Last Friday, March 17, 2017, our youth leaders returned to Corpus Christi after a fun and eventful Spring Break trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas. In order to prepare for this trip we did the usual routine of shopping for the food and packing up the trailer with all of our gear the day before we left. The difference this year was that our youth leaders wanted to be in on the pack out as well. They decided that they wanted to see what we did to prepare for a trip first hand and join us for the grocery shopping and the gear pack out. As you can imagine, it took a little longer to do both tasks with the addition of 10 youth following us around a grocery store and trying to figure out where everything was located as well as having a warehouse full of youth leaders all eagerly wanting a task to do. It had its cat herding moments but, overall, it was a successful experience for the youth leaders and they are still interested in attending our next big pack out (summer camps, Thanksgiving).
The next morning was our departure day, and the first day of Daylight Savings time which made for an interesting morning. The youth leaders were to meet us at 6:45am to load up and head out (which really felt like 5:45am). Despite the time change, we still had all 10 youth leaders (the most we’ve ever had on a week long camping trip) at the meeting point at just after 7am and we headed out to our first stop of the night, Daingerfield State Park in Daingerfield, Texas. Most of the ride consisted of music and chatting and playing ‘My Cow,’ a game our new facilitator Rick showed them. We ended up stopping at Whataburger for lunch and filling up our bellies and the van with fuel for the rest of the trip. When we arrived in Daingerfield the weather was great; it was sunny and breezy and the view of the lake was beautiful. After checking in and stopping at the visitors center, where they all picked up a free Daingerfield State Park stress ball that changes color based on the temperature, we all proceeded to admire the lake side view. Then, somehow, a game of extreme catch and dodgeball ensued with their new stress balls. It was oddly entertaining and continued for over an hour when it was interrupted by a jukebox that was brought out for some free music playing and dancing. After busting some moves and karaoke type singing we headed back to camp to set up for the night and enjoy some dinner.
Unfortunately, on this morning, we had a bit of rain so it made packing up everything take a little bit longer but once we were on the road, it was smooth sailing. We made it to Texarkana and had to pose by the ‘Welcome to Arkansas’ sign for posterity and a few of our youth leaders had never been out of state before so it was a really exciting moment for them. A few hours later we ended up at our home base, Lake Ouachita State Park. We had a beautiful campsite along a peninsula that gave us picturesque views of the lake from all sides. After we set up camp and taught some of our youth leaders how to skip rocks we decided we’d try our hand at geocaching. Not having GPS units, we resorted to using a cell phone and headed to our first cache. It took us a little bit to find the first cache but when we did, we realized it was the first part of a three part scavenger hunt to find a larger cache. As the scavenger hunt continued, our youth leaders were getting more and more into it until we finally come across the last cache which was in an old ammo can that was buried by a tree. Inside there were all sorts of trinkets from past visitors to the park. We found the ledger that tells who and when the last person found that cache and it had been over a year since anyone had come across it. One of the facilitators left his business card and one of the youth leaders left their Daingerfield State Park stress ball. By the time we had found all of the caches in that series it was time to head back to camp to start dinner. Dinner ended up being a more tedious task than intended because we were experiencing some pretty intense and consistent winds. We also intended to have a fire that night to warm up but, due to the wind, we couldn’t really get it going. We called it a night and warmed up in our tents so we would be ready for the next mornings adventure, going to Hot Springs National Park.
As all the mornings were in Arkansas, it was a cold one but exponentially less windy than the night before, which made it more tolerable. We had breakfast tacos and hot coco to warm ourselves up before heading out to Hot Springs National Park. I had set up a few tours of Hot Springs for our youth leaders so they could learn more about the area and have a greater appreciation of their surroundings. When we arrived at the vistors center, we met with Ranger Miguel Marquez who told us to follow him as we walked down Bathhouse Row and he gave us some information about each of the bathhouses. He was walking us down to another area to meet up with Shelly, a ranger who specializes in the geology of Hot Springs National Park and was to give us a geology tour. Because the day we visited the park was the same day they were doing water quality testing, Shelly had two other park workers lift up the cover of one of the springs natural openings and discussed with us the pH of the water, which was 7.1, the temperature of the water, 147 degrees, the dissolved oxygen and the conductivity of the water (300). From there, Shelly took us to the display springs where we got to touch the water and she continued to explain the tectonic events that lead to this “perfect storm of geological events that has created the hot springs.” She explained how the water is heated by its depth in the Earth and is pushed up to the surface by the pressure of tectonic plates pushing against one another. Our youth leaders enjoyed listening to the presentation she gave and, when Shelly was done, she lead us back to the visitors center at the Fordyce Bathhouse where we were to meet up with Ranger Lisa Allen to take us on a guided tour of the bathhouse. The tour was interesting and informative and Lisa was so great to our group. When she was done with the tour she asked us what was next on our agenda. I told her we were going to find a good spot to eat our lunches and then look into the Overlook Tower and see if that would be something we’d be able to do. Lisa took it upon herself to contact the tower and explain what Youth Odyssey is and was able to secure our admittance into the tower for free! We ate lunch at the base of the tower and then headed up to see Hot Springs from above. The youth leaders loved it! By the time all of that was done, it was time for us to get back to camp.
On our last full day in Arkansas I chose to let our youth leaders have a relaxing day looking at the beautiful scenery of the Garvin Woodland Gardens. The gardens are an ongoing project that focuses on natural landscaping and creating different areas that highlight certain environments; i.e. they have a Japanese garden with Koi and Japanese Maple trees and Asian inspired bridges and styling, in another area they showcase wildflowers and, in another, beautiful tulips of every color. The youth leaders loved being able to explore the children’s rock garden which features an amazing bridge of iron trees and a fun collection of boulders that are set up for the discovery of caves and under water paths where you feel like you aren’t in Arkansas but, instead, in an uncharted landscape. As we walked and ate our lunches we came across a fairy village that they had created as another aspect of the gardens. Our youth leaders (and I) thought it was extremely creative and enjoyed the addition of a fairy Bathhouse Row since we were just at the actual Bathhouse Row the day before. We also enjoyed the model train area where we were able to spot Thomas the Train hanging out on the tracks. The part of the gardens the youth leaders were especially looking forward to was finding the peacock enclosure where there was one peacock (male) and two peafowls (females). I’m not too sure any of our youth leaders had seen a peacock in real life before but all of them were impressed with their size and the colors of their feathers. There was also a beautiful chapel on site called Anthony Chapel that I had hyped up and gotten the youth leaders excited about, just to have its roof under constructions so we weren’t able to go in and were only able to look at it from the outside. It was a bit of a bummer but they still enjoyed being able to see it and a lot of the youth leaders said that the gardens was one of their favorite things we did on the trip. Once we were back at camp we proceeded to get as packed up as we could since we were leaving the next morning to head back to Texas. It was still chilly outside but not windy and were able to have a successful fire that we roasted hot dogs over and had some Ramen to accompany it and keep us nice and toasty.
Again, it was another chilly morning when we were packing up the trailer with our tents and gear but we all had some oatmeal to warm ourselves then hit the road to head to Mission Tejas State Park in Grapeland, Texas, our last stop before Corpus Christi. We made good time and, after setting up camp, had plenty of time to explore. As you may have guessed, there was indeed a Mission Tejas that used to be on site and they have since built a replica mission to show what it was like back in its prime. The youth leaders took turns reading the informational plaques outside of the mission before we headed inside for a closer look. After investigating the mission we drove to the front of the park and looked at another historical building that was on site, an old family homestead. We didn’t have a ton of time left before we needed to get started on dinner but we chose to take a few shorter hikes around the area to see the CCC Baths and the Fire Tower. The CCC Baths were basically holes in the ground where a spring fed into them and they were able to bath and, sadly, the fire tower was no longer there and instead there was some information about how fires towers were replaced by observation planes. Once back at came our youth leaders split up and some were setting up a fire and others were prepping the food, we got a visit from Ranger Josh Crawford, who was there to tell us about their archery program they had going on that next day. Unfortunately, we had to tell him we couldn’t join because we had to get back to Corpus Christi. He understood and continued to talk to our youth leaders about the park and invited us to participate in a photo scavenger hunt. Josh said we should stop by the office in the morning and he’d show us some of the things he’s found around the park that not just everyone gets to see. On that note, he headed out to promote the program to other campers but we all got right on trying to complete the photo scavenger hunt. At the end of the night we had just about everything on the scavenger hunt list but a couple that we chose to look into in the morning. We crowded around a fire and ate some Jiffy Pop and did group (discussing the trip and reflecting on how it all went) before heading to bed.
That last morning our youth leaders were motivated to pack up camp quickly so we could go and talk to Ranger Crawford before we headed out for the last leg of our trip. A couple youth leaders were desperately trying to finish the scavenger hunt and, on the drive to the rangers station, we saw the last piece of the photo hunt, an ant mound, and pulled the car over and hopped out for a picture. When we arrived at the station, Josh was waiting for us and checked over all of the photos we’d taken to see how well we’d done. We had gotten everything but the poison ivy (we thought we had a picture of it but were wrong). As a prize for completing the hunt we were all given Texas State Parks bracelets and Texas Parks and Wildlife temporary tattoos that everyone was excited about. After receiving our prizes, Josh took us around the corner where he had set out some things for us to look at, touch, and discuss. The first thing he showed us were some of the butterflies that they have around the park and told us a bit about them. Then he showed us some replica animal skulls; one was an owl, the other was a rattle snake and the last one was an opossum. Josh told us about each animal and then allowed us to touch a rattle snake skin along with a rat snakes shedding that was found at the park by a 10 year old boy. We got to see turtle eggs and then he finished by showing us some scorpions (dead, not alive) that he took out. He then took out a black light (UV light) that he illuminated the scorpions with at which pint they glowed a bright purple/white color that impressed all of the youth leaders. He explained a bit about scorpions and then a little more about the park before we said our salutations and had to get back on the road to home. The youth leaders kept saying on the way home how great the rangers were on this trip and I agreed wholeheartedly. The rangers at Hot Springs National Park went above and beyond for us to have an amazing day there and then to end the trip with such an awesome, impromptu interpretive program from Josh at Mission Tejas State Park was perfect.
The rest of the ride home was full of playing more “My Cow” and listening and singing along to music. When we arrived back in Corpus the weather was surprisingly mild; sunny, nice temperature and a lovely breeze. After having the youth leaders clean out the van they headed home. This trip to Hot Springs was awesome, there was some discomfort with the colder temperatures there but all of our youth leaders said they loved the trip and would go on it again. They loved the learning aspect of the trip and want to do more on future trips. Our encounters with the park employees couldn’t have gone any better and we thank them for being so genuine and helpful. I hope that on future week long trips with our youth leaders we can do even more educational activities and can continue to expand our youth leaders minds and expand their horizons by allowing the chance to explore more of these United States. This trip was great and I can’t wait to see what happens on the next one!
For more pictures from our Arkansas Spring Break trip click here!
