| 2009-10-20 20:04:31 923 It has been a couple years since Emily and I have been to Hot Springs so we decided to try it out again with the Waldroups. Friday started with me going to class at 8:00 to catch the test review. Of course Emily wasn't ready when I got home but at least we got on the road a little before 10:00. Had a nutritious breakfast of chicken strips and potato wedges at Smokey's, the gas station that sprung up in the middle of nowhere between here and Tupelo. Memphis sucked because of the traffic due to construction and wrecks on 55 but we finally made it to Texas de Brazil. It was awesome as usual. Double awesome because we got it at the lunch price! After that Emily killed some time going to two of the stores left at Peabody Place. That "mall" is totally going to be completely dead soon. Maybe they just need some stimulus cash. From there we headed on over to Cabot and made pretty good time on 40 with all of the big trucks. I started using the GPS to set my cruise because according to it, the Accord's speed is 5mph off at 70. We got there and got a tour of the new Volvo and I got a tour of Cory's sweet new bike parts. After a while, two more couples came over and we had loads of fun eating cheese and olives. After a wonderful night of sleep with no doggies to wake us up, we got up around 9 and had an awesome breakfast of cheesecake. We watched the episode of Glee Emily and I missed last week, I guess Tivo thinks Mythbusters is more important. After a bit we got on the road to take a detour to Pinnacle Mountain on the way to Hot Springs. Google's Street View makes it look impressive. We were going to take the western trail but there was a festival going on near that side which made the parking be not free. So we drove around to the eastern summit trail and headed up. The sign said it was only a 3/4 mile trail. That is not bad at all until you add in the fact that it ascends nearly 1/4 mile in that distance. The first half of the trail was dirt and rock strewn like I had expected. What I did not expect was to be on all fours climbing up boulders. It was a great adventure and I made it to the top even with my fear of heights. We made an executive decision to descend on the less steep western side to the bottom and then take the base trail around back to the car. It was a blast, most fun I've had hiking in forever. From there we grabbed some food at a burria to place that is a chain around Little Rock and drove on to Hot Springs. Checked into the I got up on Sunday morning and had the adventure of an Arlington shower. They are pretty small tiled enclosures with the shower head a whole 5'6" or so off of the ground. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. All in all I thought the Arlington was pretty good, but that was because I was expecting it to be an adventure. David had told me not to expect much out of it as compared to the Eola in Natchez. It definitely could use some work though. The bathroom in the room was interesting. From the pattern of the floor tile you could tell where the original bathroom ended and they tried to tie in more tile when they expanded it. The original bathroom was just the toilet and sink and the shower stall was added later! The "fire escape" map on the door confirmed this as it indicated a much smaller bathroom with the closet in a different location. Kinda makes sense that the rooms did not have showers in them once upon a time since the place was set up for spa bathing. Anyway we checked out and then headed to Granny's Kitchen on bath house row for breakfast. Cory and I found some on street parking that the Volvo used its sweet parking camera to get us in inches from the curb. The food was awesome and fatty, two orders of peanut butter pancakes, one of strawberry pancakes, and an awesome omelet full of meat and cheese with grits for me. The service was so so. From there we crossed the street and checked out the museum bath house for a while and the a few more shops. Got back on the road headed to Cabot and saw signs for the Pharaohs exhibit. So of course Cory called to see that it would be open and we decided to go. It was really neat, the first time I've ever seen a real mummy as far as I know. By then it was getting so late that it was time to eat again so we went to the Flying Saucer and got some good German food. Eventually made it back to the Waldroups' house and got back on the road. Eating before we left really paid off, we did not stop until Holly Springs on the way back for a break and more gas. All in all it was an great trip for us for a somewhat quick weekend getaway! |