends who lived in Nixa, a town just outside of Springfield. When we finished spending some time there, we headed back into Arkansas and returned Samantha to her rightful owners, although we would have loved to have her join us for the rest of our trip. In Fayetteville, we enjoyed one last meal with Kelli, Clay and Samantha before having to leave them once again.

That last meal was a delicious dinner that Kelli cooked for us, a spinach quiche and tasty salad with rosemary pound cake covered in cream for dessert. We had gotten back late from Missouri so we went to bed after dinner. The following morning, we left Fayetteville to drive to Little Rock International Airport so that Sophia could catch her flight home to London and so that we could catch our flights to Kansas City, Missouri. Don't confuse yourself with the layout of our travel journal; you will see a couple more entries for places we travelled to with Sophia before getting to the Kansas City one.

Before leaving Fayetteville, we had an early, traditional American breakfast at IHOP, a pancake restaurant chain that was located all over the United States. We enjoyed the food but Kyle had some stomach trouble - that capital D again! - later that day, several times. We think it was because his eggs were not fully cooked...