The Bunch Head Off to the Second Stop...Withrow State Park in AR

After 3 nights of staying in Hot Springs, we were ready to head off on our next adventure. This was to be the shortest travel day on the whole trip so we weren't in a big hurry to head off in the morning. In fact while we still were up at 6am (remember the dog), we didn't actually hook up and pull out until after 9am. I have mentioned before how LOLA (aka Google Maps) isn't the best to rely on for directions when pulling a trailer, but I checked the map and the roads she had us going on seemed like larger roads even though it was not an interstate. We decided to follow her directions. I think we all know how this is going to end. The first 200 miles were wonderful. We made good time and might even arrive before check in. We stopped and had lunch in the trailer (I LOVE being able to do that) and then we were down to our last 50 miles of road. The state park was located directly off this road. This was the road I wasn't entirely sure LOLA should take us down, but it was the last 50 miles. It would be another 100 at least if we took the interstate around. The Boston Mountains Scenic By Pass sign did give us a little bit of pause about pulling a 6500# trailer that is 31 ft, but the road looked nice and wide and had a decent shoulder. It was only 50 miles; how, bad could it be. I will tell you that this will end up being the road of comparison for EVERY other road we will EVER take. It was a sink or swim road for D on driving with the trailer.
Needless to say, about 10 miles in our nice wide road with shoulders went away and was instead replaced with extra small lanes with NO shoulders and immediate plummeting drops to your certain death if you accidentally tried to make a shoulder. It turns out my car sickness is not cured. Apparently, on our trips to Branson, we just didn't take roads that were similar to the ones my grandparents used to get to their lake house. This road was it. Steep grades..check,...windy twisty roads with tight turns....check. Every person (and dog) in the car was growing more nauseous with every minute. We averaged about 30 mph and this was going to take forever. As we came to another sharp turn sign with a suggested speed of 10, we noticed a car stopped in the road. It turns out there were lots of cars stopped in the road because I got out to go see what was going on and walked past about 20 cars, trucks, and rv's through the twists and turns to eventually see that an 18 wheeler in fact did NOT make the hairpin turn and we were all stuck. There is no turn arounds, no easy access for towing crews, basically we were going to be here for awhile. Luckily, we were late to the party and only had to wait about 40 minutes to be able to pass, but the kids learned several things from this 1.) Do not take the scenic route and 2.) Do not take the scenic route. They don't ever want to go anywhere through the mountains again. We finally made it to our camp site and D got a big pat on the back (and glass of wine) for not killing us and making it through the "Scenic Route". Lola was fired for the rest of the trip.

The view behind us

The view in front of us... I wish we would have had shade to park in.

The next day we decided to head up the rest of the scenic route to Eureka Springs. I had never been and had heard it was an adorable town. Unfortunately, even without pulling a trailer (or maybe it was just residual from the day before) it was still nauseating going through those turns and steep grades. We all felt a little green and didn't really enjoy most of the day because of it. It was a cute town and we saw the most beautiful church, but we were just to nauseous to really enjoy much. We ended up coming back to the trailer to relax and watch some movies.

Cool local winery that we found

Eureka Springs has some nice architecture.

Love this church

Thrown Crown Church

It is hidden in the woods of the mountain

Cute town, but boy do you get nauseous.

Our campsite was near this two lane highway which was surprisingly very busy.

So our 6am walks were in a baseball field parking lot down the street. Yes, this was really taken at 6am!

The next day was going to be our first experience with severe weather so we had a hike planned in the morning and then we were going to hunker down for the afternoon and evening during the storm. The hike was on War Eagle Trail. It was actually quite challenging. It has caves on this trail that you use to be able to explore, but because of the white nose threat to the bats the park asks that you not explore them any more. T was disappointed, but we did follow directions. However, hiking over the caves was quite dangerous. They were very slippery and in most places there was not a railing so one small misstep and you would have gone sailing off the end. The kids have deemed this our most dangerous hike ever. We have had a few dangerous hikes, but because these rocks were so slippery I am inclined to agree with them on this. After our 2 mile hike, we headed back to the trailer for the storms. Fortunately, most of the severe weather missed us and we just had some heavy rain. The kids are really excited because the next two stops are all KOA's so they will have amenities and no ticks!