Category: Arkansas

Battlefields

Battlefields

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Hey Guys!! We managed to sneak in four National Park Units during our 16 week travel hiatus! One of them, Homestead, I’ve already posted about. I’m going to try and squeeze both of the battlefields into one post. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve confessed to y’all before that when we started this nomadic lifestyle, I didn’t plan any battlefields at all. Not a single one. I wasn’t interested in walking around a big field that so many people had died in, but then we toured our first battlefield. Little Bighorn Battlefield was…eye opening. It was also during this visit that we all realized how important it is to go to these battlefields. To learn, to see, to remember. The boys learn more history in one day at a battlefield than they do in a week of history lessons. They retain the information. They get to put a physical place with the stories. Needless to say…we visit every battlefield we can. It makes me sad to realize everything we would have missed if Jerl had never talked me into Little Bighorn.

The first of the two battlefields we visited was Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. We spent some time going through the museum and getting ourselves acquainted with the overall view of what happened at Wilson’s’ Creek before we set off on the auto tour. I feel like you can get a better idea of what the soldiers’ lives were like and who they really were when the National Park Service has displays like the one above set up with personal items.

It’s always nice when there are a few trails that lead you off the main auto tour road. We hiked this short one to see Wilson’s Creek. The spot was kind of grown over so I didn’t get a good shot of the creek itself. We were impressed with the size of it though.

The Ray house was used as a Confederate field hospital during the battle, but was originally used as a post office since it was built along Wire Road. It was called Wire Road because of all of the telegraph lines that lined the road linking the nation.

The battle at Wilson’s Creek in 1861 was the first official battle of the Civil War to take place in Missouri. Missouri saw fighting for the next three and a half years as raiders destroyed anything military or civilian that might possibly aid the enemy.

There were so many pretties at this battlefield, but in the interest of keeping this post semi-short I’ll just share these three. The one on top is my favorite. I have no idea what it is, but I  absolutely love the way it looks and come on…that purple!

We ended the day with some grub. We went to the Black Sheep in Springfield and got one of the biggest burgers we’ve ever seen! It tasted as good as it looks!

The second battlefield we visited was the Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas. I love it when there are interactive displays! It keeps the kiddos more engaged and curious.

Are you wondering what the answer is to the question? What did soldiers carry into battle? Half of a two man tent, a miniature bible, a blanket, letters and photos from home, tobacco, a small sewing kit, and some personal hygiene stuff like a razor, brush, soap…and if they were lucky they might have a spare set of socks and a shirt. This, of course, would vary from soldier to soldier and what they could afford to bring with them from home.

I can’t tell you how many battlefields we’ve been to off the top of my head…quite a few. This was the first time we were able to actually hold one of the guns the soldiers carried. The guns were heavier than we thought.

After we perused the museum, we set off to explore the battlefield armed with a map, the audio tour, and my trusty camera. We encourage y’all to purchase the audio tour any time it’s available at a battlefield. It truly adds so much to the whole experience.

In all of our travels, we’d yet to actually set foot on the Trail of Tears. The boys have learned about it…we were close to it several times, but this was the first time to walk a part of Telegraph Road. Telegraph Road would later be renamed Wire Road.

Pea Ridge was the battle that kept Missouri in the Union. Each battlefield is different. Different landscape, different feel, different story.

Elkhorn Tavern was used as a supply base for the Union until it was captured and held by the Confederate troops. It ended up being a field hospital caring for both Union and Confederate wounded. The original tavern was burned in 1863 by Confederate guerrillas.

This field was the main battlefield at Pea Ridge. There are some traces of the trenches the soldiers dug. If you look very closely, you can see a cannon here and there. And if you listen hard enough…you might be able to hear the echoes of the gun shots, the shouts of the men, and the canons going off.

The boys learned some valuable history and earned another Junior Ranger badge at Pea Ridge National Military Park. It’ll be our last Civil War battlefield for a while since we’re heading west for the next year.

There weren’t as many pretties at Pea Ridge, but I do love this one.

In the next post I’ll finish up with the National Park Units we visited while on our travel hiatus! There’s just one left, but I thought this post was long enough as it is. So, stay tuned!

See y’all down the road!

Little Rock, AR

Little Rock, AR

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Hey Guys! Are you ready for the second part of our Arkansas adventures?

The main reason we were in the Little Rock area was to visit the Arkansas State Capitol Building. Y’all know about our rule of visiting the SCB before we can put the state sticker on our map…so we try to make it to the SCB once we get to a new state as soon as we can. Sometimes that’s the first day and sometimes we’ll be in a state for a month before we can get to the Capitol Building.

We enjoyed the Arkansas SCB. It has a lovely dome! There’s something to be said for clean lines and modest decorations. It had not one, but two of these fantastic staircases.

Both of the House and Senate Chambers were locked. We didn’t get to go inside, but I did snap the picture above (right) through the window. I do love stained glass domes! And check out these big brass doors in the picture on the left! I had Alex stand in front of them so you could get a better perspective of their size.

I would have to say the best part of the Arkansas SCB for us was the State Treasury room where they let us hold half a million dollars!! Guys!! Wow!! Have you ever touched so much money at once? We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hold the money ourselves. We each got to hold the stack of money while the tour guide (I’m so bad with names) told us a bit about the history of the safe. He also gave the boys some perspective on how much money it takes to go to college and raise a kid. I think they were pretty surprised. We asked if he’d ever had anyone try to take off with the money. He said he hadn’t, but they do school fieldtrips there and he had one kid refuse to give the money back to him. I would like to have seen that conversation.

The other place we really wanted to visit in Little Rock is the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. One of the things we really love about being nomads is the ability to take the boys to places where our Country’s history actually happened. We feel like it makes a bigger impact to see it in person rather than just reading about it in some book.

We weren’t alive in May of 1957. We’d, of course, learned about what happened at the Little Rock Central High School during that turbulent time, but we hadn’t learned much about it with the watered down version that’s taught in schools. We really didn’t know anything. The Visitor Center laid it out really well. There’s so much information you could spend the better part of a day reading though it all and watching the videos. I’d never heard them called “the Little Rock Nine”, never thought about how brave they must have been, how hard they had to work to stay in school while so many wanted to find reasons to kick them out, and how they were representing an entire group of people. The whole world was watching these nine high school kids…just waiting to see if they failed or succeeded. That’s a lot of pressure. Reading about each of their stories was eye opening for all of us.

The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site includes the Visitor Center, this gas station where protests took place, and the High School itself.  The high school is still a working school so the only way to tour it is on a Ranger led tour. We, unfortunately, didn’t get to go on one. I would have liked to, but timing didn’t work out.

We made a quick stop at The Old Mill Park which is a re-creation of an 1880s water-powered grist mill. You might recognize it from the opening scenes of “Gone With The Wind”. It was a busy little park! You can go into the mill and look around. The Old Mill Park is dedicated to the memory of the Arkansas pioneers. The park is nestled at the end of a finger of Lake Number Two.

If you’ve followed us for long, you know that we love our burgers. We found a great foodie spot called Big Orange. The burger above (on the right) is the Farmer’s Burger with a fried egg, bacon, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and aioli. It must have been good because it didn’t last long! I had the Smashed Avocado Burger with avocado, pepper salad, Havarti cheese, lettuce, tomato, and garlic aioli! It was delicious! Those fries you see in the background are the State Fair Fries which include chili, cheese dip, two different kinds of shredded cheese, pickled jalapenos, fresh jalapenos and red onion. They were totally not on my diet and I didn’t care at all…they were definitely worth it!

Pretties! There were tons of them! I’m sure I took way more pictures of pretties than I needed to.

That’s all for Arkansas! See y’all down the road!

This is the last post for the #minieasternloop2017

Hot Springs National Park

Hot Springs National Park

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Hey Guys! We only spent one week in Arkansas, but we crammed so much into that one week I’m going to break up our Arkansas adventures into two separate posts. We’re going to start with Hot Springs National Park!

Confession:  I didn’t really want to go to Hot Springs National Park. I couldn’t figure out what could be so interesting about a hot spring. Did I really want to devote an entire stop to this area? When we visit some place it’s not just for a weekend. We devote an entire week to two weeks to each stop. I questioned whether or not this National Park was worth the hassle of staying so far from Little Rock (which is the main reason we were going to be in the area). Now, don’t get me wrong…we love our National Parks…it’s just that usually, National Parks are…well…bigger. I’m talking about Parks and not Monuments or Historic Sites or Battlefields.

Fordyce Bathhouse/National Park Visitor Center.

The day we went it was soooo busy. Finding a parking spot wasn’t easy. Let’s just say, I was still skeptical when we walked into the Fordyce Bathhouse. It wasn’t looking so hot for Hot Springs, so far.

Ladies’ Bath Hall.

The boys grabbed their Junior Ranger booklets and we set about exploring the museum in the Fordyce Bathhouse. The National Park Service has restored quite a bit of the Fordyce to what it looked like back in it’s heyday. In the picture above you can see one of the stalls used for a women’s bath. The uniform you see is what the attendant would have worn.

Treatment room.

The museum in Fordyce Bathhouse lets you walk through the “ritual” of a bathhouse visit. These visits were a three week long regime of daily baths, workouts in the state-of-the-art gymnasium,

massages with the newest devices and tinctures, and a variety of specialty treatments.

 The room above was for podiatry…all afflictions dealing with the feet.

When all that steam from the hot spring water ruined your hair, you could stop into the beauty salon and have it fixed. Check out all of the old beauty equipment!

During the mid- 19th century, Hot Springs catered to the wealth of America. People came from all over the country to have a spa vacation at one of the famous Bathhouse Row’s “temple of health and beauty”, but the wealthy weren’t the only people lining up to get into one of the spas. The mineral rich, hot spring water was said to be a cure for what ails you no matter what that ailment was. Many people came for physical therapy in specialized tubs like the one above.

While the bedrooms were on the small side, the bathhouses offered ample rooms and activities to allow for socializing in the evenings. The mannequin in the photo above kind of gave me the creeps. I really kept expecting it to move. Maybe I’ve watched too much sci-fy.

The first bathhouses weren’t really bathhouses. They were wooden planks surrounding excavated rock where the bathers would soak their feet. The first “bathhouse” which was more like a log cabin was built in 1830. During the height of Bathhouse Row, the spas were very elegant with stained glass, fountains, and works of art to make an establishment that rivaled those found in Europe.

Please do not urinate in vapor. The things you have to tell people not to do.

 There was a time when the opulent spas attracted not only the wealthy, but also sports heroes, politicians, and even mobsters. Hot Springs became just as known for gambling, prostitution, and organized crime as it was known for its water. The success of Bathhouse row has gone up and down through the years. During the 1940s there were twenty-four bathhouses in operation. Only two spas are operating today. You can go to the Quapaw or Buckstaff Bathhouses and soak in the hot spring water for a fee. The Buckstaff has been in continuous operation since it opened its doors back in 1912 and is the only continuously run bathhouse on Bathhouse Row.

While most of the springs have been covered and sealed off to prevent contamination, you can still see some springs bubbling up and running down the mountain to collect in pools of 140° water.  So, why is the water so hot? It may surprise you to find out that Hot Springs isn’t in a volcanic region. The water you see in the picture above started its journey about 4,000 years ago as rain water seeping into the ground. The rain water is heated naturally by rock that’s under immense pressure at a rate of 4° every 300 feet. The rain water is then forced back up though fractures where it will take about a year to return to surface. The park collects 700,000 gallons a day. Here’s a tidbit for you: the water that you see flowing in the picture above started as rain water when the ancient Egyptians were still building the pyramids!

Not far from Bathhouse Row is the Hot Springs Mountain Tower where you can get a bird’s eye view of the area. Not a bad view!

There are even some hiking trails around! We hiked to Goat Rock to check out the view. It was an easy one mile TAB (there and back) trial, but it was so incredibly hot. We ran into an older couple who had hiked from a nearby campground. They were lost with no water and no map, but didn’t seem to be worried about it. Guys, if you’re going to hike…have a map and please carry water. Be smart about your explorations.

We saw tons of these little lizards during our hike. They were everywhere! We even ran into this little lady. Can you see her in the left picture? This little deer is a master at hiding and camouflage.

Ready for some pretties? There were quite a few different pretties around during our hike. We were there late Spring, early Summer. Some pretties were still just waking up. I know, I know…the bottom left picture is of a weed. But, it reminds me of a serious case of bedhead. 😛

We had a great day learning about the springs, tasting the water, and exploring Hot Springs National Park! Even though it’s the smallest and one of the oldest National Parks, there’s quite a bit to see and do. We easily filled an entire day and could have spent another day hiking more. So, what did we learn? Sometimes there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to National Parks.

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017

Pizza Roundup Rod’s Pizza Cellar

Pizza Roundup Rod’s Pizza Cellar

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To my fellow pizza lovers I bring a pizza post from Hot Springs, AR.

Rod’s Pizza Cellar is a really good pizza place! The décor reminded me of the typical pizza parlor with green and red checked décor.

Rod’s was made on July 4th and has been open for 42 years.

The pizza that started it all for Don’s Pizza Cellar is The Godfather pizza and it is really good. The Godfather pizza has Canadian bacon, cheese, sauce, Italian sausage and peppers. The cheese is on top of all of the toppings to help hold it all on the pizza.

The restaurant itself is pretty clean and the food is good, did I mention Don’s has a buffet? Well, it is a good buffet with a nice selection of all the pizzas Don’s Pizza Cellar has to offer.

Dessert was also offered with the buffet. My favorite was the strawberry shortcake!

You don’t like buffets? No problem! They also have a full menu you can order from!

Now with all that, I’m giving Rod’s Pizza Cellar a 5 star review.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!