January 17-30, Hot Springs, Arkansas
Over the course of our 2 weeks in Arkansas, we took multiple trips to Hot Springs National Park. The main entrance, on Bathhouse Row, has easy access to nice trails and is directly on a couple block segment of a historic/tourist section of Hot Springs. While we didn’t make it inside for a massage or hot tub dip on this trip, one of the Bathhouses is still functioning for that purpose.
We did, however, get to experience the natural hot spring water: we all took a taste from a fountain and dipped our hands in the steamy pools around the park entrance. The kids were troupers hiking up to the Tower, where we got a great view of the surrounding forests and hills, learned President Bill Clinton is originally from Hot Springs (among other things interesting to Greg and I and super boring to small children). The likely highlight for Grayson and Madelyn was purchasing two wolf stuffies (proudly with their own money). A couple days later we returned to purchase National Park passes for the year, National Park Passports, and collect 2 Junior Ranger badges.
Another highlight was a morning digging for crystals at Ron Coleman mining. This turned out to be a great family activity; for a fee, we got to fill bags with as many gems (quartz) rocks as we could carry. There were many, many piles of dirt and the mining was easy enough for the kids to find hundreds of large milky rocks. With some patient sifting, we found some smaller, clearer crystals as well. Alas, as we now live in an RV, we could not bring 500 lbs of quartz back. So after hosing off our loot, we all picked our five favorites and headed home for lunch.
After a few days of all family play, Greg needed to get back to work, and I needed to work on finding my “every day is Mama-day” groove. Thanks to mild weather, we explored the outside in comfort – playing in mud puddles, at playgrounds, and hiking. Overall, a lovely couple weeks and a good first stop on our RV adventure!
