Van Life Under a Total Eclipse! Unforgettable RV Camping in Arkansas

Hold on, at this point you must be asking yourselves, why are you leaving Indiana where you can see the total eclipse to drive eight and a half hours to see the eclipse? In a nutshell, well to be precise a pecan shell, we're making the drive to be with friends during this rare event. One of the big question marks we have about the solar eclipse We've been following it and there's chance of rain, chance of scattered clouds, which means we could be driving eight and a half hours to stare at the clouds during the solar eclipse. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles, but we will see. At least we get to hang out with a bunch of people this weekend. We are about halfway to our destination. Final stop is Atkins, Arkansas, where we're meeting I think 30 to 35 campers. On our route we got to see the seventh wonder of Memphis, the Bass Pro Pyramid, just before crossing the mighty Mississippi into Arkansas, the natural state. Once in Arkansas, we kept seeing signs warning us of major delays due to the upcoming eclipse. So of course my mother has been watching the news and she's worried that there are going to be fuel shortages in and around where the eclipse is happening. So we were making sure to top off our tank before we get to the camp out. After alleviating some of my mom's worries, we got back on the road for the final stretch to Pawpaw's Pecans. Pulling onto the farm, we made our way to a secluded corner away from the other campers. It is beautiful out here. We are going to pop in, go pay our dues for camping here, and then go hang out with friends and have a drink. I already got our first welcome present. Gotta find a good spot to put this. My new friend and I decided to go for a walk while Kate studied the gift shop and had a few tasty samples. Did you know there are over 500 varieties of pecans? I certainly didn't. So the deal is there are going to be 40 vans so upwards of 75 to 80 people and it is going to be a wild few days. Apparently that is the party side and we are on the less party side. What a beautiful morning. Our first order of business was to get camp set up and put out the solar panels since we would be camped here for a few days. Despite how many campers had already arrived, quite a few more were expected to show up. Since we are on a pecan farm, we are allowed to pick up the pecans off the ground so I am going to have a few with my coffee this morning. Kate was all over the free pecans and went out to harvest some while I enjoyed my coffee. People have been picking up pecans and everyone seems to be shelling them to make a pecan pie later. So someone is going to run into town, get the ingredients, another person is going to make the pie, and everyone else has been shelling pecans. So Kate was beginning to get a bit FOMO. She wanted to move over with all the other people rather than our corner back over here so we have moved. To clarify, I did not have FOMO but since we have been here, I have observed that the wind is blowing this way and since we were on the receiving end of the wind, we were getting lots of dust every time someone drove by. So now we are on this side of the road and more importantly, we are official walking on sunshine at Clips Campout and we have more fan patches. With a drink in hand, I went to join the boys for a game of bocce ball. The pups decided to join in and we all decided that any interference on their part was fair game and part of the challenge. Ever clear base? It is. Don't come back. Don't come back right away anyway. Ever clear base limoncello. With the roadhouse open, Gordy began making cocktails like the Bloody Maria with homemade pickled garnish. Time to share some Connecticut sausage and barbecue sauce. After Kate was done passing out the appetizers, the pecan pies were starting to come out of the ovens and who says you can't bake in a van? Bourbon tasting tonight. Bring your bottles. Now. The bat signal has been sent up so we are bringing the bourbon over to the tasting area. There you go my friend. So Paul is the one here who organized this whole event and cheers. Cheers. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Absolutely. As the night progressed, more and more bottles of bourbon ended up on the tasting table. By my estimate, we had over 40 bottles to sample from. Happy birthday to you. After the raging inferno and the cake was extinguished, the pecan pies were dished out and they were absolutely delicious. Moments like these were why we drove all the way here. You're a gopher I think. So today has been relatively quiet. There was a group photo we just took. Kate and I are sitting down having some coffee and I think everyone is just recovering from the bourbon bar last night. Yeah there were still quite a few bottles left. I'm surprised. I'm impressed. Today we're just going to relax. There is a potluck dinner and then tomorrow is the eclipse. So we're all gearing up for the potluck. Everyone's just sitting around doing a little bit of day drinking, enjoying some snacks. Kate's enjoying a homemade pineapple infused vodka and it's always fun to see what treats everyone brings to share with the group. So our contribution for the potluck is going to be Kineka sausage. So we got a few pounds of it. I'm going to grill it up and people can take what they want. If you've never heard of Kineka, it's an Alabama sausage and there are some stores around the country that sell it but mostly in Alabama and it's always a crowd pleaser. People love this stuff so we like to bring it out like yesterday we did it as appetizers for people in a potluck. It's phenomenal and then you can use it for all different types of recipes like jambalaya, chili. My favorite is Joe's Kineka fried rice. Oh that is good. With my Bucky's onesie on, I brought our offering over to the feast that was taking place. Salads, sausage, carnitas, elote, jambalaya and more graced the table which was topped off by a beautiful charcuterie plate. Dessert was had during a performance by Jason Wall Smith. Over on Les' party side, they had quite the light show going Thank you. Pecan waffles for breakfast. I'm reading up on the eclipse experience. I think the totality around here is supposed to be four minutes. Kate, the sun is over there. So we're getting all prepared. You saw Kate's glasses. Well, we also have a filter for the phone so we can get some shots of the total eclipse and everyone here is getting pretty excited. They're passing out moon cakes. They're passing out all sorts of different goodies. People have their bars set up and a lot of people have spotting scopes and things ready to go. So we're a few minutes away from the total eclipse and everyone's getting really excited. Someone said the temperature might drop up to 40 degrees. We'll see if that actually happens but it's already getting a little bit chilly. Adam gave me new glasses. These work much better. The temperature only dropped by about 15 degrees but the views were incredible. We couldn't get much of a shot of the eclipse on our iPhone but friends shared theirs. One of the most interesting things was looking at the crescent shaped shadows from the trees during the eclipse. Only you would get a delivery during the eclipse. I live in a van. Okay, I don't have any options for getting stuff mailed. Yay! Thank you Cordelia. You're welcome. Delicious. That was an absolute amazing experience. Kate and I have seen a partial eclipse before but it's nothing compared to seeing the full totality of the eclipse. So much so that a bunch of us there are planning the 2026 eclipse which I think may be Iceland or Spain. One of those two countries we might end up in. That said, this is the end of this video. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed it, please give us a thumbs up. Subscribe if you haven't already and tell us if you got to see the full eclipse. We'd love to know where you are at. We'll see you next time. Bye.