Seeing an old friend

Raining again

I got up early at Tommie’s (she’s a fellow insomniac) and we had a couple of cups of coffee before I started packing up. I knew today would be a shorter day, so I wasn’t in too big a hurry. I got rolling around 0815 in the pouring rain.

Premium

I needed gas, but it took me 3 stations to find one with premium! Seems 87 octane is good enough for most people out here. It was frustrating but at least I found some before I ran out!

Scenic byway

I decided to take the Talimena scenic byway, I thought it would be a nice drive. But the weather was awful, pouring buckets all day and so there wasn’t much to see. The whole area was socked in with clouds or fog. The road was plenty twisty, but in the crazy weather, it wasn’t as fun as it could have been. At one point I came upon a deer. That deer decided it wanted to get intimate with Lucille.  It ran along beside us before turning to run right toward me twice! I hit the throttle and out ran it.

My friend

A friend of mine works at the campground at which I chose to stay in Arkansas. We hung out and chatted for an hour or so. He told me bad weather was coming in,  but to me, it was finally getting sunny! He told me if it got too bad to head for the bathrooms. It was a concrete building and I would be safe. I listened to him but thought he might be overreacting. The weather was, at this particular moment, as nice as it had been for the previous 3 days.

The sun is FINALLY shining! 

I’m definitely enjoying the sun. 

Finally relaxing. 

Last

The sun and nice weather lasted until about 2300. Then came the rain. Torrential rain.  Within 15 minutes, water was dripping into my tent. I scrambled to put the sleeping bag in a plastic bag before it got soaked and I spent a miserable night pretzeling myself to try and avoid the endless streams of water coming into the tent.

Needless to say, I was tired and grumpy and wet and cold. But, it’s an adventure!