Trip 3: Day 5 - Hot Springs

Today is my birthday!
And we're spending it in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

I visited this quaint little town near the end of high school when my aunt and uncle lived in Little Rock, but I have very little recollection of it, other than the row of bathhouses. It was fun to explore it with the kids, who were somewhat interested.

We've found if it doesn't include shopping, they tend to be more interested. Shopping = whining!

Today's agenda is pretty low key:

• Arkansas Alligator Farm
• Bathhouse Row, ie hot baths
• Magic Springs and Crystal Falls amusement park

We'll end the day in Branson at Jillian's condo at Table Rock Lake. It's just shy of 4 hours from Hot Springs, home of Former President Bill Clinton. We'll meet up with the dad's and officially call the road trip complete - although we'll be at the lake through the weekend.

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In exploring downtown, we went inside the beautiful buildings. Back in the day, gangster activity was huge in this area. There was gunfire, feuds, drinking and gambling. Al Capone was a regular. The hotel above was a hangout.

In one of the most famous gangster hotels, The Arlington, Griffin was brave enough to try the "hot springs" mineral water from the drinking fountain. And by hot, they mean hot. We told him to "go for it;" he could get cold anytime!

We did a little exploring before heading to Bathhouse Row where we explored the Fordyce Bathhouse where it was proclaimed "the best in Hot Springs in 1915." We learned that you could become a Jr National Park Ranger by filling out a questionnaire during your exploration.

All of the kids, except Tyler, earned their golden badge. (He was too cool for school)

We hope to make this a regular part of our National Park exploration in the future.

After walking downtown, we decided to head to an alligator park we found on TripAdvisor. It said you could feed and touch alligators.

That sounded pretty exciting to everyone ... but my kids.

When we pulled up to the building, we weren't quite sure what we were getting ourselves into. The building leaves a lot to be desired...

We found these signs outside the building to be fascinating:

We had no idea Hot Springs was the birth of spring baseball nor did we know this was a historical place!

Babe Ruth hit a "mammoth" home run from a nearby park that landed inside the Alligator Park on March 17, 1918! The mark is still documented inside the alligator park today!

This gave the alligator park a whole new level of appreciation to the baseball-loving boys.

Want to know what's sad? The park where Babe hit the ball, Whittington Park, doesn't exist. It is now a grassy field the alligator farm uses for overflow parking. It's fairly small, and it's hard to see how it ever would have been used by a baseball team!!

We were super close to the alligators. A bit too close for Ashlee's comfort

After the adventure with the alligators - who mostly stayed like statues sunning themselves on the concrete - we loaded up and headed north toward Branson. 

Final Leg! 

Missouri, here we come.

We did stop one last, unexpected time in Arkansas.

Most people find road signs extremely annoying. We find them appealing as they often lead us to strange things on the side of the road - one being this "bridge" that we thought would be incredibly stupid.

Well, we were somewhat right. The bridge was cool, but we were stupid for paying to see it!

Yes, they have a man blocking the entrance, making you pay for admission. They always get you!

That's the bridge in the background. It looks a bit like a tree fell over but it's actually rock.

In Branson, we met the daddy's at Keeter Center, a restaurant run by students from the College of the Ozarks. The food was AMAZING - did I mention they catered to Ashlee and her Celiac?? - but the dessert was even better.

Both Evie and I were surprised with chocolate cake (and song) for our birthdays!

Back at the condo, we gave the daddy's their whiskey. I think we have winners!

Trip 3: Day 4 - Memphis

Good morning Memphis!

It's a bit exhausting going from town to town each day, but it makes for lively adventures. No day is ever the same when you're on the Amazing Road Trip with Mom! Today's agenda:

• Duck march at the Peabody Hotel at 11 a.m.
• Explore Beale Street
• Visit Graceland, home of Elvis Presley (the kids have no idea who he is), from the street
  
• Visit the Loraine Hotel, where MLK was shot (the kids do know who he is)

Travel almost 3 hours to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where we will spend the afternoon/night.

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Before the ducks made their grand march from the roof to the lobby, we went and visited them in their royal digs. They have a miniature Peabody inside their rooftop cage that is surrounded by glass so they can see the outside.

Sadly, these ducks are never outside.

They are trained to walk from their roof top cage, get on the elevator and walk the red carpet to the awaiting fountain. There is a duck master who's job is to watch them all day. In the fountain.

It's a pretty fancy show.

We had front row seats as we waited for the parade. Sometimes it "pays" to pay a little extra....

After the ducks, we headed toward Beale Street.

We ate lunch at a pizza place. The crazy part: they entertain kids not with crayons and coloring books, but with raw pizza dough!! I about died on the spot. I still let Ashlee play with it but she did a lot of hand scrubbing before she ate her gluten free pizza!

The pizza was pretty good, but we ended up with nearly half a pizza left! We tried pawning it off on a table of men on their lunch break next to us, but they kind of looked at us funny when we offered it to them. So, we decided to box it up and bring it with us.

Tyler handed it out to a homeless person on Beale Street.

I love how my kids love helping others. Whether it's popcorn and spare change in Chicago or pizza in Memphis, they understand that others suffer while we are blessed (maybe not to the extent I wish they would but they get the idea)

The kid's didn't find Beale Street that fascinating. I think they thought we were in downtown Nashville again.

I've been to both places so I knew what to expect. I personally enjoy Nashville downtown more than Beale Street, but I prefer both without kids as we never listened to live music in EITHER location!

Our kids do not like to walk in heat.
But they do like basketball.

They were impressed with the Memphis Grizzlies stadium. The only thing that could have made it better was if we'd run into a Grizzly - a player, not a bear.

This was one of the few places where we bought souvenirs. We don't tend to buy a lot of those, surprisingly.

We spent more time in the gift shop than we did on Beale Street. And more time finding parking than on Beale Street. So you can see it was well worth the trip...

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Back in the car, we decided to take the kids somewhere educational.Someplace even I haven't been in Memphis: The Lorraine Motel.

Some people may not know the Lorraine by name. It's connected to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Everyone knows that he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of thousands, if not millions, in Washington, D.C., but it was here at the Lorraine - on the balcony of his hotel room - that a man stood on top of a nearby hillside, near a motel, and shot him dead.

It's a somber site. It looks identical to the way it was back on that day, April 4, 1968.

The kid's totally understood the significance of the hotel. They didn't mess around. There was no joking; no laughing. They stood like mini adults and read the plaques, asking questions. Some we could answer; some we could not.

The motel is now a museum. We didn't go inside because of the kid's but the magnitude of the outside was powerful. It is the one place I will always remember. RIP MLK.

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Following the Lorraine, we went on an unplanned adventure - through the streets of Memphis.

We were looking for a gluten free bakery that was recommended to us via Facebook, but I think they gave us the wrong address as we ended up in the middle of a not-so-great, aka extremely run down, residential neighborhood.

We wondered as we drove Cherry back and forth down this one street - where people stood on street corners and we stood out horribly. At one point, we stopped at a Stop Sign to put something in our GPS and Tyler began freaking out from the back seat

"What are you doing Mrs. Jill? We have to go Mrs. Jill!! We can't stay here Mrs. Jill!!!!"

The panic in his voice was so real. We hadn't even said anything. But we were crying with laughter.

We later learned Memphis is one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. Whoops!

Thankfully we were Ok, but we never did find that bakery. Next time, we're sticking with TripAdvisor, our go-to tour guide.

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We made one last stop before heading to Hot Springs, Arkansas: Graceland, home of Elvis.

Our kids have absolutely no idea who Elvis is so we didn't attempt to go in Graceland (I've been before and it's pretty cool, actually).

We chose to take a picture in front of the house where it's protected by a brick wall, graffitted with love notes to the one and only king.

By this point, our kids had had enough of Memphis and were all to ready to head on South!

We rolled into Hot Springs, home of President Bill Clinton, at dinner time.

We picked a little Mexican restaurant for dinner, mostly because Jillian and I wanted a margarita.

Jillian and I wanted to explore the downtown area, but the kids were D.O.N.E.

We let them swim at the hotel and chill until we explore tomorrow.