The morning was soupy with humidity and it seemed like a repeat of yesterday's heat. I was back to sweating through everything on the first big climb. as I climbed up the clouds moved in and blocked the sun for awhile. A breeze picked up and it turned out to be a lovely day. I was passed by a couple of TAT riders early on. Later, just as I was rejoining the road after filtering water from a nice creek, the same riders descended down from a side road and pulled up beside me. He was telling me about a burger place that they had to go out of their way to get to, in the middle of nowhere. I told him I thought it was just down the road on our route. He disagreed and said it couldn't be as they couldn't figure out how to get to it otherwise. I decided we were talking about two different places. He rode on. Sure enough about 5 more miles and there it was like I thought it would be. Just a little old cafe and general store pretty much in the middle of nowhere in the "town" of Oark. The road turned to pavement and a side road joined. Up till now I had not seen hardly any cars. But suddenly I was passed by about 50 motorcycles and a few cars. So I was worried the store would be slammed. But they were just passing through as the store wasn't busy when I got there. There wasn't much to the store part so I ended up getting a sandwich and fries. Bonus cold Cheerwine in a bottle. They actually volunteered to make a vegetarian sandwich for me, which was really nice of them.(everything on the menu had meat) I ended up getting an ice cream cone too. The people there were very nice. I signed their guest book and got moving. After Oark, I followed a disused highway for a long while gradually downhill beside the Mulberry river. It had so little traffic that grass was growing in the cracks in the road about a foot out from the edge. I don't know what the deal is with Arkansas but they don't mow their shoulders at all apparently. Waist high grass everywhere beside the roads. Wildflowers are pretty. But I've never feared picking up ticks while riding a paved state highway before. Eventually though I turned off the pavement onto gravel climbs back up into the mountains again. The heat didn't bother me as much today, and by the time I got up high, the breeze kept me cool. After some steep ups and downs I arrived at White Rock Campground and thankfully they had one spot left. Primitive but with water and vault toilets. Splurging two nights in a row. But after the sun went down and I got in my tent I am really hating myself for not stealth camping tonight. I really thought this site would be chill because they're primitive but these are the loudest campers I've had to deal with next to me. But the worst part is the stupid campfire smell. The wind is high but it must just be blowing someone's campfire right to me. It's so bad I feel like I am in the fire at this point. Can't even tell where it's coming from. The people next to me on the north side are loud talkers with alcohol. The south side people arrived after dark and drove through the campground at least three times only to stop right next to me in the only spot that's empty. Don't know how they missed it since it's literally the first one, site one. Then they made all kinds of noise as they set up their camper, and fired up a generator so I get to listen to that all night. They also are yelling at each other randomly. And then in the midst of all this loud yelling and clanging and generator hum I hear my bags on my bike making crinkling noises. A raccoon had the audacity to start rifling through my bags for food. I already put everything in my bag and hung it up. I guess he smelled food residue on them? Going to be a long night.