As Amy and I pulled into the driveway of our destination, a collection of homes lovingly referred to as “the compound,” Seth and Sadie spotted the swimming pool right away. 

Sam, (Amy’s aforementioned husband who’s currently hanging out in Afghanistan with the Army), has a whole heap of family that lives together on a swath of property here in Arkansas.  There are four families.  These four families have been introduced to me several times, but there’s a lot of names involved.  For simplicity’s sake, Amy and I have taken to referring to the families as House 1, House 2, House 3 and House Across The Street.  We’re staying in House 2.  The swimming pool is at House 1.  Less than 30 minutes after our arrival at The Compound we were fully suited up in spandex, making the hike towards the pool.  These kids don’t waste any time.

Deciding to take this trip was something of a last minute decision.  When Amy found out that I was going to have more free time this summer than I’d previously planned, she told me that I was welcome to come with her and the kids on the 10-day Texas-to-Arkansas-to-Georgia-and-Back leg of their Annual Journey-Across-America Summer Road Trip.  I immediately agreed to come on the trip.  I am always excited about the prospect of getting to spend more time with my cousin, getting out of the house, and getting out of the state.  I didn’t spend much time thinking about the fact that we were going to be going to Arkansas.  I’ve been thinking of this trip as the “Sam’s-Fam-to-Georgia-Friends leg” moreso than the preposterously-long, state-ridden title that I wrote a few sentences ago.  It wasn’t until Dad asked me where I was going to be sleeping tonight that I realized I had no idea where I was even going.  While leaving Texarkana in the dust this afternoon, you could have found me and a 2004 United States Road Atlas becoming well acquainted as I tried to locate our distination on the map. 

So you can imagine the jolt that I had after we arrived, (having totally ignored the fact that we were going to Arkansas,) when we arrived at the pool to find a massive, dinner-plate sized frog swimming around in the pool.  Sure, the frog, (in and of itself,) was not very surprising.  What was surprising was the reaction–the 3 girls under the age of 14 practically arm wrestling each other to see who would  GET to fish it out of the pool, each one harboring her own unique gleam of speclized frog-torture in her eyes.  I stood there watching the exchange for a split second, mouth agape, when I caught Amy’s eye and her smile reminded me: We’re In Arkansas.