Arkansas - part 3

It's the last installment of our little vacation y'all! Here is part 1 and part 2.

So for our last day/night in Hot Springs, we stayed in a hotel. We had a hard time choosing. There are three types of hotels in Hot Springs. There are the historic hotels downtown, there are old funky motels everywhere, and there are new chain hotels in the actual city of Hot Springs and near the lake. I wanted to stay in a historic hotel, however I have a slight problem/phobia with hotels/staying anywhere but home. It has to be clean. I'd prefer to think that no one other than myself has ever stayed there. The bathrooms and the beds are the worst. I've suffered many a panic (or is it anxiety...) attack in environments that I felt were unclean. It's ridiculous. And it's all in my head, but in the moment it doesn't matter. It's like life or death. If you've had a panic/anxiety attack, you know what I'm talking about. You feel absolutely insane and you know you're being crazy but it doesn't matter because YOU HAVE TO GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE.

SO, after much debate, we picked a slightly (like built in the 60's?) historic hotel downtown. Not the one I wanted, but it was just fine. Only had a slight moment where I thought I'd lose my cool but I held it together. I am proud. We stayed at the Springs Hotel and Spa. I'd recommend it. It's a good deal, it's nice, although a little old, and you get free breakfast at a bad ass place down the street called the Colonial Pancake and Waffle House. Eat there if you are in Hot Springs. Seriously.

We checked in early and immediately headed to the pool for a bit, because it was sunny!

The pool overlooked downtown and had a great view of the mountain across the way. Our room had the same view, it was pretty sweet. After pool time we headed up to our room and showered. And it was amazing. It felt so damn good to finally be clean.
 

 Post shower, feeling so fresh and so clean!

Then we went to take those old timey old west photos. You know the ones I'm talking about. Where you dress up and pose in a saloon. I have always wanted to do that, and IT WAS SO FUN! And the pictures are amazing. It was outrageously overpriced but so worth it. I will share them soon, they are ridiculous...ly awesome.

I'd like to quickly discuss the city of Hot Springs. It's an interesting place. There are a lot of abandoned and empty buildings. A lot. Abandoned buildings from the early 1900's as well as from the late 1900's. A lot of emptiness and a lot of businesses gone. It was kind of creepy. A lot about this town creeped us out a little, but I kind of liked it. It was like a ghost town. I'm not sure if it's because we were there during the week versus the weekend but the town just had this empty feeling. It's hard to explain.

This hotel (the Majestic) went out of business in 2006, and I think it was built in like 1902. We walked up to it and it was trashed on the inside. I would LOVE to explore the rooms.

There were a lot of buildings like this. Beautiful century old building just sitting there empty. But, for all the emptiness downtown there was also a lot of life. There were tons of cute shops! And everything has such an old charming feeling to it, I love it.

For dinner that night we ate at a little German place (we love anything German!) that was absolutely empty (I think we were one of two tables the whole time we were there) but the food was fantastic.

Creepy husband!

We spent our last evening in Hot Springs hanging out on our balcony, enjoying the view, and people watching.

The next morning we got up early to go on a little hike before we headed back home. This hike was literally up a mountain! My buns and thighs were a burnin', it was a little intense!
  

 Crossing a very pretty newly paved road.

 This seemed like a good pose, but it's not.

The view from the top was pretty great. We could see for miles and miles, plus we had a great view of downtown! The trail took us around the whole mountain as it winded it's way to the top.

This is what post-hiking-up-a-mountain looks like.

We ran our way back down the mountain. The trip up took us probably over half an hour and the run down took us maybe 5 minutes. It was kind of scary running downhill (with lots of trees to run/fall/roll to your death into), but extra fun. It reminded me of skiing, you feel like you're out of control and are going to crash at any moment, but you don't and it's a blast.

After breakfast and packing up, we headed back to Texas. Our drive back was fairly uneventful. We took major highways back so we didn't have anything pretty to look at. It was good to be home, although I wasn't quite ready to head back to reality. I want to be on vacation with Brendon forever. It is just so good and so fun. We have the best adventures. Plus it was beyond wonderful to have nothing but nonstop time together, we don't get enough of that. We need to win the lottery so we can vacation permanently!

I thoroughly enjoyed Hot Springs. I love being out in the woods and being in a small laid back town was nice too. It was hard coming back to this wild city. As much as I like Austin, I think I'd prefer something a little quieter. I miss nature. I loved camping and hiking and getting sweaty and stuck in the rain. Which is weird because a couple years ago I would have hated it. I guess as you get older your preferences change! The good thing about Austin is that even though we are stuck in the middle of this modern mess, we are just a short drive away from nature. We just need to escape to it more often!

Arkansas - part 2

Okay, here we go, Hot Springs round two! Round one is here. So as I mentioned at the end of my last post, our sunny day was interrupted by rain as soon as we set up our tent. And it continued to rain on and off for the majority of our trip. We have awesome luck like that. But I am thankful. Arkansas was experiencing record breaking heat wave and drought before the rain rolled in, so I am glad that it did. And the temperature was great, nice and mellow. I doubt it got above 90 the whole trip, and I sported a sweater quite a bit!

The campground was not at all what we expected. It was in a little valley with a creek running through it. It was very very very small and the camp sites were squished together. Seriously squished. Our neighbors were extra close. Like we could throw roll a stone to them. And what interesting neighbors we had! A few of them were actually living there I think. Very interesting characters, I'm not going to lie, we were a little scared of some of them at first. But regardless of their oddness, everyone was incredibly nice. There was an older lady next to us from Florida that was traveling/camping across the country (I'm assuming) with just her dog. She was so sweet. And a family across from us had a cat, a kitten, and a snake (in a terrarium) traveling with them! Too cool. There was also this terrifying dog next to us who would lunge and bark whenever anyone came near. Not so cool.

Our humble abode:

 Hiding out during one of the frequent rain showers. 

 This creek was right next to our tent. So pretty.

Camping in the rain is interesting. We stayed relatively dry the first night but by the second night all our blankets and pillows were fairly damp just from the constant humidity. We were sticky and pretty stinky by day three. And there were no showers. None.

 Sleepy heads after our first rainy night.

Our second day at Hot Springs we continued exploring. We walked "the promenade" downtown which is a paved path that's kind of on the side of the mountain and was full of hot spring fountains and one pretty legit waterfall. I can't say enough how beautiful it was here. So many trees, and even though they were in a drought everything was so green!

The water coming down this waterfall was so hot there was steam in the air. You could feel the heat radiating off of it just by standing near it!

In a brief lapse of rain, we cooked out for lunch. We had all kinds of plans for grilling all our meals, but unfortunately the rain had other ideas. We did manage a chicken fajita lunch with roasted marshmallows for dessert though!

 Hungry Marie is grumpy.

 Marie with dessert is happy!

Oh, and Brendon brought an axe? And threw it into a tree?

After our grilled lunch we went for a little hike in the drizzle. The creek was so pretty. Nature is amazing.

We also went for a longer hike along the side of a mountain and once again I was blown away by how beautiful everything was. I get why they call Arkansas "the natural state".

 Don't tell the hippies, but we carved our initials into a tree. 'Cause we're corny like that.

Once we got to the end of the trail, it started raining. Big time. We had our camera with us, that we weren't too keen on getting wet, and we still had to turn around and go all the way back. So we ran, on a trail, on the side of a mountain, in the rain. Brendon carried the camera wrapped up in his shirt. It was so fun. I missed running, and running on a trail in the woods is far more interesting than running on the sidewalk in the city. But we were soaked when we got back. I guess we took a natural shower. We were seriously in need of a real one.

This was my hair at the end of the night. I have pretty dang straight hair. It doesn't do much of anything ever, except hang there and get bushy. BUT LOOK AT THOSE WAVES. My hair has never gotten that wavy before. Ever. That's how humid it was.

After sleeping in a seriously damp tent our second night, we were extra ready to head to civilization. We stayed at a hotel our last night and checked in early so we could shower. Because we needed it. Badly.

The Xterra helping our tent, sleeping bags, and tarps dry off. Everything was soggy. Us included.

Next, we return to civilization and do a little more exploring in the town. And man I cannot stress enough to you how good it felt to shower.

Arkansas - part 1

Y'all. This vacation we just took... what an adventure. This was the least planned trip ever. We had zero reservations, just a slight idea where we were staying (in a tent for the most part) and no real agenda. Just go to Hot Springs and have fun. It was not at all what we expected, but we did had so much fun. Or I did anyway. Brendon says he enjoyed himself, I'm taking his word for it.

Okay, so brace yourself... I took roughly 350 pictures on this trip. Arkansas is a pretty place, okay? Obviously I'm not posting all of them, but there's a lot I want to share soooo, I'll break it up into multiple posts so your eyes don't explode.

We took the back roads there, winding through beautiful green East Texas and Arkansas. I've never seen so many trees. I think I said about a hundred times to Brendon, "oh my god, it's so pretty here" or "look at all the trees!", you know, providing seriously entertaining road trip conversation. It took us about 9ish hours to get there, I think. We stopped a bunch, got thrown off course once by a certain navigator's error (I'll give you a hint, his name ends in -rendon), and were really in no rush at all.

On our third? fourth? pit stop somewhere in Texas, we visited a swamp and I realized that my camera had no memory card in it, and I almost died. But because I'm a maniac, I had a spare one in my purse. Thank goodness for my weirdness and desire to document everything.

 Pointing at the swamp, obviously. And also, this is when my hair began becoming bigger than I am.

Eventually we made it across the state line and into Arkansas. We used their bathroom facilities and did the touristy thing and took pictures in front of ARKANSAS. Typical.

After a quick pit stop at Cracker Barrel and the waitress welcoming me into the Natural State by throwing a glass of ice water all over me, we made it to Hot Springs! Our first stop was the mountain tower (that I took zero pictures of?), which offered some ridiculously good views and an excellent breeze. We thought about bringing our tent up and just camping on the deck, it felt great.

I married a giant 12 year old boy.

Hot Springs is aptly named, as hot springs run underground bringing up hot rain water from 4,000 years ago (!). The town blew up (figuratively) in the early 1900's, so many of the buildings are from that era. People came from all of the country and world for the supposed healing properties of the water. They built bathhouses over the springs and most of them are still there! They're all along the main street along Bathhouse Row (creative eh?). It is really a beautiful place. Downtown is nestled between the mountains in a valley, so you're constantly surrounded by green. Plus the buildings are gorgeous! The mountains around it are part of the National Park, as are a couple of the bathhouses, which you can tour. It was like going back in time!

Two of the bathhouses are still bathhouses (spas really) where you can bathe in mineral water, and the rest are either owned by the park or used for other purposes. One houses an art museum! 

People would sit inside that metal thing and it would fill up with spring water. That hole is for your head. Kinda creepy.

And of course you can drink the water! And we did! It is HOT, but it tastes just like regular water. We saw people getting jugs and jugs and jugs of this stuff. Must be magic.

Next up, camping adventures in the rain and our trip gets real interesting. As you can see from these pictures, our trip started out pretty sunny. But as soon as we set up our tent, in rolled the clouds. And it rained on and off for the duration of our trip. The humidity y'all... sheesh!