A few years ago we spent a long weekend in Eureka Springs and had a great time, so when I started thinking about post-COVID vaccine trips, I thought of Arkansas. I wanted to go somewhere not too far away, and somewhere that wouldn’t be overwhelmingly busy with tourists, as I knew the more famous places would be slammed with people eager to travel.
I decided to put together an 8 night road trip for Louie and I that hit the best of Arkansas, or at least, 4 different areas for two nights each.
So, we started with two nights in Little Rock, the state capital. I booked an airbnb in downtown for these leg of the trip. We left on a Saturday morning and headed south.
It’s about a 5 1/2 hour drive to Little Rock, and most of it is on state highways. It was interesting to see the little towns along the way and watch the landscape go by.
We stopped at a McDonalds in Arkansas for a late lunch, and were surprised that we couldn’t eat inside the restaurant. (We actually failed to notice that they were closed inside and were about to sit down and eat and they had to tell us that we couldn’t, which was mildly embarrassing). Missouri has been so “open” this whole time with few restrictions and it was odd to think that a neighboring state had some. That being said, few people were wearing masks, including people going into that same McDonalds, so it’s not like Arkansas was doing things better, just different.
Anyway, we got to our airbnb at 3 to check in but due to a mix up had to wait a little longer. We walked over to a nearby coffee shop in the SOMA area called Community Bakery and sat outside to enjoy some coffee and cookies.
The SOMA area was a 5 minute walk from our airbnb, and SOMA just means South Main Street. It was a few blocks with a bunch of restaurants and a few other things to do, and was really cute. We walked around a bit after our coffee and then went to check into our place.
We were staying in a little apartment in a house with a shared kitchen and other shared spaces, but with private areas. It worked out really well and the hostess actually wasn’t even around for the rest of our stay, so we had the place to ourselves at a cheaper rate!
We walked down to the river next, and took an hour or more just looking around, taking pictures, and getting a sense of Little Rock.
There is a park called Riverfront Park right down by the River which has art and playgrounds and other cool stuff to do and look at. You can also bike or walk along the Arkansas River Trail which is a much longer trail.
We had dinner reservations for a place called Brave New Restaurant, so after awhile we cleaned up and headed there. This wasn’t our first dinner out after getting vaccinated, but it was our first fancy dinner, and I was really looking forward to it! Though it was a bit chilly we sat outside on the patio overlooking the Arkansas River. It was absolutely beautiful as the sun went down!
The food was excellent too: oysters, salad, trout…it was all delicious and well prepared. The chef, Peter Brave, kept coming around to check on all of the diners and make sure we were enjoying our food. We loved the meal and would eat there again!
The next morning we decided to grab coffee and breakfast at the Community Bakery and then go to hike up Pinnacle Mountain at Pinnacle Mountain State Park.
We had a little trouble finding the right parking lot at first due to Google not being as helpful as we needed, but we eventually found the West Summit Trail Trailhead with plenty of time to beat the crowds.
It was a lovely trail, for awhile, until it just turned into some rock scrambling!
The rock scrambling part (unpictured) was terrifying to a point, and I had to sit down for awhile. I didn’t think I could finish and Louie went ahead without me, but after collecting myself and resting I decided to forge ahead and made it to the top!
After hiking, we went back to the SOMA area for lunch and went to a wonderful place called the Root Cafe. We just beat a large crowd, but were told it would be 40 to 50 minutes on our food anyway! This ended up being wrong, and we were eating within 20 minutes. I had a delicious banh mi tofu sandwich and Louie had a mushroom burger.
After lunch we decided to visit the Historic Arkansas Museum (called the HAM). It was okay, and sort of interesting, with old houses outside and some indoor displays, but I was hoping for a bit more on the actual history of Arkansas for general knowledge about the state and the area, and it was piecemeal. It was partly our fault for not doing the call in cell phone tour, but I’m not that interested in going to a museum and using my cell phone… I want to be in the moment at the museum, experiencing and reading stuff, and honestly, I use my phone for taking pictures and it can be tricky going back and forth. In any case, one of the more interesting things to me was that the old houses were actually there from the start of the museum in the 1930’s and the museum itself kept them from being torn down!
We walked over the Bill Clinton Presidential Library after that. We knew it was closed due to COVID but wanted to see the grounds and the building anyway, and there was plenty to do outside, some gardens, wetlands(so many turtles!!), and artwork area. It was a really cool building and I’m sorry we didn’t get to see inside!
The Heifer International Headquarters are there too, but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do there at this time either.
We walked across that bridge and considered looking at the other side as the map indicated a trail, but it didn’t look very welcoming so we turned back.
Our next stop was a brewery near our airbnb called Stone’s Throw Brewery. We got a nice sampler and sat outside enjoying the gorgeous weather: it was in the 70s!
We went back to the SOMA area for dinner to Mockingbird Bar and Tacos. It was tasty and we enjoyed sitting outside relaxing.
The next morning we left our airbnb and had one more stop in Little Rock before heading to Hot Springs, the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
The Visitor’s Center was only allowing a certain number of people in at once, so we got a time to come back, and went to see the outside stuff first. There’s the high school where the Little Rock 9 attended school and some other places around, a gas station where the media used the payphone (it’s so funny to remember that we didn’t all used to have phones all the time!) and a bench where one of the 9 sat waiting for everybody and some other stuff. It’s a very moving and emotional place to visit, and it really makes you think about Civil Rights, how much things have changed yet how much things stay the same.
The museum was great (though the COVID protocols of limited people and giving times to come back meant that we were all clumped together going one way in the museum, when otherwise we might have naturally spread out more to avoid being clumped together!) and definitely worth a visit.
After the NPS site we got lunch at Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling. Louie wanted to stop by the Clinton Library again to look at a little island we had skipped the day before, but I didn’t want to walk in the sand so we split up.
The grounds were beautiful and there was a display of various globes which seemed to have something to do with Charlotte, NC initially rather than Little Rock so I assume it was a visiting exhibit in some way.
Anyway, Louie said the island was pretty much flooded out (I think from two years ago, likely?) and so then we hit the road for Hot Springs! If you have Little Rock questions, be sure to let me know!
But maybe just to say, I want to read the book about somebody who didn’t just hit the road. I want to read the book by somebody who spent as much time planning their trip as doing it! I’m sure that book exists (and I’d like it to be by a woman so I can relate more) or I guess I should write it, ha. If I wrote a book I’d have to edit though, rather than with my blog. (I’m aware people DO edit their blogs, it’s just not something I want to spend a lot of time doing. Yes, I’d probably have more followers.)
