Most people who know me think I'm fairly organized and would probably be surprised that I'm not much of a trip planner. I always assume we can figure it out when we get there. That has rarely worked out, by the way. You would think I would learn.
#1 -- if there's no special event in Van Buren, it's pretty much a ghost town. We only found 2 antique stores open. In fact, it was so slow, the shop owner of one place wasn't even in the store! We wandered all around his establishment thinking how odd it was open but apparently deserted. We found him visiting another owner down the street. Must be a trusting guy.
Then we went to the depot to get our tickets for the next day and found out the train doesn't run on Sundays from Van Buren! The depot had some nice vintage displays and a big ol' running train set. I took a few phone pix and picked up a little brochure with a schedule that said the train leaves Sundays at 12:30 from Springdale to VB round trip.
That's not so far away - just an hour's drive, so the plan was to go to Springdale the next day and hop the train for the round-trip Springdale-Van Buren run (which sounds goofy, since we were staying in VB!). Well, apparently that brochure was incorrect because when we got to Springdale the next morning, the depot was closed up and that area of town totally deserted, not a soul in sight. The only thing worth seeing was this old fashioned sign at Tyson's chicken hatchery.
After that failed attempt, we started looking for something else to do. That's when we stumbled on the botanical garden, which I posted here. Actually my whole Arkansas Travelogue is out of order - kinda like the first trip was! Hope you're following my train of thought ok. (no pun intended)
Anyway, after the botanical garden visit, we said, "hey! let's drive out and see what this big ol' mountain is all about!" That would be Mt. Magazine. It's the highest point in the state.
It was a pretty drive out there and would be gorgeous in the fall. It turned out to be farther than expected (again, you would think I would learn). We mini-hiked to an observation area, enjoyed the view, and headed back to the car to begin the next quest - DINNER! Trust me, coming from Tulsa with its overwhelming choices of restaurants, we might as well have been in the desert. I did see a couple spots on the way that might have been interesting photo ops, but decided to go easy on hubby. (Usually, it's "STOP! I want a picture of that!" as he obligingly slams on the breaks). Here's a link to the website in case you ever want to check it out. Mt. Magazine State Park.
Next post - JunkFest!
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