Thank you McFPro PTO for a Fourth of July weekend road trip.

Here are a few hints of where we went:

1. Home to the smallest and oldest national park in the United States, established in 1832, predating Yellowstone by 40 years.
2. The park is famous for its Victorian architecture.
3. It was a major center for Major League Baseball spring training in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
4. It was a hotspot for gangsters during the Prohibition Era (1920s-1930s).

If you guessed Hot Springs, Arkansas you win… absolutely nothing. But high five for knowing your National Parks and US history! I really love that for you. We pulled up to our Airbnb at 11pm-ish on Wednesday and left about 10am on Sunday, so here’s everything we did with three days in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Thursday:
Very leisurely woke up and got breakfast started. We packed Janet’s eggs + a few store-bought ones and our favorite beef bacon. I know some people are gasping that we made our own breakfast on vacation so I won’t say we grilled steaks for dinner (but we did).

After breakfast, we drove about 30 minutes to Garvan Woodland Gardens. We walked four miles but because we decided to go on the hottest day of our trip, we didn’t make it much longer than a few hours. It was beautiful and we covered a lot of ground. I would say it was enough time to enjoy the sunshine, a frosted lemonade, and beautiful plants. Lane enjoyed his time too, but I really enjoyed mine.

Yes, we were tuckered out at the end and decided to take a nap after the grocery store. We grilled steaks, broccoli, and potatoes and overlooked the golf course for the fireworks show.

Friday:
I messed up the first pancake (Lane ate it before it got to a plate) but the rest were fit for photos. We spent Friday at Hot Springs National Park, mainly at Bathhouse Row, though we did take a scenic ride through the mountains before heading home.

Bathhouse Row is a collection of eight historic bathhouses lining Central Avenue in Hot Springs National Park. Built between 1892 and 1923, these grand bathhouses were a popular destination for people looking for relaxation and rejuvenation in naturally heated waters flowing from beneath Hot Springs Mountain. I’ll write more about this in a separate blog but we enjoyed reading about the history and touring the Fordyce Bathhouse, now the visitors center.

Lunch was at the Superior Baths, now Superior Bathhouse Brewery. It’s the World’s only beer brewed with thermal spring water and the only brewery in a national park. Ten out of ten people recommend the pimento cheese dip and loaded fries (they were called something else, but I can’t remember their name). We topped off with a root beer float that was chefs kiss.

We strolled through shops, logged almost four miles, bought our traditional souvenir of a Christmas ornament, took photos of Victorian architecture and landscaping, and went home for yet another nap. Dinner was a bit of a disaster so be forewarned that Friday nights in Hot Springs are packed and you should either 1. cook at home or 2. make reservations.

Saturday:
We slept through breakfast and went straight to lunch at Artfully Baked and Brewed, in Hot Springs Village, the private village we rented the house in (and will do again). Taking our lemonades to go, we rolled out two beach towels and sat the RTIC cooler down on the bank of Balboa Lake, a 900+ acre lake in Hot Springs Village. We burned in the sun and raisined-up in the water until we found ourselves at Sonic ordering a peach/mango slush and cranberry limeade. Dinner of crab rangoon nachos, shrimp tacos, and monterey chicken was at Sunset Grill on the same lake a few hours later.

We packed a lot into our three-day Hot Springs trip and loved it. Sunday’s car ride home consisted of looking for larger AirBnbs in Hot Springs Village so we could take our family and friends back!