We arrived in Arkansas around 5:30 Monday afternoon; the leaves haven't turned there yet, but the day was perfect for a motorcycle ride. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip. As we arrived at Hub Motorcycle Resort, the owner, Randall, smiled and waved at us from the balcony above the office, outside the quarters he shares with his wife, Debbie.
"We need a place to set up our tent," I said.
"Anywhere over there on the grass is fine," he said. "Just pull your bike down there and have at it."
We love our tent. It's easy to put up and light-weight to carry. This is only the third time we've assembled it, but we didn't have any problem. Notice our portable toilet there in front of the tent (minus the bag that holds the precious contents): You might remember there was a mishap in Iowa with the travel toilet. Because we were the only tent-campers at the resort, we set the thing outside the tent during our stay (we'd only be using it after dark; there was a rest room for us in an unused motel room). Looking back, that was rather silly: It made us get out of bed, bring our aging bodies to a standing position, unzip the door of the tent, and go outside into the frigid night. Oh well, we managed; and this trip, there were no potty incidents.
Perhaps you know, however, that tent camping is one of those adventures that carries with it certain inherent problems no matter how carefully you plan a trip. This is why so many people say, "I hate camping; Motel 6 is as close to camping as I want to be."
These would be people who retired with a much larger 401K than Cliff and I.
Because it gets dark so early, after we had eaten our tuna salad sandwiches I got the air mattress blown up and we turned in. It didn't take long to figure out our air mattress had a slow leak. It was perhaps a half-hour later that we were laying on the cold, hard, rocky Arkansas ground.
We had a similar problem on our last night in Iowa this summer, but Cliff was sure there was no leak: he had put water on it and tried his best to make it leak and never found any sign. It's the same air mattress I used in the cabin, so it's been around awhile; I suggested at the time we buy a new one, but Cliff said no. I refrained from reminding him of this, though.
So, we're laying on the ground and Cliff was graphically stating his opinion of camping. Trying to lighten the situation, I said to him, "Remember that song, "Would You Lay With Me In a Field of Stone"?
"Don't sing it to me," says Cliff. "You don't want to hear my answer."
He eventually slept some, but I'm pretty sure I never once drifted off to dreamland. Folks, that was the most miserable night I've spent since giving birth to my babies. If I rolled over on my side, my hip ground into the rocks. Laying on my back, (which normally never bothers me) my back ached in places where I didn't know I had places; also my knees, both the real one and the artificial one. As the night went on, it got worse. I remembered the old story in the New Testament about Paul being on a sinking ship where the crew "dropped four anchors and prayed for daylight." I felt like I'd dropped a lot more than four anchors; I prayed for daylight and thanked God that at least Cliff was getting some sleep. Then I recalled Paul and Silas in prison singing hymns, but I knew if I started singing hymns I'd be getting a divorce before long. Toward morning, I found out if I turned onto my stomach, the only thing that hurt was my neck (because of having to turn my head to one side or the other). So I relieved my pain that way.
We started getting ourselves ready for the coming day around daybreak, knowing that at some point we'd have to hit a Walmart and buy a new air mattress; neither of us was willing to repeat this experience!
The temperature got down into the low forties, but thank goodness we managed to stay warm enough in our sleeping bags. I made coffee, we ate some cold cereal, and we started our day.
In the past we have taken Iris to the Kennel at her veteranarian's office. There's a nice lady tending the dogs there, and unless it's a busy holiday weekend, she plays with the dogs individually and spends time with them. Iris loves her and is always glad to see her.
However, the oldest grandson and his girl friend insisted they would be glad to watch our dog, and wanted no money for doing so. So we took Iris to their house on Thursday night. Friday morning after Cliff got up, he said, "It's the weirdest thing: I can feel that the dog isn't here, and I'm not even a dog person."
"It's that feeling," I told him, "that makes me go looking for another dog as soon as one dies."
We had done nothing toward getting ready for our trip, so I got the suitcases and the cooler inside and started getting everything ready to go. It was probably ten o'clock or later when we left. But then, it was only a little over two hundred miles to our destination.
We had our picnic lunch in Clarinda, Iowa, before we went on to Guss. As we passed through Villisca, we saw a sign advertising the house where a family was brutally slain in 1912. Although my parents were once the telephone operators in that town, I never heard of the axe murders until recently while doing a Google search for Villisca. Seems to me like after a hundred years, they could let it go.
By the time we ate our lunch and then spent time in Guss, it was after 3 P.M., and I suggested we find a place to camp and go to Avoka on Saturday. Thanks to the GPS, we learned that there were three Iowa state parks within thirty miles of Avoka; one was near the town of Lewis, and only a twenty-minute drive from the tractor museum.
We had never set up our new tent before, but with me reading instructions and Cliff doing most of the work, it wasn't difficult.
By the way, we love the tent. After the first time, we were able to put it up or take it down in about ten minutes. We can easily stand upright in the middle part of it. Oh, and here's something: A thunderstorm came through, leaving about three-quarters of an inch of rain, and NO RAIN GOT IN THE TENT! The next day we learned that Avoka received four inches of rain from the same storm, and we counted our blessings. I'm pretty sure the tent wouldn't have been able to stay dry under that kind of deluge.
Click on the picture to make it readable. Lewis, Iowa, according to this sign, is where Kool-Aid originated. I certainly consumed my share of Kool-aid when I was a kid. It used to come in a double packet: the outside, which had the picture of a pitcher of Koolaid and the writing; and the inside, which was just a plain brown envelope. Back then, bread didn't come in plastic, either. It was wrapped in some kind of cellophane paper. But I digress.
We started to realize we were lacking a lot of necessary items, some we had at home and some that would have to be purchased. Cliff started making a list of those things. By the time our trip was over, there were two pages of items listed.
I casually fastened one of the biodegradable bags onto our potty and we were ready for a good nights sleep. I get up frequently during the night for bathroom trips, and Cliff always gets up at least once. The whole purpose of this potty chair was to keep us from having to make nocturnal trips to the public toilets.
This was going to be the maiden voyage for our travel toilet; I was confident it would work just fine.
We slept like babies on the air mattress; I got up and went to the travel toilet numerous times, and always went straight back to sleep.
We were awakened by the sound of cows mooing. Evidently one mama cow had gotten through a fence and was wandering through the campground; her baby was still in the pasture and wanted his mommy. So the bellowing and bawling was intense. Oh well, at least the storms of the night were past and we were dry. Cliff used the travel toilet for the first time, then went back to bed while the coffee was making.
I was so happy with our travel toilet.
But of course you know, don't you, that there's more to this story?
I decided to avoid an early-morning trip to the bathroom and used the potty one more time, and the bag came unfastened. My "casual" fastening of the bag onto the seat had been a little too quick and casual, and the bag was not well secured on one side. My final offering of urine was just enough to make it give way, and PLOP, down went the bag and out came the contents.
Oh, it gets worse.
The tent wasn't in a perfectly level spot, and the air mattress was downhill from the flow of urine. Cliff grabbed his discarded T-shirt and tossed it on the impending flood, yelling, "Get a towel!"
That wasn't an easy task; the car was locked, and then I had to dig around to find the bag containing the towels.
Folks, take it from me: mopping up adult urine is not how you want to start your day. Especially when you haven't even had a drink of coffee yet.
The only form of soap I had brought along was dish soap. After getting all the urine soaked up with a towel, I put plenty of Dawn in some water and started mopping the entire floor of the tent. I wiped off the bottom of the still-inflated air mattress (plastic, thank goodness) and then shoved it out the door for further cleansing.
We tossed the T-shirt and the towel in the garbage, because who wants to haul something around that's been soaked in urine?
I really wasn't satisfied that we were rid of the urine smell completely, so when we found a Walmart we bought some Mr. Clean. That night when we set the tent up once more, I used that on the floor and the bottom of the air mattress, and finally there was a good, clean smell in our home-away-from-home.
Oh, and the next night? Not only did we make sure the bag was fastened onto the seat firmly, but I took a container and squeezed it in under the bag, just in case. And put it in the tent on the downhill side of the bed.
Next morning things went well, with only one little glitch: Evidently the "biodegradable" bags start degrading really fast, because a few drops of urine had actually dripped into the container I had put beneath it. There didn't seem to be a hole, although as you can imagine, I didn't inspect it very closely.
Our little travel toilet is the right height, it's sturdy, it folds flat and gets tucked away in a bag. But we will NEVER count on those bags holding up overnight.
And now you know the rest of the story.
I can hear it now: "What? You're not done talking about shopping?"
Listen, any shopping I get to do beyond grocery shopping is a memorable experience for me!
As we left Sam's Club, I said to Cliff, "Since the day is shot anyhow, we should go to Bass Pro Shop and look at the tents; if we're going to go camping when you retire, we need to find a tent we can stand up in. Besides, we need to check the place out, and with the Chiefs playing, maybe it won't be too crowded."
Bass Pro only recently came to the Kansas City area; we've been to the Springfield location in the past, but hadn't visited this one. We'd heard horror stories of crowds and high prices.
"OK, so Bass Pro is that way," Cliff said, motioning toward the east.
"No, I'm pretty sure it's in the direction of Kansas City," I told him. "It's west."
So Cliff headed south. Seriously.
We circled this way and that way, with a few u-turns and Cliff using some colorful language, before we finally arrived at our destination half an hour later. The place was not crowded at all.
Most of the tents we found were either not tall enough, or far too big for us; we don't need a four-room tent, thank you very much. In fact, there was only one tent that seemed right for us. It's six feet tall at the peak.
I took a picture of the box so I'd have the brand and name of the tent, because I wanted to go home and do some research. It's the Columbia Bugaboo II Family tent.
I must have spent two hours reading feedback from people who had purchased this tent, first on the Bass Pro site, then on Amazon.com. The price is the same on both websites, with free shipping from Amazon.com.
There were dozens of glowing reviews, some cautioning to be sure and use the sealant that comes with the tent so it won't leak at the seams. I'd say 90% of the feedback was positive; I was impressed.
But two of the negative comments trouble me: these were people who stated that the poles shatter easily. This made me visualize me and Cliff, with a motorcycle as our transportation, being stranded in the middle of the night in a rainstorm in a collapsed tent. If you're in a car, you can sleep in the seats in an emergency. With a motorcycle, I guess the only option would be to take refuge in the campground toilet.
Just how much of an adventurer am I, really?
It's food for thought.
By the way, did you know that Bass Pro Shop allows dogs inside the store?
We looked at some really nifty camping devices, discussed whether canned heat is hot enough to make a pot of coffee, and then went home, where Cliff watched the Chiefs win on our DVR.
That's it for our Sunday shopping day.
