Arkansas Adventure

 3rd Quarter was very long and stressful for me, I didn't have much time at home or time to relax, so I requested that we stay home for Spring Break and relax... So we went to Arkansas instead.

The plan was to rent an RV and trail it to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to "camp" there for a few days. I was not thrilled with taking an 8-hour drive to Arkansas trailing an RV, which would slow us down, and then do whatever in Arkansas. We started our trip in the morning on Saturday, we knew our route, and we knew that we would have to make many stops for our gas mileage, which averaged around 10mpg. And because I'm getting older and learning to drive, I was tasked with filling up the car every time... I got a lot of practice. With all the stops and slow speeds, it took about 12 hours to get to the RV park, and even then, we still had to find the bathroom codes, and set up our RV took another hour. We could finally relax at about 10 PM, so we pretty much slept right away, so we could prepare for the bathhouses the next day.

A crawfish we found

We all slept in that day because our reservation wasn't until 2, so before we walked around the town and visited the watchtower on top of a hill. The tower was quite impressive, it had a bigger gift store than any other in the city, and it was about 150ft tall. You could take the elevator up to the top of the tower, or you could take the stairs. So of course I was with my Dad on the stairs. The climb wasn't that bad until we started running. The view at the top of the tower was magnificent, you could the city the whole landscape around Hot Springs and a nearby amusement park.

View from the top

The tower

After the tower, we headed to the bathhouses. On Main street, there is more than just one building with baths, but we headed to The Quapaw bathhouse because it was the only one where you could be in the pool with your family. But you had to be 14+, so we just said Alex was 14. We got our locker keys after a 30-minute wait and changed to in the baths. 4 pools were ranging in temperature between 93 degrees and 104 degrees. I could barely last in the hottest one, but I spent a lot of time in the cooler one. We ended up resting in the pools for about 2-and-a-half hours before leaving and going to the actual hot springs, which we could stick our hands in. We headed back to our RV late in the evening to play games, and sleep some more.

The hot springs

I was not looking forward to Monday. On Monday, we had to wake up early to drive an hour away to Crater of the Diamonds, to dig for diamonds, which meant mud, and sifting. Something you may not know about me is that I hate gold panning, and that is basically what we were going to do for 5 hours. I decided to find a place to sit and listen to my audiobook, which I listened to a lot that day. After bringing home a bucket of "promising" rocks, there was nothing of value. That day when we headed back, we tried to make a fire, which a family that has done a lot of camping, and two Eagle Scouts, could not get the fire to properly light. Our dinner on the fire somehow came out fine, but my Dad and I both said that we have never worked so hard for so little fire.

Crater of the Diamonds

The next day was offroading, which we all love (sarcasm). We drove out a good distance before making it to an unpaved road to the offroading site. It was at this point that my Dad decided I should drive his manual on a narrow unpaved road. A terrific idea. Despite never driving a stick before, I quickly got hang of the clutch and cruised down 6 miles to our destination. I would like to think I am a capable driver, and in fact, I am eligible to get my permit after passing the test, all I have to do is turn 15 and go to the DPA for verification. Anyway, we noticed while we were on the actual trails that we, in our big vehicle, were having a hard time fitting on the road, so we headed back and saw a sign that said ATV only. So that day didn't last. So we explored a nearby waterfall instead. On the trail there, I found a spot where I could climb a boulder, so I did. Then on that spot, I saw another, and another and another. I ended up climbing to the top of an 800 ft mountain, which was dumb because getting down was risky. Along the whole way, there were thorns all over to add to the problem. I eventually got down after about 30-45 minutes with my legs bleeding. But I got some good photos. We had lunch at the waterfall, and headed back to the city to explore, then fail at lighting a fire again.

Little waterfall

The aftermath of my climb

Pictures from the peak

The peak

Disregard the finger

Wednesday was our last full day, so we looked for something to do in the town, and found a local escape room place, our family loves to try escape rooms, and then see if the experience was any good. We were pleasantly surprised by the rooms, for we did two in a connected timeline, which meant we were in the same room. We thought that there couldn't be much more to do in the room, but we were surprised by the secret doors. After, we tried to make robots fight each other, but the contraption was broken.

We woke up early the next morning to make the long drive back, we weren't thrilled about the drive, but we were ready to get home. On the way home, we stopped in Texarkana, which is a town on the border of Texas and Arkansas, to take a picture with the famous post office that is split by the border, but we couldn't actually get to it, so we took a long-distance selfie. In total it took about 12 hours to get back home, in which we were grateful to get to our rooms and sleep in our own beds.