Road Trips and Hike Reports

Saturday night ( Sunday morning really ) The train from Little Rock to Chicago ran about 2 hours late.  Neither of us slept very well which is not unusual on the first night of a train journey.  After our short night (about 1:30 am to 6:30 am) the rest of the journey was very trying because the roomette leaves you with 2 day seats that face each other with minimal room once the beds are put up.  Finally getting into Chicago was a relief.  Sunday We re-organized our bags in preparation for checking as much as we could because the type of train that goes from Chicago to Rochester has almost no luggage space.  We then headed out to wander around Chicago for a few hours.  We took the Red line train up to Loyola university, an area of town I hadn't explored before.  There wasn't a ton to see in that area but we did walk over to the lake shore and ended up having a wonderful dinner at Beard & Belly on Broadway.  Beard & Belly is paired up with a pie shop (at this location a

Wednesday We started our last day in Eureka Springs by having an amazing breakfast at Three Bird Cafe .  I had the most flavorful breakfast burrito I've ever had.  It was covered in Hatch Chile chili and filled with potatoes and Chorizo.  Really exceptional.  We also had a blueberry pastry.  After breakfast we walked around Basin Springs park which is one of the oldest parts of town. Brian wanted to visit a candy store that opened at 10 am so we had a little time to explore downtown again.  On the way to Hot Springs we were mostly on scenic AR-7.  We had driven a good part of 7 before (but this trip was southbound not northbound) and last time it was so foggy that it was a chore driving the whole way. This trip started out foggy on some other roads but by the time we got to AR-7 most of the fog was gone and I really enjoyed the non stop curves and very sparse traffic for miles and miles. We stopped for lunch and an opportunistic walk in Clarksville Arkansas.  They had a nice natur

 Our morning started with Brian sleeping a little later than I did so I had breakfast by myself at a cool place called The English Muffin in Hot Springs.  A little after that Brian was up and ready to go and we headed out stopping by McDonald's for him.  I found a hike not too far from Hot Springs called the Lake Blakely North Loop . While our enthusiasm for another hike was not huge this morning, the short drive distance and promising photos spurred us on.  The drive ended up involving about 5 miles of gravel road which was not ideal but we made it.  The gravel road ended at a seemingly arbitrary spot in the woods with no signage or obvious appeal.  Thankfully the Alltrails app made it easy to see the way to go.  That trail is nearly wilderness level isolated.  We only heard briefly the faintest distant boat motor noise and otherwise it was just us and the deep quiet woods.  After yesterday's huge rainfall there were a lot of wet spots along the trail but none were muddy and t

Our day was dominated by the hike we did on the Pigeon Roost trail in Hobbs State Park.  This trail works it's way in and out of ravines above a lake.  There were some little streams, a lot of good tranquil lake overlooks and lots of flowering trees and small trail side wildflowers.  Most remarkable to me was that despite a storm the night before, this trail wasn't wet, muddy or torn up at all.  In fact the entire 8.5 miles is in extremely fine shape with no obstacles to speak of.  The grading of the trail is so consistent and gentle that it went by pretty quickly and the 1000 feet elevation gain wasn't a trudge at all.   After the hike we went into Rogers AR for a Red Robin early dinner which was great.  We then returned to Eureka Springs, had some quiet time at the hotel then wandered downtown a bit and made a brief appearance at Missy's White Rabbit lounge.  Finally I grabbed a piece of cheesecake on the way back to the hotel.

The weather was going to be trouble on this day.  With anything between showers and severe thunderstorms predicted for most of the day with supposedly a few hours gaps in between storms, we decided not to do a big hike.  I took the fastest route (and with an 80 MPH speed limit on US-412, it was VERY fast) from Tulsa over to Arkansas and we spent an hour or so going through the Walmart museum in downtown Bentonville.   Then we continued East on what becomes a very curvy and hilly US-62 into Eureka Springs.  The Best Western Inn at the Ozarks let us check in very early which was nice.  The door to our room opens to a gorgeous deep ravine and it's very peaceful here on these off-season weekdays.  We did laundry again here in town and then, spotting what was supposed to be a couple hour window of no storms a little north of here, headed up to Roaring River state park in Missouri. It was only 30 minutes away and it seemed like the clouds were thinner and less threatening until we were

 Our day started with breakfast in the hotel's Daily Grill. It was a very satisfying start to the day.  We then headed to the Philbrook art museum.  Getting to it was awkward. If we'd gotten a little bit earlier start we could have walked along the river part of the way and then walked or taken the bus back but we didn't get started early enough.  Then I tried to figure out the bus.  Google said to stand mid block 1 block away from our hotel.  There was a bus stop there but Google Maps said we wanted the 'Aero Bus BR SB' and this stop had just 1 route on it with a number.  Still we stood there until a few minutes after the schedule said our bus should have come.  What ended up going by us at one point was the Northbound version of what we wanted but despite standing at the stop it didn't even think about stopping for us.  Then we walked back towards the hotel and saw the other, south bound bus go by.  There actually was a BRT stop right at our hotel but with Tul