So, Allan, Buster and I are doing MITO again this year and will be tent camping.

We were a little later than we wanted getting out of town because we had to go back twice; once for our plastic money and next for Allan’s jackets ?

A few hours into our trip north both of our phones warned that we had used 90% of our data for the month  and we were only one day into a new data cycle.  How could this be?  A couple phone calls later, Verizon credited us with 8 GB to hold us over since it had been an apparent glitch of some kind and we very very thankful for this kindness.

Other than the data scare, had a great drive up. Beautiful clear blue skies, no bad traffic, a little more wind than we would have liked seeing as how Buster had his hat on. Buster’s hat is his big storage container that mounts to the roof rails. We load that up with bulky squishy stuff like the tent, sleeping bags, and pillows.

We have gone on several camping trips over the last year and thought we had gotten pretty good at it. Til it came time to set up the tent.

“Sweetie where are the tent stakes and poles?”

”They’re not in the tent bag?”

”No.”

Uh oh.

Whirlwind trip to the closest Walmart for a new tent.

We really lucked out because we found one that was not only under $100 but also it was supposed to go up in 60 seconds. Challenge on!

Back to the KOA we go with our new tent. Suffice it to say it did not go up in 60 seconds but it did go up pretty quickly. The stakes that came with it were way too flimsy to go into the rock hard  ground of Arkansas but the nice man at the country store loaned us some really good stakes and with those we were able to secure our tent to the ground.

With our housing insecurities resolved it was now time to deal with hunger . Off we go to the Rowdy Beaver Restaurant . Food and service were good.

Back to camp we went. With full bellies we drifted off to sleep.