Arkansas!

We had an awesome week-long family vacation planned in June this year.  We were going to go to Destin, Florida.  We had our hotel booked, attractions laid out and week highlights planned.  But Tropical Storm Debbie ruined our plans.

When it became apparent on Sunday (we were planning on leaving Monday) that the storm was going to make landfall right by Destin, we called Expedia and cancelled our hotel reservation.  They called the hotel and even though we were cancelling last minute the hotel refunded our money since they were already feeling the effects of the storm.  So we didn’t lose any money on account of the cancellation.

Since Clint had the time off from work, we had to scramble to come up with new vacation plans.  We wanted to get away from the coast because we figured it would rain all week. We were originally thinking a stay at a dude ranch in the hill country of Texas would be fun, but decided it was way too hot.

Somehow (I’m not sure how, honestly) we settled on Arkansas. We found a State Park we thought we would stay at for a few days and when we got bored we would just figure out where to go from there.  If you know me, you know I was frazzled because I like to have things planned.  Well, we ended up going to DeGray Lake Resort State Park and stayed there the whole week.  We had so much fun!  There is actually a resort lodge at the park.  Nothing super fancy but better than camping.  And the room rate was only a fraction of the cost of the resort we had booked in Destin.

It was about 7 hours away.  We got there Monday afternoon and ate at the resort’s restaurant.  It was overpriced for food that wasn’t that great, but it was convenient and we were hungry.  We got settled in, walked around, bought the kids some t-shirts at the souvenir shop, etc.  The park had a lot of summer activities and things going on so that night we went on a scheduled night hike.  The park ranger took us through the woods listening for different animals and we learned a lot about owls and frogs.  The kids, of course, loved it. The next morning we headed out to the grocery store about 15 minutes away so we wouldn’t have to eat at the restaurant all week.  We also wanted to get some food and snacks for our boat trip.  We drove back to the lake and rented a party barge and a tube for the kids and hit the lake for half the day.  It was a beautiful day, and the water was so clear and pretty.  The kids didn’t want it to end!  They loved that they could control how fast the boat was going while they were tubing by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down.  At first, the thumbs down got its fair share of play, but eventually it was thumbs up for the rest of the day!  It was difficult to tell them over the din of the motor that our party barge wouldn’t go any faster! We went back to the hotel to wash up and then went into Hot Springs for dinner.  When we drove past tons of neat things to do we knew we would have to come back  to Hot Springs another day.

Here are some pictures of the kids Tuesday morning sporting their new t-shirts. We left the park to go on a tour of the dam. The park is on its own little island so here are some pictures in the car leaving the area.     The visitors center was closed for remodel so we just took a few pictures and left. We went to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower which is 216 feet tall and surrounded by the Ouachita Mountains.  The view from the top was breathtaking! Next we headed off to Hot Springs National Park.  Did you know it’s the oldest park (40 yrs older than Yellowstone) in the National Park system?  Here are some pictures from Bathhouse Row.  They have several old bathhouses open for tours.  People used to come here not just to take baths but people believed the water from the natural springs had healing qualities to it.  People with health conditions would come from all over on doctors orders.  There were tons of rooms, making this an all-day (or longer) experience.  The steam room. the bath room, the parlors, the spa, etc.

The stained glass and statue were on the men's side of the bath house.  The men's facilities were a lot nicer than the ladies’.  The picture below is the hot spring that was under this particular bathhouse.  I didn’t get a lot of pictures because the rooms were pretty dark. Here are some pictures of several of the hot springs that are outside.  Most have been covered up because its still the source of water in town and they needed to keep it sanitary.  There were water stations on the side of the road where people were filling up there big water jugs for free!  The water is hot (147 degrees) by the way.  We know; we felt it. =)

After that, we ate dinner and headed back to the hotel where we laid in bed and watched a movie because we were too tired to do anything else!

The next morning we went horseback riding, it was a BEAUTIFUL morning.  We couldn’t have planned it better.  This was the highlight of the trip for Charlotte.

  We were going to go golfing there at the park (they  had kids golf) but we decided to go back into Hot Springs and just take the kids mini-golfing instead.

After grabbing some lunch we went to the Mid America Science Museum.  It was mostly for kids and was really neat; I’d recommend it. It was good to get out of the heat at that time of day.

One of the exhibits was a demonstration of the Tesla Coil.  They actually have The Guinness Book of World Records most powerful demonstration of the Tesla Coil.  In the picture above you can see that there is a neon sign.  They have that placed inside the cage, not plugged into anything and when the coil is on, it lights up.  In the picture below, Lyndon and Charlotte got to go up and put their hand on the static ball. You can’t really see in the pictures but their hair is sticking up.

Here’s somebody’s you tube video of it.

Then we headed back to the marina and went on a Sunset Tour of the reservoir.  The kids were exhausted and I felt bad for the other riders because Ashtyn probably cried for half the tour.

 

On our last day we decided to rent a boat and tube again because the kids had so much fun.  I didn’t get any pictures the second time around because we woke up a little late and were in a rush to get out the door so I left it behind.  After returning the boat, we had a picnic and spent the rest of the afternoon at the “swimming beach,” which was just a shallow part of the lake with a stretch of course-sand beach.  We went to dinner that night at a really good local fish restaurant and took another hike.

We left for home the next morning. We had such a great time.  The kids still talk about it!  We may have had more fun there than in Florida (and it was certainly much cheaper!).  Our bucket list is pretty long, but we’d like to find time for another trip back to Arkansas soon!