Hot Springs: Friday - Goats and Alligators

We made it back to downtown Hot Springs just in time, dropped Stacy off and then drove to the Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo. The Zoo is divided into two sections, on the left is a petting zoo with donkeys, goats, and deer. On the right there are over one hundred alligators of all sizes. We started with the Petting Zoo, they gave us almost a half a loaf of bread and we went to feed the animals. The donkey cage and the deer cage were locked, so the only one we could go into was the goat cage, so after feeding the donkeys and deer through the fence we went into the goat cage.

Sensing food, the goats swarmed us trying to get to the bread first. This scared poor little Rebekah to death. She practically jumped into my arms tried to stay away from the goats as much as possible. Matthew & Elisabeth on the other hand loved feeding the goats. They fed them and then played with them for a long time. While the zoo itself is fairly small, we stayed there for over an hour playing with the animals. Throughout our time in the goat cage, I would put Rebekah down where she would be fine until a goat would sneak up behind her. Once she saw the goat she would scream in terror and I would have to pick her up again. Eventually she calmed down and whenever a goat would walk up to her, she would point her finger at it and say "No! No! No!". She never did get used to the goats sneaking up behind her though.

Once we were finished petting the goats, we went over to the Alligators, and while there were a ton of alligators of every size, we didn't spend nearly as much time with them. After all you can't pet the alligators. Well, actually we did get to pet one alligator. They got one of the baby alligators and let the kids pet it. The rest just laid in the sun not doing much at all. So after we looked around the alligator farm for a while, we left to go back to Hot Springs Central Ave.

With about an hour before Stacy was done we strolled around Central Ave, buying a few souvenirs and stopping for Ice Cream. We stopped at a Ice Cream Cone / Fudge store. I got all four of us some Ice Cream and then went and looked at the fudge. Matthew & Elisabeth came with me, while Rebekah sat on her chair happily eating her Ice Cream. While I was walking over to the fudge, a couple watched as I walked (apparently) toward the exit and asked "Don't you have three children?" They were worried I was going to leave Rebekah in the store. I told them I was just looking at the fudge and I knew where she was. They joked that if I wanted to leave her, they would happily take such a cute kid. In the end I got the German Chocolate Fudge, which I highly recommend if you ever stop by the Fudge Shop on Central Ave.

After the ice cream, we picked Stacy up and went back to the cabin for dinner. After dinner we went on one more hike, this time on the trails at Lake Catherine State Park. They have three trails. The Dam Mountain Trail (4.5 miles), the Falls Branch Trail (2.0 miles), and the Horseshoe Mountain Trail (3.5 miles). Since it was almost 6:00pm, we went on the short trail. The Falls Branch trail is a short 2 mile trail that comes with a self-guiding brochure. Along the way there are trail markers that point and the brochure points out interesting things along the trail. It talks about the lake, the creek, and different flora you can see on the trail. It was a lot of fun, and while the kids wanted to play in the creek, it was getting late and we had to get back before dark. At the end of the trail there was a bridge that I did my best Indiana Jones impersonation of running away from cannibals on.

Back at the cabin, exhausted from a long day we all quickly fell asleep. Saturday we would drive back home and end a great vacation at Hot Springs National Park. If we ever go back there are several things that we missed:

• The Panther Valley Ranch, a nice place to stay as well as horse back riding
• Garvan Woodland Botanical Gardens
• Maxwell Blade Magic Threatre
• Magic Springs
• Belle Riverboat of Hot Springs