Hot Springs, AR
Okay, I'd better apologize ahead of time because I'm going to make this a picture-loaded post. There was just so much to see in Hot Springs. Arkansas can be a seriously beautiful place - once you get out of the swamps. Hot Springs is about 3 times the size of Camden at about 30,000. It is surrounded by 3 lakes: Lake Ouchita (Wah-chi-tah), Lake Hamilton, and Lake Catherine. The city was founded on some geysers, so there is a street in downtown Hot Springs with Bath Houses (like in Rome... kinda) called 'Bath Row'. Although they weren't the original structures from the early 1800's, it was fun to see something a little older than the 70's.
Our first night in Hot Springs, there was a Jazz concert and a boat tour on Lake Ouachita. In our kids' interest, we decided the boat tour would be best, so we headed out... LATE. We missed the tour and spent the sunset on the beach throwing rocks and then on the playground. Dallin was so upset about missing the boat that he started crying. I told him it was a good lesson to us, the ever tardy McNeill's, to make punctuality a priority. I don't think he cared for my lecture. Throwing rocks helped him quickly forget, though.
After an awful night in a hotel - not because of the hotel, but because Mia is getting her two top front teeth (yeah!), we went driving in the 'mountains' around Hot Springs, and then eventually ended up at Garvin Botanical Gardens. Oh so pretty! It was great fun. They have some awesome waterfalls, a Koi pond with Koi big enough to eat you. Seriously. I think they have mixed them with the alligators. We had so much fun we spent almost the entire day there!
They have a garden that you have to take a long walkway to get to, and then it has boulders and fun bridges and a cave for the kids to play in. We could have come back the next day and spent another playing in that park. And now I'll be a little indulgent and show you how cool the park is and my pretty nature pic.
