A camping and hiking guide
Day 1: Travel Day: Getting to Hot Springs National Park with our Travel Trailer
Since we have started our adventures, we've only been to a few National Parks. Most of the ones we have visited were the ones in Utah. Maybe I would blog about those eventually. We mostly go to State Parks because National Parks rarely allow dogs on their trails. Whenever we can, we try to bring our four-legged adventure buddy on our trips
This time we went to Hot Springs National Park
She can be testing our patience but she is still the apple of our eyes!
Benefits of #brigingfido:
When hiking uphill and she wants to pull you it can give you a boost up the hill
Nobody wants to come up to you because she gives them a stink eye so good for maintaining "social distancing"
Best of all she is sooooo cute!
The Gulpha Gorge campground is about 6 hours away according to Apple Maps but it was windy when we left Thursday so we have to slow down a lot more because the wind was so strong. We also had to make stops every 2 hours because our gas mileage was shot because of the wind.
We are towing a 6,000 lbs travel trailer, our Toyota Tundra's tank capacity is 38 gallons, we can only go up to a maximum on 65 mph with a wind resistance of 14 mph.
If we want to pay it safe and have to put gas on our tank everytime we are half empty, how long before we filled up if we started with a full tank??
Kevin doing the math of this logistical math problem:
After doing the math it might be slightly understandable that Kevin no longer gives a F*** where we park on some of our stops apparently. Nevermind that we do not know anyone here and jail is an option. I didn't say anything because I at least do not have have to do the math. No one was comfortable stretching legs on this pit stop
But we made it to camp around 8pm, again Kevin got the short end of the stick because he had to sept up camp at night while I get to set up the inside and get human and doggo dinner prepped
And that is how we spent our Thursday this Memorial Weekend 2022. We are tired but ready for tomorrow's adventures
Day 2: Friday: Here is our Ultimate Guide to Hot Springs National Park
There is a lot of trails in Hot Springs National Park that are divided in different sections. For this trip we did the Hot Springs North and Mountain Trail and the West Mountain Trails
Hot Springs North and Mountain Trail
We had combined several trails so we can explore different sections of the park and at the same time get a good hike in.
The trails are fairly easy. We liked the trails because they are well maintained and there is not a whole lot of giant rocks that can trip or roll your ankle. This is KEY to old age hiking
Of course we were not disappointed when we get to the top
It also provided us a good rest stop for humans... Georgia is annoyed because she doesn't need rest... she ready!
Since she was patient when we needed a break we let her traipse around in water. Georgia doesn't swim but she enjoys her water splashes.
You know it is a good hike when you see a tired but happy doggo
We had to remove ticks from her of course but she had fun nonetheless
After some breakfast and a good nap, we decided to head to downtown Hot Springs where we can see the bathhouses. All of them are spas now but have kept the facade of old world Hot Springs. You can read about them here
After our downtown exploration Kevin started to feel a little iffy so we wrapped up our adventure for the day so Kevin can rest up and hopefully get to feeling better. We had to rely on Georgia's nursing skills to see us through.
She doesn't know how to administer any type of first aid but cuteness helps I suppose.
Day 3: Saturday
Kevin insisting that he is feeling better we had set on hiking all of the trails in the West Mountain Section of Hot Springs National Park
We skipped one trail because it was mostly a park in the middle of downtown but total trail length was around 4 miles. Armed with this knowledge, we got some donuts to make up for the lost calories as we are all weak and disoriented.
YES this is just for 2 people and NO we were not really disoriented and weak.
We just wanted donuts.. there... you now know the truth!
Again after some breakfast and nap (naps are key to any adventure) we drove on to Garvan Woodland Gardens. It was about 20-25 minutes from our campground.
I've been wanting to see the chapel since I've seen it in a pinterest post somewhere but unfortunately there is a wedding going on so this is the closest I can get to it.
The chapel is free to see but the gardens has an entrance fee of $20 per person and $5 per dog. The garden was surprisingly nice. It was not the intended destination of going here but I was glad to have walked through it anyway.
After the Garvan Woodland Garden, we decided to check out the Hot Springs Mountain Tower to check out the 360 views of the park
That night we had attempted to do some star gazing at Lake Ouachita State Park but we couldn't find a spot to set up some chairs. When I also attempted to take pictures it was a fail. I couldn't get my camera to capture the little bit that we can see on the side of the road.
Day 4: Sunday Travel Day
The checkout time at camp is noon which is a bit earlier than most parks that we have been to but we still managed to squeeze in a couple more hikes. We usually mail postcards to ourselves as souvenirs and Kevin said we can take a trail to the post office so that we did.
Kevin tried to teach Georgia some chess basics but she has no interest on such matters
There are a lot of water stations around the park that you can get water from the springs. All of them are hot and I have seen people take jugs out of their car and fill it up.
It was believed to have some medicinal properties. Since Kevin had been sick off and on this trip I told him to chug it down and bathe on it if he has to. He didn't want to.
We headed back to our campsite for some breakfast and to pack up. There is nothing really too exciting about the pack up. The most work really is around the emptying of black and gray tanks. Kevin is really the expert on that so Georgia and just hung back.
We really shouldn't be in the way of a master at work!
Thanks for joining us on this adventure! Hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day Weekend. Let me know if you found this Ultimate Guide to camping and hiking to Hot Springs National Park helpful or if you yourself has any tips for us.
TTYL!