The "Taco-Bell-Trip" to Hot Springs

The Taco Bell "Party Pack" was the star of the trip!

It turned out that this trip was about as perfectly planned as I could have hoped for.  Well, except for one thing.  For some reason I had it in my head while planning that it was an 8-hour drive to Hot Springs from Wheaton.  But alas!  It is a 10-hour drive from Wheaton to Hot Springs, and I discovered this to my chagrin when I entered "Hot Springs" into my GPS and found that we would be arriving at least two hours later than I hoped!  That stress was short-lived, because we had to be in the car all day anyway, and there's not really too much difference between arriving at 8pm versus 10pm.  

However, because of that time difference, it was evident that we would not be able to cook dinner at the campsite our first night.  So on the way we stopped at the extremely slow drive-thru at Taco Bell in Pocahontas, Missouri and got the "Party-Pack" of soft-shell supreme tacos.  That's 12 tacos.  It was perfect.  At first Cassia didn't want any, so William and I were eating hers.  As we were approaching Hot Springs, she decided that she did want a taco, but there was only 1 left.  And when she ate it, she thought it was amazing and insisted that we get Taco Bell again on the way back so that she could eat her share of supreme soft-shell tacos!  So that's we did, except on the way back we stopped at the extremely slow drive-thru at Taco Bell in Blytheville, Arkansas.  [What is with the extremely slow drive-thru at Taco Bell?!?!?  No idea.]

So we arrived at Hot Springs after dark and hastily set up our tent and went promptly to bed.  We slept in and cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast.  We spent the first day strolling around town to see what was there, and then in the afternoon we drove around the park to scope out the places to which we wanted to hike the next day.  There is a whole row of bath-houses in Hot Springs, which are amazing relics of the past.  However, it is insanely expensive to actually bathe in any of them, and there is a minimum age requirement of 14.  So neither William nor Cassia could have gone in, anyway.  So that was a little bit disappointing!

The major observation of our first day at Hot Springs was how much the town gave all of us distinctly "South Africa" vibes.  The central part of town is pretty chic, where all the tourism is.  But quite literally, a block away from the tourist area the town looks pretty rundown, almost decrepit.  It felt very sad.  It's clear that the wealth of the town is concentrated around the tourism of the national park and very little else.  It felt very much like towns in South Africa. 

 

Once-glorious buildings now empty and dilapidated

The weather was hot, so once we got back to the campsite we took a dip in the creek at the campground.  And the creek was awesome!  It was crystal clear water running down light rapids along the length of the campground.  This particular campground did not have any showers, but the creek more than made up for that.  We swam in the creek and saw all the usual things: crawfish, bluegill, minnows, snails, etc.  And truthfully, the creek totally made the campground!  The campground itself was mediocre at best.  The campground was not large.  The campsites were really close together.  It's separated from the center of the park so you have to either hike a mile or drive through town to get anywhere interesting.  But it was so much fun camping at this campground, because of the ability to cool off in the creek during the hot afternoon!  We made cheesy stroganoff for dinner, planned our hiking route for the following day, and then capped off the evening with a round of Dominion, which is our new "go-to" family game.  William won!

Our second morning we ate Pop-Tarts paired with fried apples-and-onions for breakfast.  Our only planned activity for the day was hiking, and we picked out the spots we wanted to go without worrying too much about distances, because none of the trails are very long at Hot Springs.  We first hiked up North Mountain to a spot called Goat Rock, then traversed over to Hot Springs Mountain and ate our lunch by the mountain tower on the summit.  After lunch we went down into town, crossed the road, and then climbed up West Mountain to the trail shelter and overlook that is on the crown of the mountain but short of the actual summit.  After that, we hiked straight back to the campsite.  All told, we hiked about 5 miles.  William and Cassia thought it was a little long, but it seemed perfect to me.  This was the first time that they had really done proper "hiking"––where they had to carry food and water, and the only way back was by walking back the way we came.  I was satisfied to watch both William and Cassia be pushed out of their comfort zone a bit physically and then rise to the challenge!  Later, at dinner, I asked them both if they felt like they had accomplished something that day, and they both answered enthusiastically, "YES!"

After returning to the campsite mid-afternoon, we again swam in the creek and then took a short jaunt into town for Mamoo's Homemade Ice Cream, which was pricey but DELICIOUS.  We then went back to the campsite and ate hot dogs for dinner.  I had bought a couple games at the dollar store called "Escape from the Museum" and "Murder at the Manor," which both looked like cheap party games.  Anyway, on Friday night we played "Escape from the Museum," which involved solving 12 different kinds of puzzles in order to decode a cipher that allowed you as a group to "escape."  And I have to say, this was surprisingly super-fun!  And actually, we weren't able to finish because it started to get dark and we couldn't read the final puzzle.  We had to stop and then finish in the morning after the sun came up!  "Escape from the Museum" was a big hit, with all of us!

Mamoo's Homemade Ice Cream  (the photo-bomb was planned!)

We hadn't made any specific plans for Saturday, which was a good thing because I had a terrible night of sleep on Friday night.  That's highly unusual for me while camping.  I often get my best sleep in a tent.  The three of us had some deep and pretty meaningful conversations while hiking, and I think my brain was just processing all of that.  From what I remember watching the moon go across the sky, I'm pretty sure I dozed off for a while a couple different times during the night.  But I didn't get much sleep at all.  Also, our campsite was invaded by a raccoon looking for food.  We hadn't been very careful cleaning up.  I think he was after our graham crackers.  Anyhow, that was an interesting night!

We woke up on Saturday morning and had pancakes and eggs for breakfast.  William and Cassia wanted to go back and explore the town a bit more, so we did that.  We stopped in the shops to get some mementos, and then made our way back to the campsite once again.  And we just hung out at the campsite for all of Saturday afternoon, which felt absolutely perfect.  If we had made our trip one day shorter and left on Saturday morning, it would have felt rushed and tired.  If we had stayed one extra day and left on Monday instead of Sunday, I think we would have been terribly bored.  But having one day of unplanned activity to just relax felt just right.  We read books, played games, and ate quesadillas for dinner.  We tried to play "Murder at the Manor" because quickly discovered that it was basically a cheap knock-off of Clue and NOT conducive at all to playing outdoors.  So we skipped it.  I packed up everything in the car except the tent and what we needed for Sunday breakfast, and then we all went to bed kinda early.

At this point, I need to relate some of my random-but-interesting observations from the trip:

• Illinois has a lot of state troopers.  Missouri has a lot of cars with no license plates.  I estimate that the number of cops I saw in Illinois is roughly equal to the number of cars I saw in Missouri that had no license plate whatsoever!  Weird.

• US Highway 67 that goes through the Ozarks in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas is an American treasure.  If you get a chance to drive it, do it.  It's wholly unremarkable as a road, but it's beautiful, and almost completely deserted of traffic.

• We camped across the path from "that guy" at the campground--you know, the retired guy who comes and talks to you uninvited and offers you all kinds of things that you don't want?  He was a lovely man, but it was too much.  I will say that he came over to the campsite and just dumped two massive logs on our campfire, which was nice.  And we used them!  When we departed, I surreptitiously left him a couple RV levelers that our other neighbors had inadvertently left behind.

• One of the most interesting things I saw was a guy traveling alone with a small puppy who stopped at the campsite simply to charge his Tesla.  He stayed for about 2 hours, and I thought he was going to camp.  But alas, no!  He plugged in, unplugged, and left.

• To amuse ourselves during the long drive, we counted license plates.  Our final count was 42 different US license plates (all except Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, West Virginia, and Washington DC).  I had the closest guess with 40!

We woke up early on Sunday morning for the long drive ahead.  I have a customary breakfast that I eat on the final morning of camping: fried SPAM with honey on flour tortillas.  I love it!  And now William and Cassia do, too!  We ate our breakfast and packed up the campsite, getting in the car exactly at our target time of 9am.  [William laments that that NEVER happens!] We were all set to go when I realized that I didn't know where my wallet was.  So it took me another 30 minutes to rummage through the entire car to find my wallet, which I did eventually.  Then we were on our way.  We again stopped at Taco Bell on the way back, arriving back home in Wheaton just after 9pm.  It was an amazing trip!