Road Trips and Hike Reports

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 Ar...

 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...

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 l...

After checking into our duplex cabin last night, I had a relaxing bath in the surprisingly accommodating bath tub in our room.  We went to bed early. Brian was really feeling weary after so many miles of hiking in the past week plus fighting off a sinus infection,  When we started on our long hike this morning I could feel my muscles aching so taking yesterday off from hiking (mostly because of the weather) was probably a good thing. The plan was to do the 12 mile boy scout trail here at Petit Jean .  That trail connects 4 or 5 of the individual feature trails here at the park. Sometimes covering just a portion of the feature trail, sometimes incorporating most of it.  As it turned out, we headed out from the cabin, to the lodge (which is also the portal to some of the trails) and made it through Bear Cave trail, a piece of connecting trail, part of the premiere trail here called Seven Hollows Trail, then a lone (2+ mile?) connecting trail to Blue Hole area.  ...