Devil's Den

This weekend Ken and I took a trip to The Natural State to get away from it all. We went to the Devil's Den State Park near Fayetteville AR for some hiking and camping. The weather was beautiful! A little bit chilly at night, but that just made the fire that Ken made that much more enjoyable. As all camping trips have their own little adventures, our trip did not go according to plan....
The plan was to get up early Saturday morning, get to the park by 10 or so, hike a few miles, have lunch on the trail, hike some more, set up camp, hike the rest of a 14 mile loop, and drive home. Pretty ambitious. We packed up all our gear (so we thought) including 2 1/2 gallons of water. We don't actually leave Tulsa until 11 and we get to the park around 1...oops. We arrive at the visitor center to register for the trail that we selected. Turns out the trail goes into National Forest, and you have to set up camp there, rather than in the state park. Also, they informed us that it is muzzle loader season. We decide to stick with the plan anyways, and it wasn't a problem (thankfully). So we hike a could mile or two, and get past a really steep portion of the trail. We get to the top and I decide it is time to refill my canteen. Ken gets out the big ol' 2 1/2 gallon water jug and gives us both refills. We put the jug back and get on our way. A few feet later, Ken tells me he's "leaking." We pull the water out as fast as we can and two thirds of the water had leaked on the ground and in the rest of the back pack- including all over the sleeping bag! So, we decide we probably shouldn't hike quite as long as we intended (And thank goodness...we are both super sore). So we finally make it to the national forest with just enough light to set up camp. Before we left the apartment, I lovingly packed up some lent from the drier because Ken said it is the best stuff to get a fire going. It was no where to be found (until we got home and it was sitting right on the counter :0) Ken is such a man and managed to get the fire started without the lent (as pictured below). We slept pretty well and had a lovely time. When we made it back to the car, we decided to walk a short ways to a cave called "Devil's Den" and it was so cool. The cave is pretty small and very dark. We made our way in quite a ways- very cool. I'm sorry we don't really have a good picture of that- its kinda hard to explain. The camera was out of batteries by then.

Just for Jennifer, I tried to take a lot of pictures of Kenny since he hasn't had many appearances on the blog thus far :)

One of many funny conversations:
Kristi: "I think Matthew went camping with some friends one time and they brought Whiskey and Rye. They ended up licking the sides of the tent all night long driving everyone crazy"
Ken: [Blank Stare]......"they licked the tent!?!"
Kristi: "yes, the condensation"
Ken: [Blank Stare]...."Oh! The dogs Whiskey and Rye! I pictured Matthew licking the tent!" [loud laugh echoing through the forest]









Here are some pictures of some nasty fungi we came across. Also, here is a clip from the Plant Earth series on Fungi....it will change your life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOQ0VU24xw