Arkansas: The Natural State

"The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out" - JRR Tolkien

It has been over a month since I have blogged about our travel adventures to find our new home. So much has happened since that time and I will slowly reveal the fruits of our adventures over the next few days : )

Arriving home from Colorado in early September, we tended to Bean and I spent a few days working to cover for the new APP in the my old endocrine office. We decided to wait a few weeks before setting out on another trip to ensure Bean was stable. His strength and energy gradually improved and in mid September, we set out for Arkansas. Although the state was not originally on our list, the proximity to DFW and our fear of making a longer trip away from Bean led us to add it to our itinerary.

Let me start here: Arkansas is beautiful. We arrived in Little Rock in time for a lunch break, so we stopped at Boyle Park, popped our 4Runner trunk, and loaded our plates with the usual: Hawaiian rolls, pre made chicken salad, cheese sticks and chips! The pine trees towered over heads, providing shaded cool in the middle of the afternoon in the sweltering Arkansas humidity. Lunch was delicious as always but my sweet tooth was aching. We made a quick pit stop in downtown Little Rock at Loblolly, a local ice cream shop. Fully satiated, we started exploring some of the local neighborhoods: Cammack Village, Capitol View, & Riverdale.

Near Cammack Village, I had heard of the longest pedestrian bridges in the United States: big dam bridge. Nearly 1300 m long, the bridge connects 14 miles of trails in Pulaski county. We walked across the Arkansas River, watching a barge cross beneath us, traversing the water elevator system. Driving around the surrounding areas, we saw beautiful neighborhoods perched on the side of a hill overlooking the Arkansas River, imaging what our lives would look like in this alluring state.

Toward the end of the day, we set off toward Pinnacle Mountain State Park, home of the second tallest peaks in Arkansas: Pinnacle Mountain. Taking West Summit Trail, we ascended the peak as the sun shifted toward the horizon. At the base of the peak, we hiked among the trees, shrouded in shaded undergrowth. Gradually the climb became more rocky and the sun nudged through the leafy greenery. We followed a roughly marked trail along the rocks as the Arkansas scenery opened up before our eyes. At the top of Pinnacle Mountain, rolling hilltops covered by millions of trees and exuberant foliage blanketed the countryside. The Arkansas River snaked through the green, reflecting yellow sunshine off of the sky blue waterway.

We hiked back down the mountain, jumped into Ren, and set off to find a place to snooze, ending our first day in the Natural State. The journey northward would take us into the Ozarks, and even more beauty to behold.