Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Arkansas, Check. Mississippi, Check.

We are two states closer to achieving our goal of visiting all 50 states together. We recently went camping in St. Francis National Forest in Arkansas. Apparently, it's cotton pickin' season because we passed over 50 cotton fields on the way that looked pretty ripe. They were gorgeous. It was so neat. The cotton plants were covered in big, fluffy white cotton balls. I didn't realize cotton grew like that. I loved it. It totally made my day to see the cotton up close.

Here's Willa examining the cotton ball we picked for her. Of course, she tried to eat it so we had to take it away.
We camped on Bear Creek Lake in the National Forest. Before we found our campsite, we stopped for a little picnic lunch. The lake was really pretty and peaceful.
After lunch, we drove around the lake and found a lovely camping spot. It had a view of the lake, and there was a nice spot to tie up our canoe just down a little hill.
The evening was wonderful. We took Willa on her first canoe ride (which she hated because of the bulky life jacket). We cooked dinner on the fire and enjoyed s'mores.

We went to bed early and planned to spend the next day canoeing and exploring. Unfortunately our trip took a turn for the worse after we crawled into our sleeping bags. We had to listen to noisy campers a few sites over into the wee hours of the night, Willa woke up and had trouble falling back asleep because of the blaring music, and then instead of waking up to sunny skies like the forecast predicted, we woke up to pouring rain. How can weather forecasts be SOOO off sometimes?

We packed up camp in the pouring rain and headed home instead of spending the day on the lake. We took the long way through the forest and across the Mississippi River into Mississippi. It actually turned out to be a fun drive. We drove along Crowley's Ridge on dirt roads. We came across a bunch of bamboo plants, and we stopped so Matt could cut down a souvenir.
We checked out Helena, Arkansas. (Matt grew up in Helena, Montana). And of course, we paused to pose by the Mighty Mississippi in Mississippi.

9 comments:

sinika said...

What a cool cotton field! Fun that you've added two more states!

Emilee said...

I love that Matt had a saw handy so he could cut down some bamboo. What a way to be prepared.

Clayton & Kayley Anderson said...

I love the cotton pictures, so pretty! That's too bad about the noisy campers and the bad weather, but that's really cool that you've knocked out two more states! Way to go. : )

brittani c. said...

Those cotton fields are pretty sweet. I wonder what it would feel like if you hurled your body into the sea of cotton balls.

Sharon Beesley said...

i still giggle when i see you camping. i've come to accept it, but i can still giggle, right?
it's crazy how many of my friends have blogged/facebooked about camping with their little ones. sounds like a nightmare to me. but you all seem to handle it quit well. high fives.

Lindsay said...

I know, right? Me camping!?!

I think you should take your kiddos. You would love it. Especially if you had someone like Matt camping with you. He does all of the hard work and makes it possible for me to kick back and relax.

JoJo said...

did Willa take the pictures of you and Matt?

Elizabeth said...

I cannot beleive you have visited almost all 50 states together! that's awesome! Willa is such a cutie!!!

Unknown said...

I've never really seen cotton before...pretty cool!