Arkansas Master Thread

[chinagel]

Anyone ever been? Recommendations for activities? Specifically looking in Hot Springs area.

[jose34]

Anyone have any experience in this?
Whats the best way regarding flying to get to XNA and surrounding areas. Flight are expensive...

Walmart headquarters.

[Traveler718]

I'm probably the only DDFer who was in Bentonville last summer, but we did it as part of a 2-week road trip through the south. In Arkansas, we also went to Hot Springs NP and Crater of Diamonds SP. Depending on your itinerary, it may be worth it to fly to a more distant airport - MCI, TUl, LIT, OKC.

[SSLPhD]

I'm probably the only DDFer who was in Bentonville last summer, but we did it as part of a 2-week road trip through the south. In Arkansas, we also went to Hot Springs NP and Crater of Diamonds SP. Depending on your itinerary, it may be worth it to fly to a more distant airport - MCI, TUl, LIT, OKC.

I'd be interested in a TR.

[jose34]

Very helpful. Honestly just to fulfill my "inner adventurous sprit and to hit as many states as possible. I'm looking to go somewhere from CVG and run around for a day. Do like one thing is each state. Going into MCI and trying to hit Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas in one day is crazy but to MCI is actually something normal.

XNA is just nuts.

[The Thinker]

Just went a few months ago.
Thurday we flew into Little Rock, drove to Hot Springs. There we walked down bathhouse row. All the fountains on the street are water from the hot springs. Was really cool to see them frozen in 50 degree weather! One of the bathhouses is the national park visitor center. You can take a self guided tour of that. Behind Bathhouse Row is the Promenade. There are a few natural hot springs there. Some just bubbling up from puddles in the grass. We spent about an hour or 2 in total in Hot Springs.
We then went to Crater of Diamond State Park. Since we only had an hour before closing, we didnt rent any equipment and just went out to the field to search. You're allowed to keep the diamonds that you find and they help you identify all the stones. They keep a board of how many were found each day of the month. The day we were there 7 were found. Average size is half a karat and generally 1 or 2 are found a day. People go there for days to search. It was lots of fun.
Friday we drove to Oklahoma and went to Beavers Bend State Park. Not much there but we wanted to be yotzei going to Oklahoma. We did a scenic hike overlooking the river. It was a little confusing hiking back down and we have no idea if we followed the right path or not since the map we had looked nothing like the path that we were on. We then drove to Dallas for shabbos.
Motzei shabbos we went to the pizza shop . Sunday we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards. Cute kid friendly place to walk around. Cattle drive was a disappointment as there were very few cattle. We then went to the Fort Worth Stock Show. That was amazing and highly reccomend if it's going on when anyone is there. You can spend all day there. Lots of competitions, cattle auctions, and hundreds of vendors selling anything farm or cowboy related. The Rodeo was amazing. We flew out Sunday night.

[jose34]

Anyway to do this with minyanim or going north from MCI like going to DSM or OMA?

[Traveler718]

Little Rock has 3x daily minyan at Chabad, as does BIAV in Overland Park, KS (near MCI), not sure about DSM and OMA. If you base yourself in Overland Park, where shacharis is at 6:30, you could theoretically pull off some of these activities as long day trips and still make it back for mincha (e.g. Bentonville is a little under 3 hours each way), depending on when you go and how much driving you can handle. It really depends what your goal is - to see specific states, to do specific activities, or just to have a minyan and do something interesting nearby.

[jose34]

Anything to do in the North East corner of the state, nice parks or the like?

[mmc99]

There's a state park called village creek but I'd faster head over towards Memphis with the bass pro shop and Memphis in general isn't very far and has a lot more to offer