Grandkid’s Summer 2013 Vacation #2–Update #9

We left the Bus at about 9:30AM, picked up Rachel, and arrived at the park at about 10:15AM.  With our season passes, we walked past people standing in line to buy tickets, and got set up fairly quick and easily.

We let Matthew and Aubrey have the run of the park to ride what they wanted and as many times as they wanted.  Patsy and I headed to the small kids wading pool, and soon to the wave pool.  We stayed until about 1:30PM and when the lines began to get long and the temperatures got warm, we chose to leave and return to the Bus for lunch and some rest…….. especially, a nap for Rachel.

After napping and lunches, we returned to the water park at about 4:30PM and stayed until closing at 8:00PM.

Here are some wading pool pictures, mostly of Rachel…..

All three of the kids were in the wading pool for a short while, so I got another shot at a “Grammie” photo……

While at the wave pool, I took a picture with the three of them……

And we finished the day back at the wading pool making the water fountains squirt high into the air…..

Because Deanne was a little sick (thinks it was bad shrimp po-boy at the Discovery Museum, Rachel had a chance to sleepover in the Bus with Matthew and Aubrey!!  They had a lot of fun!  Here are a couple of pictures…….

After we got up and going on Sunday morning, we unhooked the Bus, and drove the Bus to a Wal-Mart near Deanne’s house, and parked it for a couple of hours while we went to deliver Rachel home, and to have a good bye lunch with Deanne.  In spite of Grammie’s objections, I let Rachel ride up front with Matthew……. buckled-in of course!!

Rachel really enjoyed riding in the ‘front’ seat!!  Mike was at the new house working, and we wanted to get on the road, so we left about 2:00PM, and began the 560 mile trek back to Victoria!

Grandkid’s Summer 2013 Vacation #2–Update #8

Friday was a rainy day in Little Rock, so Patsy and Deanne decided to take the kids to the Arkansas Museum of Discovery in downtown Little Rock.  I stayed home, but the kids said that they had a good time.  Patsy took some pictures to prove it, and here they are………..

I think in the third picture, Aubrey was comparing her bed in the Bus to something that could be worse!!!

Rachel was really having fun!!!

Later in the day, it was lunch time and they had it at the Museum.  Rachel gave Deanne the hint by feeding a cow!!!

The kids coloring while waiting on their food………

In the afternoon, we kept Rachel at the Bus with Matthew and Aubrey while Deanne met Mike at the new house, and they did some concrete staining work.  At about 6:00PM, the clouds cleared, and we headed back to the water park for a couple of hours.

Before we left, I took the opportunity to capture some “Grammie” photos of our three grandkids.  For once, there were so many good ones that I could not narrow it down to one, so here are four of them………

More tomorrow…………..

Grandkid’s Summer 2013 Vacation #2–Update #7

We left the Crater of Diamonds State Park at about 10:30AM on Thursday morning, and drove back to the North Little Rock Riverside RV Park.  We did stop at Benton, AR to top of the fuel tank with the ‘cheaper’ diesel for the trip back home starting Sunday afternoon.

We got back to Little Rock at about 1:00PM, and got the Bus set up in the park, ate lunch and rested a while, then at about 3:00PM, we headed back to the Wild River Country Water Park with our season passes.  The kids have their favorite rides, but like them all!!   It is a well laid-out park, and it is kept up.  We all like it.  One of their favorite rides is the “Vertigo”, which is a long tube ride that dumps you into a centrifuge type vessel and then drops you into 7’ of water.  Here is a picture:

They also enjoyed the faster (red, blue and green) water slides…… including one called the “Cyclone” which they road many times:

Here’s Aubrey exiting the ‘cyclone’:

We al[ liked the Wave Pool.  Here are a couple of pictures:

When we arrived, the park was pretty full with about 8 school buses in the parking lot.  At about 5:00PM the buses started to load up and other people began to leave, and the lines almost disappeared for the rides.  We closed the park down at 8:00PM with the kids pretty wore out due to all the fun and climbing they did.  They really got to ride on a lot of slides.

We stopped by KFC on the way back to the Bus and picked up a bucket of chicken tenders, potato wedges and Cole slaw!  While we were sitting at the KFC, Matthew asked me, ‘When’s the next trip???”.  They are having a good time!

It was another good day.

Grandkid’s Summer 2013 Vacation #2–Update #6

This posting will cover our two-day trip to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, AR. 

We left our campground bright and early………. well at least it was bright at 10:30AM, and drove down I-30 and exited the interstate highway at Arkadelphia.  We then did about 60 miles of back smaller roads to the park.

We made a stop at Benton, AR, where the Wal-Mart Murphy fuel station had diesel for $3.53/gal.  With my Pen-Fed credit card discount 5% on fuel purchases, the effective price was $3.36/gal.  With a 150 gallon fuel tank, the savings can be significant when the truck stops are advertising diesel at $3.89/gal.  Anyway, I stuffed as much as I could into my fuel tank……… and I bought a couple of Powerball tickets for the $166,000,000 pot drawing…….. you never know when you will get lucky!!!

We arrived at the park around 1:00PM and got set up in a site.  I had to move around a little bit so that the satellite system would pick up a signal with all the tall trees in the park.  Here is the sign at the entrance, and the kids are working on some milk shakes that we got in Murfreesboro!

Here is a couple of pictures of our site and the laundry/shower building in our area…… neither of which we needed or used.

The two attractions in the park are the ‘diamond mine’ and the small water park.  The mine is on the side of a hill and they plow it every so often to bring new soil and “diamonds” to the surface. 

We had thought about hunting for diamonds on Wednesday morning and going to the water park in the afternoon.  However, we endured a heck of a thunderstorm on Tuesday night resulting in about 7 inches of rain.  This would have washed a lot of diamonds to low places on the hillside, but it also resulted in a very muddy field!!  We skipped the diamond hunt, and spent most of Wednesday afternoon in the water.

Here are some more water park pictures………

and closing with a similar sign from inside the park as at the entrance……

Tomorrow, Thursday, we will pack up and drive back to Little Rock.