Hot Springs, Arkansas

One of the best things about moving to a new state for a year for Joe's fellowship is getting the opportunity to explore a new region we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. I'm so glad we moved to Arkansas because it really is a vacation-zone with little towns, B&Bs, antique stores, and touristy type things in many of the little cities here. Last weekend we decided to spend a couple days in Hot Springs. I'm so glad we went - it was only a couple hours from Little Rock but it was like being on vacation a million miles away! :)

Sidenote: on a whim I decided to be "old fashioned" and try to use a real map to navigate us there, instead of our iPhones. I had no idea how spoiled I had gotten with Google Maps until I tried to do this! Hah!

I had always heard there was a place you can mine for diamonds on the eastern part of the Arkansas. We did some research and got up early Saturday morning and drove to Murfreesboro which is the 8th largest diamond mine in the world! It is a tiny itsy bitsy town in the middle of nowhere but there were tons of people there! You rent all the mining tools (pans, buckets, etc) and go out into this huge open mine and start digging, sifting the dirt through water and searching for diamonds! I was SURE we'd find one. Or probably not. Hah! It was SO hot that day but Landon was in heaven digging! :) After a couple hours we had a little bowl of rocks we thought could be winners.

You take your "diamond hopefuls" into the lodge and an expert looks at them, tests their hardness and tells you if they're diamonds or not. None of ours turned out to be diamonds (oh well!) but we had so much fun with it! On the same week we were there a 12 year old boy did find a 5ct diamond - my mom texted me the CNN article a couple days later!!

That night we went to a hole in the wall fish place and we stayed at one of the hotels in town. The next morning we got up and walked around the downtown area and decided to do a Duck tour. The Duck is an old army vehicle that rides around the streets like a bus but it also is a boat that can go straight into the water. We did a tour of Hot Springs and they touched on some historical areas like where Al Capone had stayed and gambled and also took a tour around Lake Hamilton. Very neat!!

That afternoon we also went to a little water and amusement park.

Landon had so much fun on the rides. There was one ride that he was allowed to ride alone and I took this picture and wondered where my tiny baby had gone. He looks 22 years old to me.

We had such a fun time in Hot Springs and I wish we could have stayed longer. It's such a neat little town that is perfect for a little getaway! We definitely didn't want to come home :)