Looking back, this particular day was my favorite. We woke up to be able to see everything in the daylight. We were in a forest in central Arkansas, enjoying our breakfast. We didn't have much of a plan except we knew the largest waterfall in Arkansas was here at Jean Petit State Park. We headed to the nearby visitor center, toured the museum and learned the wonderful story about how Jean Petit was the very first state park in Arkansas. We also learned the romantic and adventurous story of Jean Petit. People quickly told us which hikes were must do's, and where to be at both sunset and sunrise to see some of the most beautiful colors in the sky. Within 20 minutes, we had our entire day planned out and it was time to drive over to Cedar Falls trailhead. Cedar Falls had to be one my favorite afternoons of the trip. A wonderful hike to Cedar Falls, where we had lunch and then climbed to the backside of the 90 foot water fall, even Delaney made the climb on the wet rocks to experience being so close to a waterfall.
Funny Moment: We all decided to try and take Tiger across the boulders to the waterfall. Blake was trying to push her up wet boulders, as we all crossed, and Tiger lot footing, landing on Blake, both going into the stream.
Favorite Moment: The 5 of us just hiking the mile to the falls and mile back. We told the kids that they could each find 2 special places on the hike - one place for a photo of themselves and one other place for a photo just with them and mom and dad. It made for fun moments.
Exploring behind the waterfall.
After Cedar Falls, we rested at The Mather Lodge, and went straight to Bear Cave. A very short trail filled with caves and rocks to climb on. It was really cool.
Special Memory: This was the part of the day that I will never forget the feeling. Blake and I had separated a little with the kids and happened to meet up as we were climbing up a section. Once we back together and I got our bearings, I realized the older 2 had climbed way above us and realized that Delaney was trying to follow them. I figured she would go a little ways and then I could come down with her, as would normally be done. But this time, something was different, we saw this determination and fearlessness in Delaney that drove her to get to the the very top. There were sections where I was nervous, certain that Delaney would change her mind. But that didn't happen, she climbed in between Blake and I all the way to the top to join Carter and Addison. I captured the video of her getting to the top and it was such a BIG moment for her and honestly all of us, on realizing she is physically and mentally stronger that we have been giving her credit for.
We didn't want the adventure to stop, so we headed down the back Arkansas roads to Rock House Cave. The actual cave has 200 of the entire 800 cave paintings in the state of Arkansas.
Then, it was getting close to sunset, so we headed to Richter Memorial Overlook and our final destination CCC Overlook, where we made friends with a bunch of local college aged friends that were there taking photos. The sunset was gorgeous over the Arkansas River Valley and it was an ending to such a fun and gorgeous day!
Well, not quite the ending. We were about half a mile from the last overlook driving Fred down the Arkansas gravel one way road at dusk and something sharp from the side of the road gashed the side wall of the passenger side tire. Since it was so beautiful out, we had the windows down, so we instantly head the rapid deflation sound of air quickly coming out. We stopped Fred, I jumped out to see and instantly knew that we needed to just get the 3 miles back to camp and off this super dark narrow road. So, it was quiet and tense for about 6 minutes as we drove as quickly as we could to civilization hoping that it wouldn't deflate so fast that we would be riding on the rim. Good news, we made it will no issues. It was another great moment of the kid's experiencing something going array and seeing how we would respond. Our cell phone didn't have a signal, so Blake grabbed our social butterfly Addie, and they walked over to a random campsite and met the nicest people who gave them their phone with no hesitation an told Addison all about how they hunt 11 foot crocodiles on the regular. While Blake called Cruise America to come fix it, Addison and I put our charcoal face mask on, took a hot shower and we all cuddled up for a movie, while the AAA guy came and changed Fred's tire. They didn't even need us to get our the RV while he changed it. We decided paying the $79.99 fee to bring our deductible if anything went wrong from $2000 to $0, was worth it!
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