Up early today as we have a taxi booked for 6 am. I had brought some teabags and milk up from breakfast yesterday so managed to make us a nice cup of tea in the coffee perculator to get the day started, I also ate some of my cheesecake but didn't finish it cos it's not really a 5.30am type of food for me! Reception staff had slipped our processed payment under the door sometime through the night and they'd charged us $100 more than the booking.com price I'd booked at so we headed downstairs a few minutes early to sort it out, I was envisaging problems like at Habitat in Miami but the receptionist here just changed the payment with no argument or attitude.. in fact she was so helpful and pleasant.

The taxi arrived right on time and whisked us off to the airport, he was a very chatty bloke and Rodd talked to him the whole way, I napped!! At that time of day there was very little traffic so only took around 20 minutes, I think it was around $35 but we did give him a pretty good tip cos he helped with all the heavy bags and was friendly. Speaking of heavy bags mine was a little overweight so we had to do a quick shuffle of contents at the counter to avoid a $75 excess weight fee!! All checked in and bags dropped we headed off through security, when we got to the first checkpoint I was told I had TSA pre-approval (this is a very new process that I'd vaguely heard of) wow.. really ... me .. how did that happen?? I don't really know or care but I sailed right through security not having to take my shoes off or anything out of my bags while Rodd was left in a nice long line!! It was so funny, by the time he came out the other side I'd been sitting waiting for him for about 15 minutes, well I thought it was funny but he wasn't amused.. "oh here's Mrs upgrade" he kept saying and "nice of you to upgrade yourself"... all in jest of course. Next was a lovely breakfast at Chillis, I had some sort of tortilla with eggs, onions and served with a spicy salsa and tea, Rodd reckoned he wasn't hungry so didn't eat (he'll regret that later!).

Before long our flight was called and as we had A boarding passes managed to get good seats, we always sit in a window and middle seat so ended up with a guy sitting next to me but you always see couples as they board Southwest flights sitting in the window and aisle seats because no-one wants to sit in a middle seat between two strangers so they are always the last seats to fill. Sometimes that tactic would work for couples I guess and they'd end up with the 3 seats but not if the flight is full and every seat is going to eventually get filled. To get to Little Rock Arkansas from St Louis, Missouri we had to fly first to Chicago which was a quick flight but we had to change planes in Chicago so got to deplane only to discover we're actually getting back on the same plane and no sooner had we got off but the flight was called and we had to go through the whole boarding process again.. silly!! Rodd was feeling quite hungry by now but unfortunately didn't have enough time to buy some food. Anyway we had B boarding positions but still managed to get seats together, in fact as we sat down we realised we were in exactly the same seats as before!! Rodd had to suffice with a cup of hot chocolate and some of those teeny tiny pretzels they serve on Southwest (and may I say usually onboard Hot Choc is usually not too good but Southwest makes the nicest one I've ever had ... on a plane.. I can't say the nicest I've ever had cos that is reserved for that little chocolate shop in Milies on the Pelion Peninsular in Greece, closely followed by the one I'd had in St Louis!!).

We landed safely and on time in Little Rock and as we were walking out towards the baggage claim wondered if we'd recognise Stephanie and John. We had met them 2 years ago in New Orleans and had spent a wonderful afternoon and night with them eating at Johnnys' PoBoys, watching parades, catching beads and then had a few hours of great fun in a bar with them and Lena and Dan before we got on a 7 day Caribbean cruise with them all. We knew right away that we were going to like all these people, they are definitely "our" kind of people! Well I don't know why we ever doubted because we knew them the minute we laid eyes on them.. so nice of them to come pick us up, it's going to be a good couple of days!

Originally when I'd planned to go to Arkansas I was talking to Lena and we'd planned to spend all the time with them then Stephanie said they'd love to see us as they weren't going on the cruise and we could stay with them as well if we wanted so I kind of left it up to them to work out who was available when etc. So... Steph and John picked us up and we decided as it was lunch time we'd go into Little Rock for some lunch. First of all they took us down to the waterfront where we saw the Junction Bridge, this was first built in 1884 as a railway bridge and the entire span would raise as one piece to allow boats through. It is now locked in the raised position so you have to take stairs or the elevator at either end to access the bridge. From there we went to a great pizza place for a very yummy lunch washed down by some nice red wine. After lunch John and Rodd got in Johns ute and Stephanie and I traveled in her car... John had been working in town for the morning so they had 2 cars to get home. As we left the men I'd said I would like to buy a bottle of wine and Rodd some beer before we got to their place and they organised together where we'd stop, they live in a "dry" county so have to make sure they get all their grog before getting close to home!! The drive to their place was about 45 minutes (with the grog stop) along winding roads, of course being winter there wasn't a lot of foliage on all the trees but all the same it's absolutely beautiful out there.

We just love, love, love their "backyard" a fantastic view of Lake Norrel and so gorgeous and peaceful. We had a great night chatting, eating, drinking and more of all. Not too sure what will happen tomorrow as we have no plans but I'm sure we'll find something to do!!