Is 3 in the morning really morning?

Today is the day. My best friend and traveling companion arrived last night and packed up the car. The kids are bathed and in their beds with comfy travel clothes on. Just one less thing to do in the morning. My older son is at camp near Possum Kingdom State Park which is 50 miles west of Fort Worth, Texas. We have to pick him up at 9 in the morning. For us to be there on time, we decide to leave at 4 in the morning. That means that we have to be up at three in the morning. Is it really the morning because it feels more like the middle of the night. The alarm goes off. My husband hears it first. He hits snooze and on the second try he is dragging me out of bed. Why is he so excited? That is right, he gets some man time when we are gone. Because of his work schedule, he can not take a lot of vacation at once. The kids miss Dad but they really enjoy spending time with my best friend growing up. Lots of stories about when we were kids way back in the Eighties. We get ourselves dressed and start loading the cooler and a few last minute bags. I make myself a chai latte and my best friend a coffee. We are on the road only 5 minutes late, a personal best. Off to pick up the older son.

We arrive at camp on time and gather one tired, worn out kid and on the road again at 10 AM. We head east to the Dallas/Forth Worth Metroplex. The recently released camper is asleep in the back seat. We see a In-n-Out Burger on I-30 on the way to our first stop. We love In-n-Out. We decide we have to have burgers for lunch. We always are looking for regional burger joints to stop for lunch. This is the first Texas In-n-Out burger we have been to. Yes, it is a good burger but it is not the same as the West Coast. The onions are not grilled the same and the fries did not seem as crispy. The rest of the restaurant is exactly as it should be. We eat our burgers and suck down the chocolate shake. Good times for the carful of kids, we were not expecting to get In-n-Out this trip. It is a treat when we head out West. Loaded back into the SUV, which always requires multiple "Are you buckled yet?", we make our way east.


The hours trickle by and before you know it we are at our first new state--Arkansas. The carful of kids have never been to Arkansas and Mom has never driven through it. The first thing we notice is the lack of feeder roads that we have in Texas. This is where we put all the gas stations and fast-food restaurants. We are driving in a forest. It is quite scenic. The miles slip away and before you know it we are in Hot Springs National Park, our first destination. The carful of kids have been completing Junior Ranger Badges with the National Park Service for several years now. They have earned more than 15 badges. Now keep in mind that each badge requires a completed workbook and usually attending a Ranger program at each park. Some parks also require you to collect a bag of trash. If we are really cruising on a badge we can get one completed in a couple of hours. The program is designed to enrich the national park experience for the kids. It has been enriching for me as well. I recommend it to all parents traveling with kids. Best of all, the teachers back at school are always impressed with the "summer homework" and the cool little plastic badges that the Park Rangers give you.

Our tour of Hot Springs National Park starts with a walk down the Grand Promenade. There are 47 springs in the park that supply the fountains and the bath houses. The water is a constant 143 degrees. The kids are shocked by how hot it is. We then tour the Fordyce Bathhouse. It was built in 1915 and is quite a showstopper. There are Tiffany stain glass windows in several spots and marble benches to sit on. After a trip to the basement to see the spring in action, we walk down Bathhouse Row to the see the rest of the architectural gems. We end our first day out eating breakfast for dinner and roll into bed exhausted.