Happy, Happy, Happy

Today did not really go as planned. Brock got up to take care of his early shift of work and then the plan was to leave Graceland early and drive about halfway to Nashville to stay at a beautiful state park called Natchez Trace State Park.

All the cool kids come to Graceland...:O) There was a Hot Rod Road Trip group visiting today.
There was a long line of fancy cars growing longer as we pulled out of Graceland RV Park.

Everything did go as planned until we actually got on the Natchez Trace park road. It turned out that the gps was directing us to the park's office and the campground was many more miles back in the "jungle-y" park. It was really lush and green, very curvy and hilly and when we pulled back into the campground it was right next to Pin Oak Lake. It was lovely. Problem was...no cell service. We had to turn around and drive at least 15 miles back out that curvy road. I started trying to find an alternative rv park without much success.

There were several parks, but none of them had very good reviews or each had some negative aspect. We finally decided to drive on to the park we thought we might stay at next to explore Nashville. It is a core of engineers park that is actually about an hour away from Nashville's city center, but it took us a couple more hours of driving to reach it and it was a crazy backroads, hilly, curvy drive most of the way. We will have to investigate to see if there is a more direct way in to Nashville. I'm pretty sure there is.

Brock was missing meeting appointments right and left and feeling a little pressure to get settled and get some work done. We had called over and over again trying to get ahold of the park to see if they had any vacancy, but couldn't get anyone on the phone. We drove in to the park and stopped at the first registration booth. The man inside explained that the campground booth attendants had the day off today, but that we could go on in and choose one of the sites from a list of available sites and then come back and tell him what site we chose. Problem is we may have to move tomorrow. There is a big fishing derby this weekend and he said there may not be any sites available Friday and Saturday. From what we can tell, the awesome site we chose for tonight, might be available for tomorrow night too so that would be great. We'll check it all out tomorrow morning with the camp hosts.

Our site is completely paved and very wide so that Spence and Sky could do some scootering right in the driveway. It has water and electricity, but no sewer hookup. The restrooms aren't too far of a walk though. There is lots of grass and sweet smelling clover and really nice big trees and the park sits right on the Cumberland River. It's beautiful. We're thankful for it even if it's only for tonight.

Miraculously, the boys had some peaceful brother time together today. 

We had missed lunch and so we were very hungry, but tonight's dinner was a frozen lasagna so it didn't come too quickly. After dinner, Brock decided to take Heidi and go for a walk.  I wanted to go too so I gave the little boys instructions to get ready for bed since it was around 8 pm already and the three of us headed down the culdesac to look at the river. It was a very humid sticky night. We could see the thunderheads starting to build up in the sky, but for now it was still clear and dry.

When we turned around to head back to the trailer, I saw some little sparks in the grass. I realized right away that we were seeing lightning bugs!! I was SO excited! I've always wanted to see them and it was totally on my bucket list, especially for this trip. There were tons of little flickers and it took a lot of self control for me not to RUN back to the trailer to get the kids. I think I may have sprinted the last few yards.

Brynna saw me through the window and opened the door and said "What?"
I told her, "Fireflies!!" They all got their shoes on came out and spent some time chasing them and catching a few. I was stressing a little, afraid one of them might accidently squish one.
Lightnin' Bugs are so cool!

See the tiny yellow speck in the upper left corner?? Lightning Bug! (bad picture, LOL)

Spencer's captive bug was cooperating nicely for a photo op.

 I cannot even communicate how thrilled I am tonight. It was funny to hear Skylar and Spencer both say they've wanted to see a firefly their WHOLE LIVES...