Camping with the Corolla

It had been 10 weeks since we embarked upon our journey as a 1 car family, so we felt it was time for a family celebration.  What better way to celebrate than to load the Corolla up and go camping?  We chose one of our favorite places, Petit Jean State Park.  There are a couple of teepees that you can rent there, which sounded good for several reasons. 

1)     We wouldn’t have to pack a tent in the trunk of the car.

      2)    The kids have been studying about Native Americans.
      3)    The teepee came with a canoe!
      4)    None of us had ever slept in a teepee before.

So we packed up the Corolla’s trunk to the nth degree and headed out.  In order for it all to fit in our trunk we had to incur some costs that included buying a smaller cooler and ditching two of our bulky, older sleeping bags for a couple of lighter, more compact, new ones.  

We arrived at Petit Jean at 5:20 pm, which was 20 minutes past closing time for the camping registration office.  We went and checked out our teepee and found that it had 4 wooden bed frames with rope netting as support.  The pads for the beds were locked up in a large wooden box inside the teepee.  The only problem is that we didn’t have the key to get into the box!!  I imagined my poor family sleeping on the ropes in sleeping bags and how they would tell the story for years about the one time that Dad was 20 minutes late for something it turned out to be the worst night of their lives.  “Hey Dad, remember that one time when you ruined my life?”  Krystal began inquiring about any nearby lodging options.  (I thought that maybe she wasn’t excited about the teepee’s rustic accommodations and was looking for an easy way out.)  I decided to drive the family up to Mather’s Lodge, where Petit Jean’s cabin reservations are handled.  They were open (whew!) and best of all…..they had the key for our teepee!!!  We moved our gear in and set up camp next to peaceful Lake Bailey.

Keep in mind that we haven’t gone camping in five years.  Why?  I don’t know.  We used to do it all the time when the girls were little, but haven’t gone since before Jack was born.  If I have anything to say about the matter, which is debatable, we will go more often.  There’s nothing like camping to make great family memories.  For example, the last time we were at Petit Jean camping, the girls were between 2 and 5 years old and Lauren still remembers a snake swimming across Cedar Creek as we were hiking across the bridge.  Lauren and Katy both remember watching a road runner catch lizards at the Petit Jean lookout.  I’m getting old, but I remember those things as well as many others.  But I digress….we got the campfire going, ate some s’mores and then bedded down in our teepee.  The half-moon lit up the night sky and the canvas of our tent as we dozed off to the sounds of nature around us. 

I wish that I could say we got a great night’s sleep, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I think I would’ve preferred sleeping on the ground to the wooden frames with rope netting (not to mention the incredibly noisy geese).  We awoke at 7:00 am and had breakfast.  After we were fully awake, we decided to tackle the Cedar Falls Trail, which is a strenuous trail that has steep switchbacks that lead you down the mountainside and then back up again.  The payoff at the halfway point is the longest continuously flowing waterfall in Arkansas.  It’s a two mile down and back trail that we hiked with the girls the last time we were at Petit Jean.  Which led Krystal and I to reminisce and wonder what in the world we were thinking doing that when they were so little?  I remember carrying Katy up the mountain switchbacks on my shoulders. 

After one mile of hiking we made it to the falls and found that “continuously flowing” could also mean a few trickles of water spilling off the mountainside.  Still, they were the longest trickles in the state of Arkansas!  We had some snacks and replenished our liquids and headed back up to the trail head.  The trip back up was daunting and pushed us all to our physical limits.  I got to carry Jack (32 pounds) on my shoulders up the mountain this time.  I was pleased to find out that I’m in better shape than I was a few years ago!

We loaded up in the Corolla and headed to the Petit Jean Lookout.  It was a beautiful day and we watched vultures soar above and below us as we listened to cattle bellow in the fields far below us.  I read the Legend of Petit Jean (Little John) from a plaque as the girls listened intently.  The story is that a young French girl disguises herself as a young boy and poses as a cabin boy, so that she can accompany her fiancé on his excursion to the new world.  Of course, her fiancé doesn’t have a clue and her identity is only discovered later as they are preparing to head back to France and she comes down with a strange illness that leads to a coma.  She croaks and is buried.  The plaque presents the story much more eloquently.      

The afternoon activities started with Lauren and Katy going with me for their first canoe ride.  It was a sunny day with a little bit of wind and I think all three of us could’ve taken a nap on the water.  After our excursion, we all headed to the Rock Cave Trail.  It’s a half mile trail that is much easier than our earlier hike.  The Rock House Cave contains some cave paintings and there are some really cool “turtle rocks” along the way to the cave.  The cave was large and everyone was impressed by its size.  However, the faint cave paintings along the back wall did not impress the girls as much as I had hoped.  I thought they were pretty cool! 

After the hike we headed back to civilization and had some ice cream at the Outpost, a folksy pit stop just outside of the state park. 

If you’ve read this far you will find this next remark hard to believe.  After all of this activity the kids still seemed to be full of energy!  We took them to a playground at the park to burn off some energy, while we sat and relaxed.  We then headed back to the teepee and threw a few rocks into Lake Bailey, which was Jack’s favorite pastime.  I tried to show the girls how to skip rocks and how to pick out one that’ll skip.  They tried and tried and one of them (who will remain nameless) got a few of them to skip at least once.  Check off that rite of passage! 

We built a fire and had hotdogs for dinner with s’mores for dessert.  We slept a little more soundly the second night, mostly from exhaustion. 

We awoke at around 7:00 again and had breakfast.  We packed up the Corolla and left for home around 9:00.  We had to stop by the Petit Jean outlook one last time.  On the way home we stopped by one of our favorite eating establishments…The Bulldog in Bald Knob.  I recommend the Double Bacon Cheeseburger.

We had an awesome time and will definitely be going back to visit Petit Jean again soon.  If you haven’t been there, I suggest a trip in the next few weeks, when the trees are turning autumn colors.  If you haven’t been camping in a while, I suggest that too.  There’s something about spending time with your family outdoors that creates indelible memories. 

We’re living proof that you don’t have to have a 14 mpg 8 passenger SUV to pull off a camping trip with 3 kids!