Arkansas, Fayetteville: Good Home Cooking

It was a difficult drive for Kyle, getting us from Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Fayetteville, Arkansas, before midnight on the night we left. However, he did it and both Judy (his mum) and Dan were relieved that they didn't have to drive in the darkness through the mountains. Our arrival at the home of Kyle's sister (Kelli), brother-in-law (Clay) and niece (Samantha) was a momentous occasion because it marked the last time we would see them during our summer trip to the United States, part of our overall travels throughout the year 2007.

Even though it was late when we had arrived, we managed to stay awake for a little while, catching up and hanging out with everyone. Judy had rearranged her work schedule so that she was able to drive us to Fayetteville and stay there for a few days, so Kyle could spend some final time with her before we moved on to other destinations, and so she could see her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. We all had a great visit over the short period that we were there and we hope that the others agreed.

The dessert was made with about 18 eggs and who knows how many sticks of butter

When we woke up after sleeping in until 10:00am, Kelli had already started making breakfast for everyone, which included scrambled eggs, croissants and fresh blueberries. We had some coffee to wash everything down and we were wide awake in a matter of minutes. For most of the morning, we just hung out while Judy and Kelli ran some errands. Kyle had an errand of his own, whereby he went to the dentist for a checkup and teeth cleaning; during that time, Dan went with Judy and Kelli to take Samantha to her gymnastics practice.

Kyle finished his dentist appointment, which was in Rogers, Arkansas, about 25 miles north of Fayetteville, and hurried to Samantha's practice, but he only managed to see the last few minutes when he got stuck in traffic after sneakily stopping at a Sonic to try their new Spicy Southwest Supersonic burger. Everyone told him that Samantha did really well and, from the photos and videos that Dan took, Kyle saw that to be true. The most impressive thing (to us) that Samantha did during practice is highlighted in the photo album for this journal entry, where she climbed a rope to the top of the high ceiling inside the gym before having to climb all the way back down. Kelli was on the edge of her seat, being afraid of heights herself!

When we left the gym, Samantha joined us when we went to a store called Pack Rat, which sold outdoor and camping items. We were still trying to look for a thin, velcro travel wallet, which we had been searching for over the past couple of weeks. They didn't have anything suitable - we needed one with a coin pocket but Americans seem to keep change in their pockets and not in their wallets - so we went back to the house to wait for Judy and Kelli to finish more of their errands at Wal-Mart and Target.

Clay was home from school when we got home - he was taking some summer courses to apply towards his Accounting degree, which he should complete in December of this year - and we hung out and caught up with him until the ladies returned. Kelli started preparing for dinner immediately, but she actually had prepared a lot of the scrumptious, delectable meal beforehand, only having had to cook the appetisers whilst the main course was baking in the oven.

You must be wondering what we ate, so we better tell you. To start, we had fresh avocados, covered with a sauce that consisted of heated sour cream, coriander and grilled mushrooms. As if that wasn't yummy enough, Kelli served us a bean and spinach enchiladas for the main course, with some salad on the side. She didn't stop there; dessert was a lemon tart pie with a crust so thick and creamy, it was to die for. The dessert was made with about 18 eggs and who knows how many sticks of butter so, with a crust almost an inch thick, we had bursts of rich goodness inside our mouths upon every bite.

What better thing to do whilst all of that food digested, than play our favourite card game, S***head. The entire family played for a couple of hours, but Clay ducked out on the penultimate or the second-to-last game - we can't remember which - to finish some classwork, as his summer course was due to finish a couple of days later. We had a nice surprise that evening, Kyle's stepsister (Danielle) briefly stopped by to say hello; she was on her way to a concert in Fayetteville after having driven 45 minutes from Fort Smith, where she lived.

On our second full day in Fayetteville, we made an early start with Judy to Jasper, Arkansas, where we were meeting our friend Karen from Springfield, to go on a hike to Whitaker Point, located within Buffalo River National Park. You can find out more about that day's activities and also look at some beautiful scenery by clicking the link at the bottom of this story, for the next entry in our travel journal. We hope that you like the photos and story as much as we enjoyed putting it together!

Kelli and Samantha didn't want wake up at 6:00am to get ready and go with us on the day's hike, so we left them to sleep in and returned later that day when we had finished. Just when we arrived in Rogers, we stopped at a local drive-in fast food joint and ordered onion rings (for Kyle), tater tots (for Dan) and fried okra (for Judy). A very healthy way to finish off a day of exercise, wouldn't you say?

Kelli, Clay and Samantha were famished once we drove the remaining half an hour to Fayetteville and our little snack had worn off, so we went for dinner at Hogwild Pizza, a small but delicious restaurant a few blocks away from the house. The menu there included fried ravioli, similar to that which we tried in St. Louis (Missouri) with our friends Karen (not the Springfield one that we hiked with that day, but another one!) and Dave, so we had to get some of that to share around the table. The pizzas were tasty and gourmet style, meaning that we could choose from a large variety of both normal and more exotic toppings.

We all ate too much food, but left Hogwild feeling really good about ourselves. Clay went home after eating, to put the finishing touches on his schoolwork, and the rest of us went to see the movie "Hairspray". Since we had already seen it in New York, it was nice to see the reactions from Kelli, Samantha and Judy throughout the movie. Even though Samantha and Kelli seemed a little bit skeptical during the opening number, which was a little long, they relaxed into the film and took away its good-naturedness and fun feelings when they left the movie theatre. Judy really liked the film, too, even though there were a couple of moments towards the end when Kyle had to nudge her to get her eyes to open again. Dan agreed with Kyle that the film was equally as good, if not better, the second time around.

The next morning, we ate cereal for our final meal at Kelli's, something which Kyle hoped Samantha was grateful for, since he bought her some sugar cereal (Reese's Peanut Butter and Chocolate cereal), a kind that she normally wouldn't be able to eat at home. Kyle had to complete another one of the DVDs that he was making for his family that morning, which showcased all 8,500 photos from the Asian Exploration part of our 2007 trip. During that time, Dan started reading a new book, "A Million Little Pieces".

Judy and Kelli had gone back to Wal-Mart to run more errands. The reason that they had made trips there every day for the previous three days was because Samantha's birthday had passed a week and a half prior to us visiting them and Judy had bought a few things for Samantha, some of which needed exchanging, the sizes or styles. We waited a bit longer for Judy than we would have wanted, since Kyle's grandma (Ruth) was waiting eagerly in the front room of her house, in Fort Smith, for us to pick her up to go to lunch; Judy had agreed to drive us there and join us for lunch, too, so we were dependent on her getting us to our next and final city in Arkansas. We were only an hour and a half late, which was bad, but Ruth forgave us in the end when we took her for a great meal.

So, now that you know we arrived late to pick up Ruth, you also now know that we did manage to leave Fayetteville for the last time this year. It was a sad parting because Kyle always enjoyed seeing his sister and her family, and because Dan really liked hanging out with them, too. Until 2008, we say, when our paths should cross again - maybe in London?