Fayetteville, Arkansas

We left Fort Smith a little after 11:00 and arrived at Fayetteville around 12:30.  Here we will visit with my youngest son Ryan and meet his girlfriend Kate.   Yesterday afternoon we had a lovely visit with Marcia’s Cousin Sophie, and then later dinner with her and her son James.  James’ wife was unable to make it due to work.  Sophie is turning 90 in a couple of months, but she has a mind as sharp as a tack, but she says her body hurts as if she is stuck with tacks all over.  It is a real pain to get old, that is for sure.

    

We are at the Southgate RV Park on the south side of Fayetteville.  This is the third time we have tried to stay here, first time we actually are able to stay.  First time was back in 2012 during the Bikes, Blues & BBQ weekend.  Oops, should have looked that one up.  Next time was last year when Ryan graduated from the UofA, but the motorhome (American Eagle) broke down in Pine Bluff and was in the Cummins Shop in Little Rock for a couple of weeks…that lead to us getting the Jayco Melbourne last year.  Today there is nothing going on in Fayetteville, and we are sitting in the RV park just a few minutes from where Ryan lives.

Looks to me like someone is anxious to go out for another walk.  Can’t blame them with all this nice weather going on around here….a stark difference to last weekends Tornadic conditions.  In fact, the owner of the park, Jerry, said that one of the campers had just bought his trailer from the RV Dealership in Mayflower which is now “history”.  Knowing what it is like to have it there one minute, and up in smoke the next….we sure feel sorry for that dealership and the town of Mayflower. 

Speaking of Tornados, we are just on the outskirts of Tornado Ally….and will be driving right through it in the near future.  With that in mind, and looking at the great forecast for the next five days, we made a major decision yesterday, one that we had been contemplating for a few days now.  I rescheduled my Doctor’s visit for late October, and we will be headed “west” after church on Sunday.  Not only will this be safer weather wise, but it will give us more time to make the drive to Salt Lake City, more time to spend with Stephanie after we get there, and enough time to get to Sacramento on Friday in time for mom’s BBQ on Saturday. 

At 4:30 we met Ryan and his girl friend Kate over at Logan’s Steakhouse for a nice, long dinner.  This was the first time I met Kate, and she is a nice, young lady.  I had met her sister a few years ago, both are very nice.  Ryan was “friends” with her sister for a number of years before he started dating Kate this past fall.  Don’t know how things are going to work out….he is headed off to Chiropractic School up in the Kansas City area in August, and she graduates from UofA in December and then plans to attend grad school at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, not too far from Fayetteville.  It was nice “finally” getting to meet Kate, I had heard much about her.  At the end of dinner I asked her if there was anything she wanted to ask me about my son.  She said, “Well, I have been waiting all night for you to say something to embarrass him….”.  Hmmm, don’t know where she would ever get the idea that I would embarrass Ryan.     I shared a few, non embarrassing items from his childhood, and left it at that.  I sure hope their relationship can last through both of their Grad Schools.