A Family Vacation Outside Of The Midwest Day 4

Wednesday September 14th, 2016

Crossing The Bridge From Memphis To West Memphis Arkansas

Today we woke up in Hot Springs Arkansas.  After eating breakfast and packing up the car we headed out for our adventure which started by driving to the top of the scenic lookout located near the downtown area.  Our children were really impressed with the curves (which our daughter referred to as U-Turns) on the way up.

A View From The Top

After stopping to explore some of the hiking trails and taking some pictures we headed back to the bottom and walked to the visitors center.  Here we went on a tour of the old bath house and made our way to the hot springs for which the town is named.  Believe me when I tell you the water in the holding pool of these springs is HOT!  After checking these out we headed over to one of the water outlets in the area that allows its visitors the opportunity to drink some fresh, cold spring water.  This water was some of the best tasting water I think I've ever had.

Emilee & Dakota Checking Out A Spring

One Of The "Hot" Springs

Once we finished checking out the attractions at Hot Springs, we headed over to the Crater of Diamonds State Park for a few hours of diamond mining.  We managed to find some quartz, lava, jasper and mica.  We weren't able to find any diamonds on this trip but we had a blast!  

Crater Of Diamonds State Park Arkansas

Ore Cart At Crater Of Diamonds State Park

Sign At Crater Of Diamonds State Park

From here we headed back home so that we could take care of a few things that needed to be done before heading back to work on Monday.  Our trip home was the second longest drive of the trip and we arrived safely back around 1:00 AM.  In all our vacation covered about 1700 miles and took us through Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.  Although this vacation only lasted four days I'm sure the memories will last a lifetime.

- Any day in the outdoors is a good day

A Family Vacation Outside Of The Midwest Day 3

Tuesday September 13th 2016

Today we woke up in Memphis Tennessee and headed out for our daily vacation adventures.  The first stop we made was an unplanned detour to take a relaxing stroll along the Mississippi River.  I managed to show my children that their old dad was still able to outdo them at some of the different exercise stations along the walkway.  

Mississippi River At Memphis

After taking our walk, we headed a couple of minutes down the road to the Memphis Pyramid.  This is one Bass Pro Shop that no outdoor enthusiast should miss seeing. The main floor has a water feature like no other Bass Pro Shop I've seen.  I won't go into too much detail as I would hate to spoil it for anyone who wants to go see it for themselves.  I will say that the upstairs features a museum like area that covers the history of Ducks Unlimited.  Our children loved the whole experience.

The Memphis Pyramid

Having finished looking around the Pyramid, we headed out to the car and were caught by surprise when the window hinge for the glass on the back door of our Escape decided to come apart on us.  This presented a slight problem as I didn't want to have the glass fall out while driving down the road.  I managed to get the window latched good enough to limp it over to a Ford dealership where I was told that this problem was not a common problem at all.  I decided to inform them that they would probably be a much more profitable company if they did some research when deciding which parts they would keep in stock.  My brief research on the subject of hatch-glass hinges told me a completely different story in which this issue is all too common.  I wasn't about to spend a couple of days in West Memphis Arkansas waiting on a part so I did the next best thing.  I headed down the road to the closest hardware store I could find and bought the widest roll of transparent Gorilla Glue brand tape they had on the shelf.  With a little effort to keep the glass in the correct position my wife and I managed to run a couple of strips of tape around the entire window and we were back on the road.  Hot Springs Arkansas.....here we come!

- Any day in the outdoors is a good day