ARKANSAS

Jeff and I took advantage of his 3 day weekend (Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day and he didn't have school). We decided to do a road trip to Arkansas on Saturday, Jan 17. We packed some treats, waterbottles, our GPS and our map and headed out that morning. We got to see a little of Eastern Oklahoma along the way. About 3 hours later, we were in Arkansas!

The scenery was beautiful (even in January). The landscape was different than Oklahoma. There were more hills, taller trees, cliffs, and of course, the Ozarks! We drove through Fort Smith and just after that town, we pulled of the freeway to find Parley P. Pratt's grave site. As we were driving down the little street, we saw some zebra in someone's backyard! We had to get a picture!

We then found Parley P. Pratt's Gravesite. The church does a good job keeping up the area.

We then decided to take the scenic Highway 71 up to Fayetteville. It was such a pretty route. It went right along the Ozarks and White Rock Wildlife Area. We drove the little 2 lane road through the mountains and loved looking at both the beauty of the surroundings and the little towns. The towns were so quaint and cute (can you call towns cute?!). They had some nice houses and some hill-billy houses along the road. It was fun to see the little restaurants and gas stations and how they all had porch swings. I feel bad that I didn't get very many pictures from Highway 71, but at the time, we were just taking it all in, enjoying the ride and scenery. This drive would be soooo gorgeous in the spring or in the fall with all the leaves!

Us, on the road...

We then reached Fayetteville. We drove around the city and loved the area. We went to the University of Arkansas campus while we were there. Elder Bednar used to teach at that school. We got to see the football stadium of the Razorbacks. Football is big in Arkansas too.

We then stopped to eat at Hardee's, found a place to buy a souvineer spoon and postcard and started our trip back to Oklahoma.

The Arkansas River

We made it back around 6:45pm, just in time to get to our Ward's Chili Cookoff activity, where we won 2nd place for our Cheese Soup! (We didn't even know there was a contest for the soups! I just knew I didn't want to get involved in the Chili competition! It's serious stuff out here! Everyone is trying to defend their titles or trying to create the new 1st place Chili. It's pretty funny!)
Anyway, we had a fun trip and enjoyed every minute of being together and exploring a new state! It's not often you can say you went to Arkansas over the weekend!