September 27 – “Hiking Day”

Hiking Day.  We started this one early.  Since we already had the general lay of the land from Ranger Rick the day before (That wasn’t his real name, I don’t think.  But it could have been.  He kind of looked like a chipmunk), we were on the trail by 9 a.m.  We’ll, once we found the trail.  We made our way onto something called the Grand Promenade.  It’s a really wide, man-made trail that leads … I don’t know where it leads, but the other trails all bounce off of it, so we were able to locate the Dead Chief Trail.  Yep.  Dead Chief.  I didn’t even want to know where it got its name.  I’m pretty sure there was an Indian chief and his wife who were lost forever on the mountain.  How do I know?  Well, I think we saw them.  He was walking with a large stick and she followed closely at his side.  Oh, they were camouflaged in modern-day clothing, but I think it was them.  The trail they came from joined ours, and they passed us with ease, never to be seen again.  Kind of eerie.  OK, maybe it was more of a testament to how slow we were walking.  The higher we got, the cooler the weather became.  Oh, and then it started raining.  Hiking in the rain at the top of a mountain.  That counts as romantic, right? 

We ended up on the toughest trail.  And even when we decided to seek out the Wimp Hike alternative called The ShortCut Trail (really), we had to hike uphill for another half hour or so to find it.  We finally made it back to the Grand Promenade after three hours of being trapped on a tiny trail to “nowhere near sea level” … in either direction.  We went right to one of the bathhouses and tried to get reservations for one of their famous foot and head massages.  Sadly, the next available one wasn’t until 3:30.  We wanted to be back on the road by then.  So we loaded up our backpack, changed shoes, and headed for Little Rock.

There is a National Park site in Little Rock.  The visitor’s center is across the street from the school where Little Rock was first integrated.  We got our stamp and talked to the Ranger for a while.  He was quite entertaining.  Next it was on to Fort Smith.

Chris took over driving again on this leg (Yes, the old man drove from Hot Springs to Little Rock, thank you very much).  She pointed out the exit to Toad Suck.  Always wanted to stop there.  A strange message popped up on her phone, so I checked it for her.  In case you missed it, the word of the day yesterday was “graupel.”  A graupel is a small particle of snow with a fragile crust of ice, essentially soft hail.  Your welcome. 

Speaking of the weather, it started raining on our drive out of Little Rock.  Intermittent, but nothing Chris couldn’t handle.  I kept up with the Astros loss on my MLB phone app.  One other thing, though.  The temperature kept dropping.  By the time we arrived in Fort Smith it was 64 degrees.  Brrrrr. 

Psalms 103:8 says, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

Father, thank you for the experience of that hike.  It was tough, but it felt good to have made it.  Amen.