Hot Springs

Friday morning I woke up with one very red (dare I say pink?) eye. My stress manifests in my eyes, and I thought I might have pink eye, but it wasn’t super itchy so I wasn’t sure. We walked to the Walgreens by our hotel and grabbed some eye drops and I thought what better place to go with a bum eye than to some therapeutic hot springs, right? 😬 

We filled up our water bottle with some piping hot water, then checked out the National Park shop and info center. 

There used to be 8 bathhouses on Bathhouse Row, but now only 2 operate. 2 are National Park buildings, and the others are hotel/restaurants or being renovated. Also, the eye drops helped my eye immediately, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t pink eye. 

We decided on Quapaw Baths and Spa, and since we didn’t have an appointment (that place was busy!) we settled for the public thermal pools. 

They are strict about pictures, and since we were soaking, we didn’t bring our phones into the pool area at all, but this is from their website. They have 4 different pools, all at different temperatures ranging from 95°-105° and you can stay as long as you like. It was so nice to soak and relax and we stayed for hours, going from pool to pool and drinking their delicious mineral water. It was heavenly.

After our relaxing soak, we hiked. We laughed because we did that backwards, but we wanted to make sure we were able to enjoy the bathhouse and it was semi busy. We hiked up to this cool lookout tower. We didn’t go up in the tower, but it was a fun hike. 

And we met some fun people up top that offered to take some pics. After all of our soaking and hiking, we were pretty famished and it was early afternoon, and we were still over 1000 miles from home, so we ate snacks in the car and made tracks. 

We made it to Mississippi, another first for Matt, by 5:00. 

He does pushups everywhere. 🙄

I looooove a road trip. This one was so pretty. 

Other notable happenings - we almost ran out of gas in search of the lowest price. Thankfully we made it and saved like $2, so go us. We ate dinner at a Huddle House, like a generic Waffle House, and it was ok, but the service was wonderful. She was pretty busy, so she gave us each a free piece of pecan pie (🌟). We stayed that night in a so/so hotel in Tupelo, MS. 

Then Lexi sent me the most darling video. It was long, so not the best quality, but they did the marshmallow test with Emmi and he is the sweetest. 

This was my favorite part. 😍

Then finally daddy came back and said he could eat them. This patient boy was so happy!

And I am in love with his cute glasses! He told Lexi “I can look better!” (see better) 😍 These precious boys!

Everything’s bigger

We woke up early Thursday morning to make it to our 8:00 session at the Dallas temple. Matt drove through the city traffic beautifully.

Another tender miracle there (🌟). It’s been over a year since we’d been and it felt so amazing to spend time in that holy house. We walked around looking at sealing rooms and chatted with a few of the volunteers before we left. 

Then we spent some time walking the grounds outside. 

It was another surprisingly chilly day, I guess that’s Spring for ya. 

So grateful for a hubby that supports my wild ideas. I was so happy to see a new to me temple. 

After this we climbed in the back of big sunshine and changed into our road warrior gear. 

We stopped at a Choice hotel so Matt could use their internet to do some work, then hit up Buc-cee’s for gas and fun. I got Frankie and Delaney souvenirs and snacks to bring home, then got Matt and I fun drinks, a bbq brisket sandwich, and a delish jalepno cheddar kolache, which I’d never heard of but read it’s the thing to get. So glad we got to stop and shop, it reaffirmed that Dallas was the way to go. 

Simple and happy. 

The thing I was most excited about for our trip was to make it to one of my last 4 states - Arkansas. 

I’d never been, and it did not disappoint!

As much as I love pulling over on the freeway for a good “Welcome to…” sign, I also really appreciate a state with a welcome center. 

This one was awesome! The lady that worked there hooked us up with postcards, stickers, and pins for our first time through The Natural State. 

First stop, a town called Hope and a quick stop at Clinton’s childhood home for my dad. 😉 There was another, bigger Clinton home that we passed up for this little guy, and we were ok with our decision. 

On the road again 🎶. 

Our one Arkansas plan was to check out Hot Springs. Matt took me to a natural (read muddy and stinky with questionable characters) hot spring when we were dating, then to a hot spring resort on our honeymoon, so we have a history. This place was so cool! They have fountains like this set up downtown and locals bring bags full of big water bottles with them to fill up their water for free. It comes out hot, like hot tea temperature, but it’s seriously good water. 

We walked around the downtown and enjoyed the many fountains. 

Then we checked out the promenade. Behind the row of bath houses on Main Street there is a huge building that used to be a rehabilitation center, and in front of it is this pretty promenade. 

And then natural hot springs all around. Just hot, steamy water trickling downhill. 

And into steamy pools. Idk if they treat this water or if all the minerals keep it clean and clear, but the whole place was beautiful, and importantly, not sulphur stinky. 

We decided we wanted to come back in the morning for a soak in one of the bath houses, and since the sun was starting to go down, we went ahead and called it a day. We did some laundry and watched the new West Side Story. I had seen bits of it at my moms last month, but never the whole thing. Just why? Why? It is so sad and pointless and blah. The music and dancing were fun, but daaaaang. I don’t need sad movies right now. Other than the downer movie, it was an amazing day. Would recommend Hot Springs 10/10. 

Clovis

Wide open spaces on our way up to Clovis, NM. I put in an online order for a Bahama Rama Mama from Bahama Bucks and we rolled up there at 9:00 exactly as they were locking their doors (🌟). Sugar cookie and mango was so delicious and I was so happy we made it just in time. 

We ate our free hotel brekkie and headed to see our old house. Our first home together and it was a happy one!

We went by the college where Matt worked and found Adi a cool Clovis sweatshirt. 

One thing you should know about Clovis is that there are millions of prairie dogs. They’ll just stand like this in the middle of the road. 🙄👎🏼 Irl they’re annoying, but this guy was cute though. 

We had somehow missed the welcome to New Mexico sign after Edge of Texas, so Matt drove me out and we found the janky-iest one ever! 😂

It was kind of perfect, so of course I hugged it. It reminded me of the lighthouse I hugged that smelled like urine, but I was already in too deep, soooo. 

Hello Matts finger. 

Because Texico is an awesome name, there’s a Texico, NM and a Texico, TX. Awesomeness abounds. 

It was still so windy and so chilly!

Running all around, back and forth across the streets in beautiful Texico is totally normal, be cool. 

The beautiful high plains of New Mexico. Our 4000ft elevation home for 2 years.  

Matt wanted to hike the Caprock about an hour outside of town. 

Only, it’s changed in the 13 years we’ve been gone and we couldn’t find the amphitheater, so a lot of our trail looked like this. I can be adventurous, but I really didn’t want either of us to fall down the gorge. 

We hiked down, down, all around, then back up what felt like a steep cliff (I had to get a hand to the bum for support) and boom, there was big sunshine, our truck. 

Matt helped himself to some rocks for Adi-Sox. 

We’d hoped to final another spot to hike, but no luck. 

Then we were off to Amarillo by morning, and if you think I didn’t play and sing that every chance I got, you’d be wrong.  I was insufferable about every county song reference and I’m not sorry. Honestly, he deserves it. 

We drove on Route 66 for awhile. And those clouds (🌟). 

Since it’s right off the freeway I took Matt to see the painted Cadillacs at Cadillac Ranch. 

Still. So. Windy. 

We grabbed a late lunch at The Big Texan. They had a singer taking requests and Matt requested and was serenaded with a Michael Martin Murphy song. 

After lunch we walked around and Pappy had to get a picture with his machine. 😂 Pappy and Mimi, it’s so good. 😂

This is why I always wear sunglasses. 😂

We’d only lightly planned our route. Matt definitely wanted to go through Clovis, and then we figured we’d go through Oklahoma City. Things had been so busy leading up to our trip that I hadn’t given it much thought. But when I thought about going through OK City I remembered that they have a temple and my mind was made up, we had to go. Then I told Matt about Buc-cee’s and how we had to check one out, and I got to thinking that I’d never been to the Dallas temple, and that route would also allow us a Buc-cee’s stop. It took a little convincing, but Matt came around. I drove Big Sunshine as we left Amarillo and all the way into Dallas. Matt navigated us to a Target where we arrived at 9:45 before their 10:00 closing and we were able to quickly find outfits to wear to the temple the next morning (🌟). The Dallas temple also had appts every hour and available slots for each time (🌟).  

We listened to a few podcasts we both like, but we really just spent our time talking about everything under the sun. It was so good for our relationship to get days and days to focus on only each other. We missed each other when we got back home and he had to go back to work. Happy days and bonding is for sure another 🌟.