We finally managed a trip back to Arkansas in coordination with Liza’s mother Alpha, to spend some time with family, but also to see some sights that had escaped us on many prior visits. We met up with Alpha in Dallas (thank you American Airlines for neither flight being late) and continued on to Little Rock. After telling the rental car company no, we don’t really want the behemoth SUV to drive down the road (seriously, a choice between an Expedition and an Armada … what are we, the Spanish off in search of gold?) we stopped in for “dinner” at the Flyway Brewing Company in Little Rock before continuing on to Hot Springs.

Hot Springs was a new destination for us, if you can believe it, as normally we’d stay over in Arkadelphia, closer to Bismarck, DeGray Lake, my Uncle Melvin and Aunt Pat, etc. But this time it was more convenient to be in Hot Springs, and it gave us a great chance to visit the national park, see a couple of actual hot springs (yes, it’s hot), relax at a bathhouse, and check out the local restaurants.

We also had a great time visiting family, spending much time with Liza’s cousin Mike and family (including his wife Tonya’s parents!), and Alpha was able to visit with friends from high school. We paid our respects to Liza’s Uncle Melvin (Alpha’s brother) at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery and cheered ourselves up by recounting (ahem sometimes sketchy) family stories. We had a lot of fun too at a big family dinner one night (thanks Becca for arranging!) and also visiting Liza’s cousin Tanya and hubby Kenny out in Gurdon (and oh, thank you so much for the impromptu car wash :-). Lastly we had a nice visit with Liza’s Aunt Pat. (I know I’m not mentioning everybody, but we had a great time with all!)

A few other things on the agenda were inspecting our little plot of land (hey, it’s an actual woodland now!), and we also got out to the lovely Garvan Woodland Gardens.

Some trip photos follow…click to see larger version and optionally start a slide show.

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