St. Francis National Forest, AK to Lake Catherine SP (Hot Springs, AR)
Well, last night we got to test the seaworthiness of our van. We pulled in after dark to Bear Lake in Saint Francis National Forest. It was a pretty neat 
campsite on a lake and surrounded by water. We had a pretty good supper and then turned in for the night.
At some point during the night, I woke up and heard thunder growling in he distance. You could tell it was a storm front rolling through. Pretty soon, the noise was accompanied by flashes of lightning. Then the rain started. Pretty soon it was coming down hard and both Jay and I were awake. We kept feeling around the sides of the canvas looking for leaks. While the canvas got damp, we didn’t have any major leaks.
I couldn’t really go back to sleep, so I got up and let Jay sleep longer. The benefit of having the bed on a platform above the seating area is that someone can sit downstairs with the lights on and it’s still dark upstairs.
When it got light, we could see our leak, and it wasn’t from the canvas. One of our side doors has a bad seal and water would leak in through the top. That was fixed by putting a coffee pot in the appropriate spot and we didn’t worry about it any more.
Jay wanted 2 hours to try and fix our continuing dash lighting issue, so I puttered and read while he worked. He eventually, conclusively decided it was the radio and that he needed to rewire something-or-other to get everything playing nicely. Knowing that, we packed up (still in the drizzly rain) and headed to the nearest city of Marianna.
Jay had a nice run in with some locals in the auto parts store. When he told them we were driving from GA, they assumed he was lost if he had ended up in Marianna, AR.
Given how far behind we were for the day, we decided to hit the interstate (which we normally avoid like the plague if possible) and try to make up some time. So we drove along I-40 down to Little Rock. We got bored, so we pulled out the previous owner’s CB radio and tuned in some trucker traffic. There was an impressive accident where a semi had plowed off the road (very much like he was exiting the interstate) except there was no exit ramp. Instead there was a very boggy, muddy, swamp, and he was in it up to his axles. Quite impressive to all of us (including the truckers on the CB). We had some good laughs.
We also had a very good lunch at Nick’s Bar-B-Que and Catfish. I highly recommend it. I had the fried catfish with fried okra and onion rings and Jay had the BBQ pork with fried okra, coleslaw, and sweet tea. We knew it would be good when we pulled into the parking lot and it was filled with trucks (both pick-ups and big rigs).
After lunch, we swung around Little Rock and then down I-30 and over to Hot Springs. 
It was a nice day, so we went into downtown Hot Springs and spent an hour or so browsing the historic part of the town. Hot Springs is a total tourist trap in the summer, but in the off season, everything closes early and you can pretty much do what you want. The National Park Service has a great visitor’s center with a walkthrough tour. And it was free, courtesy of our National Park’s Pass.
Then we walked back to the van, window-shopped a bit, 
and headed off to Lake Catherine State Park. It’s about 6 miles south of Hot Springs and was very convenient. There was very heavy fog out, and I was very glad Jay was driving instead of me. The campsite looked nice enough (at least as much as we could see in the dark and the fog). There were more vehicles there then we were used to, probably due to the proximity to the national park.
Tomorrow we should cross over into Oklahoma and add another state to our checklist.