Arkansas

part 6

[This is the final installment of our Arkansas weekend for Saturday Stories. I will be writing about our vacation travels next after a brief birthday reflection next week]

I had contemplated the idea of seeing if we could book the room for an extra night, but after sleeping there that night realized it wasn’t a good idea. The whole night I felt like I was lying with my head pointing down. The next morning, I looked at the bed and realized I wasn’t just imaging it. The bed had a serious slant to it. Plus, the mattress was super soft – something I can tolerate for long. I need a firm to hard bed to sleep well.

So, Saturday morning we packed up our meager belongings, threw them in the backseat of the truck and headed out. Our plan was to do some hiking in Devil’s Den State Park. We had hoped to find a place to eat breakfast along the route. Unfortunately, the route I took barely had any people let alone a place to eat breakfast.

When we got to the park, we found the visitor’s center and sign that said, “Cafe.” The cafe didn’t open until 10am so we had to hang our for a bit. It wasn’t bad for a state park cafe. Better than expected, really. Not something to get all excited about, but good enough.

After breakfast we decided to hike the “Yellow Rock Trail.” It is a little over three miles long and one of the more popular trails. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that crowded for a holiday weekend with cool weather. It was a nice hike. We tagged a couple other walks on to the end of it and finished with around 6 miles of hiking. My ankle said that was all it could take.

We drove back south for a bit and turned onto the highway that took us by Natural Dam, a town and a dam that is...you guessed it...natural. Kind of cool, but not something you would want to make a special trip to see.

We followed that highway up to Siloam Springs, driving close to Oklahoma but staying on the Arkansas side of the line. I considered turning towards Stillwell, but thought our chances of food were better in Siloam Springs.

Monica, despite my Summer of Monica moniker, insisted I say what I wanted for dinner. A good hamburger or pizza is what I was thinking. She found a place in downtown Siloam Springs called Fratelli’s Wood-Fired Pizzeria.

Considering how many times I have driven through Siloam Springs, it is amazing that I had never been in the old downtown area. I was impressed how nice it was. Of course, being a Sunday evening, there wasn’t much going on, but just be appearances, it looks like a pleasant area. Well taken care of. Several shops. A nearby park.

When we arrived a light rain had set in. Still, there was enough of a break that we could sit at one of the two tables out front on the sidewalk. They don’t really offer sizes of pizza like most pizza places. There is one size. The pizza was good. As M said, they seem to use quality ingredients. It lacked something in terms of flavor. M thought it was that the sauce wasn’t up to par with everything else. Still, it was a good pizza.

We hadn’t had ice cream all weekend. I hadn’t had ice cream in about two weeks. I’m trying to get my weight back down to a goal I had set and gotten near before I started my new job at Half Moon. After I started there, my weight went the opposite way. Not enough physical activity. So, I recently put some effort into it, stopped eating sweets (not completely buy mostly). Drinking water and not other sugary stuff. Started walking a lot more and rucking too. About three weeks into that and down around 10 pounds.

Anyway, no ice cream for me is a miracle in and of itself. But we were on a mini-vacation. So, I looked on maps. It said Pure Joy Ice Cream was a two minute walk from where we were seated. And it said it was open. Sure enough, we walked about three short downtown blocks and there it was.

We were the only customers. A nice young lady waited on us. Monica had the bourbon caramel. I had a scoop of that and a scoop of the rosemary peach. Wow. That’s some good ice cream. I’m glad we found it. That will be on the definitely must stop there list from now on.

Claremore needs a good ice cream shop like that. Downtown. Not mass produced factory stuff. But well-crafted with interesting flavors.

The rest of the trip is what you would expect for a drive on 412.