We awoke to coffee, and were just about ready to begin the rigors of packing when Carma called for their morning pick-up. Though the bass tournament had begun at 7 AM this morning, the parking lot was relatively empty. Wonder if it was all the warning tickets the rangers wrote yesterday? After returning Carma and Gerald to their campsite with 8 fish, we began cleaning and packing and pulled out of the campground at 8:53 AM, stopped for gas in Mountain View (9.1 mpg, all in the mountains), and made it home at about 11 AM. We quickly unpacked and had a brunch of biscuits and ham–Kay also had an egg. We noticed the bird feeders had been swiped down again, and another neighbor said she had had one badly broken. THE BEAR IS BACK!

It’s good to be home again, and wonderful to have internet access after 6 days without it. Where will our next adventure take us?

There’s a big bass tournament going on this weekend and the boats and trailers are jammed packed in this little park—lots of activity and noise. Donald talked to ARCADIS this AM and it’s likely that he is going to be working quite a bit on the project he helped initiate in 1982. Whoops, better go the fishers are back.

We cleaned DunnGone this morning with Kay vacuuming and Donald cleaning the bathroom and floor—it now smells sooooo good. We had an early lunch of left over baked beans mixed with left over smoked turkey sausage and browned ground beef. Kay made a salad and our lunch was quite good. We didn’t get the word on the group lunch at 1:00 PM which consisted of chicken spaghetti and salad. Apparently the decision was made after our early departure from the campfire last night. Oh well. The afternoon was somewhat boring to Donald, and Kay napped. Maybe it’s time to go home…tomorrow. After all, this is our 15th day of camping.

Evenings are most always our favorite time–huddled around the campfire with the other campers. After a pot luck lunch, the evening meal generally consists of roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Of course, with the diet, marshmallows are taboo! Here’s Geraldine with a jumbo marshmallow pie.

The morning started off better than the evening ended, with no rain and partly clear skies. After our first cup of coffee, Kay diced the onion, green pepper, and celery while I cooked bacon. After sauteéing the onion, pepper, and celery, we added the triumvirate to the red beans and began the slow cooking process. Carma called for me to pick them up with the truck and trailer. 

They had managed to catch 23 catfish, with two over 13 pounds, and threw back a bass, a carp, and a buffalo. We butchered and cleaned their fish, after which Kay went with Lin and Tom to Wal-Mart in Clinton. I finished cooking the beans, and cooked the rice and smoked sausage. Karen made coleslaw and pan-fried cornbread, and Carma made creamed corn—what a feast! Kay wanted her picture taken with the two ‘bruiser’ 13 lbers so I took one as earrings and then after they were filleted we took another as earring slabs. She is such a ‘ham’.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the red beans and rice lunch. Dean and Geraldine had to go home to get his ‘meds’ so we saved them a plate each for supper. Tom, Lin, and Kay walked the campground for exercise after our large lunch. Then Kay and I read the paper she picked up at Clinton. Kay went out with Carma and Gerald for the afternoon trot line check. She got to watch them ‘take up a line’ and also to ‘put a line out’. They had hooked a real lollapalooza catfish on the last line—it weighed in at 16 lbs. Of course Kay had another picture taken;  so did Gerald this time!  Hehehehhe!
Jack and Betty arrived and set up camp between the Dunns and Davises. We all sat around the campfire and roasted wieners. Then Lin and Betty came out with a surprise—they had bought the group a special treat in Mexico—flavored, magnum (Texas size) marshmallows. We roasted some and Betty and Geraldine had pictures made trying to eat theirs. The weather turned out beautifully most of the afternoon and evening. Got several calls with good news—Dick Todd is doing great and his medication is working miracles, according to his new nephrologist (kidney doctor) in Springfield, MO, with whom he is well pleased; Ronnie Dunn is tolerating his chemo well and feeling much better; and Donald might be going back to work for ARCADIS, part time, (but still able to take off for extended periods of time) on a project he started with the Corps in 1982. We’ve had Ronnie and Dick in our prayers and God is so good to answer those prayers

We awoke to an overcast morning with nothing on the schedule. Kay and I took a walk around the campground after we enjoyed out coffee/cappuccino. By 8:30 AM the real fishers were back with their ‘catch’. I believe the total was 51 fish—nice blues and channel catfish. Karen’s special was served for lunch—homemade chicken and dumplin’s. We supplemented with English peas, salad, green beans and potatoes, and Geraldine produced a great peach cobbler. Donald’s allergies have really been acting up today—runny nose and a lot of sneezing. We also got a call from one of our neighbors that a bear has been in our subdivision at home—pulling down feeders, guzzling sunflower seeds, and making a nuisance of himself. Remember the April 28 journal entry? We suspected then that perhaps a bear had been in the neighborhood and tore down the feeders, and now we’re pretty sure. By the time the neighbors called the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, folks in Salesville were calling because the bear apparently had moved up the hill. We committed to hosting lunch on Thursday with red beans and rice and smoked sausage so we’re staying til then but I suspect we’ll be heading home as soon as we can pack up after lunch. The weather has been overcast and drizzling most of yesterday and today with small, short patches of sunshine. Rain, sometimes heavy, danced on the roof most of the night.

Lin, Tom, Kay and I offered to host a Mexican brunch today, in honor of Cinco de Maya yesterday. After coffee, Lin and Kay shopped for groceries, returning about the same time as the fishers. We cooked sausage, sautéed onions and peppers, and scrambled eggs into the mixture. Lin made salad, heated Mexican cheese, and Kay made fluff. We heated tortillas, and served this brunch combination buffet style. It was very tasty. After the brunch, some of the group retired around the campfire while others of us napped. I put up the tarp over the picnic table and it began to rain. Kay went out with Carma and Gerald to check their lines and bring in some fish. They thought they were going to be ‘shut out’ but the last two lines provided three fish. We enjoyed a quiet, but somewhat boring evening.

Another great night’s sleep was enjoyed in DunnGone. After coffee in bed, we lounged about for a good part of the morning. It was a beautiful morning. The other campers, absent Tom and Lin and Kay and me, came in from fishing and decided to have a fish fry for lunch. While they were cleaning fish, the mowing crew showed up at the campground and began mowing, weed eating, and blowing sidewalks, etc. and the dust was terrible. We stayed in DunnGone until they finished, then positioned the satellite dish. Lunch was awesome. Lin made salad, Geraldine and Karen fried potatoes with onions, Karen made coleslaw, Donald made baked beans and fried the fish. Needless to say, we didn’t have to eat anything else the rest of the day. We napped, showered, and whiled away the afternoon, visited around the campfire for a couple of hours, and called it a night. It’s entirely possible that we’re pretty lazy.

Donald’s quartet sang at church today. After church we came home, grabbed a bite to eat, repacked DunnGone, and came back to Greer’s Ferry Lake Narrows Campground minus a separate vehicle. We departed home at 3:30 PM arriving at the campground about 5:15 PM; absent a separate vehicle and the boat. It’s more fun to travel together in DunnGone. Kay used the blower to remove dust, pollen, and pine straw; we backed in next to Tom and Lin Hagedorn, leveled, and hooked up to electricity. We like this group—Carma and Gerald, Geraldine and Dean, Karen and Warren, and Lin and Tom—they’re fun and interesting to boot. It’s fun to sit around the campfire and eat hot dogs, roast marshmallows, drink coffee, or eat popcorn. After a brief visit and birthday cake and ice cream (none for me) for Lin’s 60th birthday (April 13), we retired for night, finally reading the Sunday Democrat Gazette.

We woke up and began the job of cleaning/washing/drying DunnGone and Donald’s truck. DunnGone enjoyed washing, waxing, and drying, including window awnings. Then Donald cleaned on the truck and Kay cleaned on the interior of the RV. DunnGone got a good vacuuming, dusting, and hand scrubbing on the floors. Then we unpacked the RV also. Donald cleaned out under the storage compartments. We then began cleaning and vacuuming out the boat. I forgot to mention that the campground at the Narrows had huge tall pine, oak, and hickory trees and an unbelievable amount of pollen and some kind of seed pod that resembles a dried-up worm that got on everything, especially the boat which had its cover removed. After we got the boat clean, we put on the cover and parked it back in its parking spot after Donald moved a huge boulder that was in the way. Kay got the washing going also—camp clothes. We finished about 2:00 PM and were pretty bushed. About then, Carma called and said that the electricity came back on at the Narrows Campground at 8:00 PM Friday night. Saturday was a beautiful cool day and was one of those magical clear days for camping. We figured we had jumped the gun and come home too soon. Karen and Warren Davis came to the Narrows on Saturday, and Tom and Linda were coming on Sunday. We went to a dinner party at the Todds in the evening with a large crowd of folks from church, enjoying great food and good fellowship. We played Apples to Apples and had a blast! We laughed til we hurt!

Donald was on the internet around 9:30 AM and decided to check the weather on the internet on weather.com; then went to National Weather Service and checked the warnings for the area. A tornado was sited at Damascus and headed our way, projected to come over us at 9:50 AM. We called Carma and Gerald and asked them to go to take shelter with us at the bathhouse. Then we called Dean and Geraldine to come. By this time it was raining cats and dogs! The sky was yellow. We hung out in the ‘boys’ bathroom. The campground hosts, a young couple, and a young man from the electric company were all over in the girl’s bathroom. He heard on his radio that Damascus had been hit; also a tornado had touched down on Prior Mountain which is south and west of us. It’s the mountain we came down to get to the Narrows. We stayed at the bathhouse for approximately an hour. The electricity went out. We listened carefully for a ‘train’ sound but we never saw a tornado. We did have a few small hail stones. The weather system looked ominous, though. Finally the rain subsided and the sky began to clear. We heard from several folks on their cell phones that the electric power station that served Greer’s Ferry had been hit and that electricity was out everywhere. We also heard that tornadoes had touched down in Greer’s Ferry which is just across the bridge from us, and several areas between Greer’s Ferry and Drasco. DunnGone has a generator so we could have stayed, but Carma and Gerald and Dean and Geraldine were going home to get their generators. We decided to go home. Kay drove the truck pulling the boat for the first time. Donald was behind driving DunnGone. As we drove from Greer’s Ferry on Arkansas Highway 92 toward Drasco, neither of us could believe the damage we saw—trees down and broken, houses gone with foundations only remaining, trash in trees and on fences, barns slumping over, roofs gone, trailers awry, and power lines down everywhere. We were amazed how much help was already on site, clearing the road, power crews working on the downed lines and poles, neighbors helping neighbors. We were pretty pooped when we got home. We just checked the mail and crashed.

On Thursday morning, we made ham and biscuits for them when they came in from checking their lines. Everybody fishing seems to go out before 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning. We usually aren’t even up! Hehehehehe! On Thursday, we left mid-morning to drive to Bradford to see Donald’s dad, then to Little Rock for some shopping, and finally to Benton to meet Ron and Kaden, Kay’s son and grandson, respectively. We went to Chili’s for a quick supper and then on to the school for Kaden’s band concert. His 6th grade band played 4 songs. They did a good job. Kaden is going to band camp this summer, I think the week that Karyn is getting married. Kaden is 12 years old now and almost as tall as Kay. We came back to the Narrows that night.