I can't imagine a better spring break for this year! (pics are soon to come!) It was just great despite some minor setbacks to the journey like bad weather conditions and calory panic. Other than these, it really couldn't have been better! We had planned with the intention of going to the Smokey Mtns in NC to hike some of the AT, but weather did not permit this. So, as a last minute decision, our fearless leaders told us about the Eagle Rock Loop Trail in Arkansas. I'm sure we all had our reservations about this, but it turned out to be the right choice as far as I'm concerned. Among my fabulous companions were Sara, Laura, Megan, Nancy, Rachel, Leah, Rebecca and Matt. Just fab!
I
We packed our bags and got ready for a 16 hr car ride. Thank goodness for music and good books and great conversations! We weren't all acquainted with each other before we started, but during those trails we became the closest of friends. I feel that I learned a lot from every member of the trip. On the first night, we stopped in Nevada (Nuh-vay-duh) to cook our first of many delicious hobo dinners. Easy mac is so tasty after 10 hrs in the car! After a couple more hrs of driving, we were all dead tired and pulled into a promising RV lot that was advertised from a neon sign.
II
I woke to find my hair was frozen to my pillow in the morning, but the sun was out!! We thought this was sure to be a friendly omen meaning the rest of our trip would be sunny...boy was we wrong! When we got to Albert Pike Camp Ground, it was gorgeous out! Everything was great, except we'd forgotten to bring an RV with hookups like the others from Texas. So, we had to go to the other less populated side of the grounds to pitch site. We ate like royalty that night! The main course was Chat Masala (like curry) with rice. We topped this off with some local ales and wussy drinks. We got enough dry firewood kindling to build a cabin out of if we had had the energy. We sat around it sipping our southern suds and listening to stories.
III
Good times were had until the morning when it began to rain. We found ways of enjoying this too though after we got dry. Gathering pancake material, we stood around laughing and flipping organic patties. We found out that we had arrived at Albert Pike just in time for prescribed forrest burning and tornado season! Well, seeing this, we decided to kick it in Hot Springs for a while and wait for the poor weather to pass us by. Hot Springs is popular among tourists. We ate at Maggie's Pickles Cafe on mainstreet. This lovely place was named after the owner's beagle and was famous for its fried pickles. I had the best sandwhich I've ever eaten here! Others also had sensational food. My sandwich was called the Maggie Special. After that, we got blue bell ice cream and hiked to the top of the Hot Springs Nat'l Park which Matt believes to be the smallest Nat'l Park in the country. I believe him. We stood over the springs absorbing steam that emanated from the mountain to numb the anxiety that academics had caused us all at Mac. It appeared that spring came early to the park just from all the warmth. It was beautiful and smelt good too.
So after some good times in hot springs, we left, but we couldn't leave the Hot Springs loop. We just kept driving around and around cause we're just cool like that. Well we spent a long time deliberating over where to spend the night. Our options ranged from the side of the road to a motel. Naturally, given my Dad's weather report of extremely bad weather conditions (tornados), some of us were inclined to want to stay at a motel. Others who were hardcore (everyone except me), wanted to sleep in a shelter on top of the mountain which had a lot of room open for wind and rain to come in. Granted that would have been fun in some ways, I'm still glad that we decided to spend the night at the hot Springs airport. OMG This is a story in itself which I hope others can elaborate better on than I will here cause it was awesome but unfortunately cyberspace blogg supervisors frown upon me wasting space so I move on. I will say that we met a great man. Possibly the most generous man that ever was, is and will be in times to come in Hot Springs. This man, Howard offered to be our chaperone despite the fact that we were all complete strangers to him. He looked in the phone book for every last motel or hostile option that would possibly host us for the night. Chances are our trip would not have been as memorable if he had not finally resolved to let us sleep in the homeland security section of the airport. As much as I disliked being the one closest to the outside door in this section that we made our beds, it was pleasant to be able to get a crack of fresh air during the night.
IV
Well, we woke up fully rested (riiiight) and started on our way back to Albert Pike camp ground when we finally decided that we weren't going to be boistered around by some mean tornado or pretend tornado. We loaded up the van and drove back toward the original destination. We paid a visit to the local ranger station in Glenwood near Albert Pike and heard that we could get badges if we completed the full course of the Eagle Rock loop trail. Well this was all we needed for the extra motivation. Not long after we began our fateful...lovely journey up the mountain. Little did we know-we began our hike up the wrong side of the loop which we found out a couple of miles later. We got in a spantastic view of the lil' missouri river though and a parking lot before we headed back down to out van which we cursed as we passed on our way to the correct side of the loop.
Finally on the right track, we made our way over boulders and colorful moss. It was all very picturesque until we entered some charred black parts which were ...still picturesque above waistline. We all marveled over how well the fire had been controlled. When we first heard that there were burnings taking place, I was a wee bit frightened. Just imagine if we had made it half way round to find our way blocked completely by walls of FIRE! Sounds like an 80s rock concert. Unfortunately that didn't happen. We had to cross some streams which I thought would all be small at first. It seemed like they kept getting wider, deeper and less accessible to people without chocos. We camped out 2 miles into the trail and set up tent and tarps. This night was great fun! We were all worried about the possibility of rain so our two tarp experts thought long and hard about ways to engineer their construction taking into consideration wind etc. When that was done and all my cheap tent stakes were bent in the ground somewhere (no hard feelings, I swear) we made a fahr (fire in southspeak). By this time a lot of accents had already been established. Leah, Sara, Laura and Rachel for sure had them at that point, but I think Megan and Nancy held out till later that night to cement them. When they got them though, they stuck for a few days at least! We ate pretty heartily, but I forgot what...shoot. I'll get back to it later.
We sat around the fire and told stories and had s'mores mmm! When bedtime came, we all prayed to Gaduu Garruyu that he/she would protect us from rain, fire and tornadoes. It worked! Gadu was gracious and spared us.
V
We woke up and almost immediately faced the hardest task on our hike: Fording a wide stream. When we got across, we bushwhacked our way back to the main trail and found the good ol' white rectangles which we were so familiar with. Yippie! We hiked a good deal before we came to a sweet lookout point. Then we got to a parking lot where we met a nice guy---->Nate. After talking with him, we kept on our course until we came to a stream where we stopped to have a bite. It was from this point on that we faced the most physically demanding and rewarding portion of our hike... (nothing like leaving ya'll on a cliffhanger...heehee)
