WINTER GETAWAY 2026 - Day 5 - Craighead Forest in Jonesboro, Arkansas

We must say, the sunshine streaming in just about every day is so delightful. We open up the windshield pleated shades and are greeted by this gorgeous sight.

Getting up and starting some coffee, looking out the sunny windows and thinking about what we are going to do for the day?

It warmed up, so Steve took out the lawn chairs and we enjoyed some beautiful vitamin D soaking into our skin. We have been waiting for this warmth for a long time. Just setting out in a lawn chair is a delightful pleasure in the sunshine. It doesn't take a lot to make us happy.

Little Nickydoodle has been looking forward to his walks around the campground. He also enjoys being on his rope and hanging out under our lawn chairs.

Steve said the best part about being outside this time of year is that there are NO BUGS!! 

We spent most of the morning outside in the lawn chairs. Even though it was still in the '60s, it was going to reach 71 today. No complaints about that. Nick of course had various ideas of needing to play with toys or go for another walk... He gets quite persistent.

We did have a little mishap the other day. The wind had grabbed the door out of Steve's hand. This is the little plastic lever for the screen door. It serves two purposes: the first is that it allows you to open the screen door and secure it when the main door is wide open. It latches tight to the door frame. The second purpose is that it snaps tight backwards to the main door --- so when you do it open the main door the screen door comes with it at the same time. So it's a pretty important piece of equipment, but the dang thing is made out of cheap plastic! Snapped right in half.

In the meantime we have this little barrel catch on the screen door that can hold it closed. We use this if we are napping and want to keep the door securely locked from the inside but still get fresh air. It also prevents the dog from accidentally jumping up against it and popping it open. That's never happened with Nick, but with some of our other dogs in the past it has on our other motorhomes. We always install a little barrel catch just inside the screen door to keep out anybody we don't want in either...  But it's not enough to keep Steve out! 

Actually, we can just push the slider over and reach into unhook the barrel catch if need be. It's pretty handy.

So with the barrel catch in place, Steve removed the broken screen door latch. He took his tiniest drill bit and carefully drilled two coordinating holes. One on the lever, and one on the latch. He lined them up perfectly with a strong piece of heavy duty paper clip that snipped off with his pliers. 

The next step WOULD BE to securely glue both pieces together with the metal bar. That would be IF we had our Gorilla Super Glue along! But when I removed everything that could possibly freeze last fall, I removed the glue. And that was one thing I really didn't think about when I made my list to pack back into the rig before we left. My mistake.

We also decided to hedge our bets, and look for a replacement door latch. This is a really odd one and there are no exact matches available other than going directly through the Lichtstein dealer back in Iowa. But to replace it with the plastic one again is just asking for it to break again. It's a pretty common problem. And it's quite pricey from them, including shipping. In the $50 range. 

We took careful measurements and decided to try to order this one from Amazon. The added feature is that it is all metal construction! This is the first time we have ever ordered from Amazon and have it shipped to either a box or a counter of a local business. We decided to try it. We selected an address in Jonesboro that was a counter of a phone store. Triple S Phone was only about 3 miles away, we could drive there on our bicycles when the order came in!

The order came the very next day. I will write on our next blog about our bicycle ride to go and get it. Oh boy!

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In the meantime, we will finish up this day with the beautiful scenic view while gazing upon from our lawn chairs.

We ended up the evening with a tasty dinner of baked pork tenderloin, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes.

We snuggled up to watch a YouTube channel that we enjoy called:

Art We There Yet?

 https://youtube.com/@artwethereyet?si=bc-XwpzbP133BW2H

It is about 2 artists in a converted school bus, traveling from Alaska to Argentina.  They are amazingly talented and very informational about the areas they explore. From geology to history, from great photography to cinematic video displays. We really enjoy their channel.   

We decided that since we were camping with electricity, we picked up this handy little popcorn popping bowl for in the microwave. Steve loves Orville Redenbacher's White Popcorn in the jar. What a great combination to cozy up and watch TV for the evening.

Nordic Ware 14 Cup Plastic Microwave Quick Pop Popcorn Popper, Red

Walmart microwave popcorn popper Bowl

Sometimes we just have to curl up and do normal things rather than rush rush rush from one place to another. I'm really glad we are staying here for a whole week.

Here is the You Tube that goes along with today's blog:

0 miles traveled today 

764 miles total so far