We left Texas and headed to Crystal Springs Corp of Engineer
park, outside of Hot Springs, Arkansas.
We were meeting some friends there.
We have known Frank and Loretta since our sons played baseball together
in college. That has been 15 years
ago. Even though we might go for a long
time without seeing them, Loretta and I kept in touch through phone calls and
emails. They are a great couple that
enjoy doing a lot of the same things we enjoy doing. They have a group of friends that they camp
with and have been camping with for years.
We had always heard about them.
Well, Frank and Loretta’s group had planned a week’s trip to Crystal
Springs and they invited us to meet up with them.
We had planned to meet up with them on Tuesday, but because
of the refrigerator problems, we got there Wednesday. Frank had made a tee time for he, Mr. W, and
a single lady who is part of their group to play golf on Thursday. Loretta’s sister and brother-in-law, Ken, are
also part of the group. Ken’s family is
from the Hot Springs area. Ken had heard
a story about a scandal that supposedly had happened years before that had
resulted in his grandfather leaving Hot Springs. He really wanted to research this and try to
find out what he could about it. One of
the group had a friend that was raised in Hot Springs and has returned. She had connections with the historical
society. So, while the golfers played
golf, we went to the historical society.
They were great. They
had already pulled a TON of information on his relatives to look through. It was almost overwhelming. Ken spent as much time as he could looking
through everything. He got copies of
some articles, bought 2 books, and had some great old pictures scanned before
it was time to go.
We then headed to Garvan Woodlands Gardens. The Gardens was started by Verna Cook Garvan, daughter of Arthur B. and Louise Cook of Malvern, Arkansas. Mr. and Mrs. Cook had purchased the land and cleared the part where their homestead was to be built. Mr. Cook, who operated Wisconsin-Arkansas Lumber Co. and the Malvern Brick and Tile Company, suddenly died in 1934. Mrs. Cook no longer wanted to live there and gave the land to her daughter, Mrs. Garvan. Shortly after Mr. Cook's death, Mrs. Garvan assumed control as one of the first female CEO's of a major southern manufacturing business and served in that capacity until her retirement in the 1970s. In 1956, Mrs. Garvan began to develop the land as a garden and over the next forty years planted thousands of specimens. Upon her death, Mrs. Garvan left the property to the Department of Landscape Architecture through the University of Arkansas Foundation.
As you can imagine, there were a lot of pumpkins out and around. They are also decorating for Christmas. I wish I could visit again when the lights are all up and on. They already had lights up in parts of the gardens. You could find the lights up in the trees, around the trees, along the walkway, and on metal reindeer and snowmen. They had made a short lighted walkway into an area of the gardens and it led to an open structure that looked suspiciously like an area where a fat, jolly man might pose for a picture or listen to a Christmas wish list. If you are in the area and go see the lights, let me know what you think.
After our walk through the gardens, it was time to head back
to camp. It had been a long day with
quite a bit of walking, but well worth it.
The cost to get in the gardens is $15 pp. They have a great little outdoor café, The Chipmunk Cafe, with
great food. I had the turkey, bacon,
avocado sandwich and it was awesome.
They were kind of slow with getting some of our food out, so the manager
gave us all a free scoop of ice cream! Yum!
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