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.

We came back to the Narrows in the truck, pulling the boat. The camp site had not been used all winter, so pine straw and pollen were everywhere. Kay used the electric blower and rake to make the site neat and tidy, but took time out to ponder.

Kay made taco soup for Carma, Gerald, Dean, and Geraldine for supper on Tuesday or Wednesday. Geraldine is Gerald’s twin sister. We didn’t fish today, but Donald drives Gerald’s truck pulling the boat while Gerald sits in the boat, and together they get the boat in and out of the lake with Donald backing the trailer in and Gerald backing the boat off the trailer; we both help processing the fish they catch. Kay acted as gopher running between Gerald cleaning fish and Carma and Donald cleaning up the filets after they had been skinned and deboned every day. We roasted weiners by the fire and also roasted marshmallows.

We awoke to a beautiful morning at Maumelle Park. After our first coffee, we took a walk and noticed a restored old truck with wooden camper shell. During the walk we remarked on how pretty and clean Maumelle Park was, but decided to move to Narrows Campground on Greers Ferry Lake. After a breakfast of eggs, ham, and biscuit (we finally got our breakfast), we readied DunnGone for the short journey to Narrows Campground on Greer’s Ferry Lake.

We departed Maumelle Park at 11:00 AM, with Kay headed to do some minor shopping and me headed to Narrows Campground. We arrived about the same time, set up in a site that was designed backwards, i.e. electrical on the right and picnic table and firepit on left, so we just pulled in frontways. By doing this we were level as well. We hooked up everything, set up the satellite dish, paid our fees, and headed home to Norfork for the night to meet some other obligations.

Kay and I slept late, had our coffee, and drove to the nearest Wal-Mart for some groceries and a Sunday paper. Our breakfast plans were to have eggs, ham, and biscuits. Upon returning to DunnGone, my sister, Carma, called to say she and her husband, Gerald, were on their way to meet us to attend Uncle Bill Brady’s memorial service. Uncle Bill was married to Aunt Lucena for 58 years, and passed away April 21. Kay and I scrapped plans for breakfast and got dressed for the memorial service. Carma and Gerald met us at the campground, and we drove to Bismarck, stopping at Cracker Barrel for breakfast. The wait was untenable, so no food! We arrived at Uncle Francis’ place for a brief visit with he and Aunt Elsie. Uncle Francis is Dad’s 89 year old brother; his wife, Elsie, is 85. They were doing surprising well given their ages. We talked them into following us to cousin Steve’s place and paid our respects to Aunt Lucena, Steve, and Jan. It was the first time I had seen my first cousins, Steve and Jan, in over 20 years.  The
. The memorial service for their dad was very nice, held on Steve’s farm. Uncle Bill was a good man and loved the outdoors. During the memorial service we saw several mallards fly over, and saw a bald eagle flying away in the distance! Uncle Bill would have approved of the service. Following the service, we adjourned to the pole barn for sandwiches and visiting. Though it was a sad occasion, it was good to visit with Aunt Lucena, Dad’s youngest sister at 80 years old, Aunt Elsie, and Uncle Francis. Out of 11 adult brothers and sisters, Uncle Francis, Dad, and Aunt Lucena are the only ones left!

We awoke Saturday to another nice day. Maumelle is so close to city activities, but seems so far away with the Maumelle River flowing into the Arkansas River adjacent to the campground. The campground hosts many fulltimers making their way from Florida, Texas, and Arizona, as well as native fulltiming Arkansans returning "home" for medical appointments, visits with family, etc.

Kay had another full day of social activities. Her bookclub graciously hosted a wedding shower for Karyn this afternoon in Jacksonville and Karyn made away with lots of loot.

Our resident transient oriole made a couple of visits this afternoon, otherwise the campground was pretty quiet.

Kay returned to DunnGone about 7:30 p.m. and we were surprised with a visit from Ron and Ginger Hicks. Seems like we go a long time without seeing them, then we get to see them twice in a week. We sure wish they would come to DunnHill more!

What a great night’s sleep! We are so blessed to be able to sleep well in DunnGone (the name of our motorhome, in case you forgot). After a couple of cups of great French pressed coffee, we walked the entire campground, and it is spectacular. DunnGone was not on a premium site, but all sites in the park are well maintained with lots of space in between.

During our walk, we observed the many different motor homes and RVs and, of course, many different towed (toads) vehicles. We’re in the market for a toad and we are inherently interested in who’s driving what behind their motor homes. We salvaged (or is it scavenged) more wood for the phantom fire. As we returned to the camp site, Kay heard a songbird with a beautiful tune. It was an oriole–our first sighting of the season. They are so colorful, passing through our area the last couple weeks in April.
Seems like cities never change. We did a shopping trip in the big city of Little Rock with stops at Camping World, Sam’s Club, and Subway. The help at Subway was so pitiful compared to what we have in Mountain Home; we had forgotten how incompetent some of the folks are in big cities (big to us). As we were eating the sandwiches at our site, we met the lady next door. Seems she plays guitar and another RVer friend of hers sings Southern Gospel. We urged them to conduct a jam session. Hmmm…wouldn’t this be neat around the phantom fire with roasted marshmallows, s’mores…oh yeah, momentarily forgot about the diet.
We re-leveled DunnGone, and Kay was off for the first of several social activities including getting her hair done and having dinner with "old" teaching friends. After getting a cut and color job on her hair, Kay picked up Pam and they went to Shotgun Dan’s in Sherwood to meet Betty Wallis and Lois Kirkpatrick. Lois had come in for a scholarship audition for one of her former students at OBU and stayed over so she could attend Karyn’s shower on Saturday. The ‘old girls’ as they called themselves had a quick reunion and visit. This group taught together over 25 years ago in the Jacksonville Schools. Kay returned home to DunnGone about 10 PM.