Surprise Blake! We're in Arkansas!

Several weeks ago, our son's girl friend texted to say she wanted to take Blake on a surprise birthday trip in March. She thought it would be a great surprise for him to get to spend time with us, and of course we couldn't agree with her more! Her original plan was to drive him to where we were in Alabama. But we thought the 11 hour drive was too much to ask them to make on a weekend. So we offered to meet them half way. We left the motor home in Alabama, and drove the car six hours to meet them in Little Rock, Arkansas. Blake was speechless when they showed up to the restaurant that evening and his parents were there! Great job, Claire, he had no idea what you had planned for him! 

We celebrated all weekend, starting with a slice of cheesecake that first evening.

We would follow that with playing games back at the hotel, and with more birthday dessert that Claire brought with her.

Arkansas has been pounded with rain for the last week, with more forecast for our weekend. But we got a surprising reprieve from the rain that allowed us to spend some time outside. They love to hike too, so we headed to Pinnacle Mountain State Park to hike the mountain.

It was misting as we started the ascent, so we had on our rain head gear to start the hike. The ranger suggested that we take the easier west trail to the top, given the muddy and slick conditions from the recent rain. You will notice from the picture above that we ignored that advice, and we are taking the more intense east trail to the top instead.

The first quarter of the trail was easy, with little elevation change and only mud to make it complicated. But the last three-quarters was a crawl over boulders to the top. Just to make it a little trickier, those rocks are slick and wet, and it was raining lightly now.

This would be a great time to wear a rain jacket, but we were working too hard and sweating too much to leave  it on.

We made it to the summit in good time, and were treated to a view of the river valley below totally shrouded in clouds. 

We had traveled to Little Rock, but today we hiked the "big rock" in the clouds!

Climbing up the harder side meant that we got to play more on the easier descent. Denisa is used to hiking with one goof ball, but this day she was blessed with two more fun hikers on the trail.

Blake is modeling the red foliage that reminded him of a friend's beard. We decided that he did look good in a beard.

We also thought these tree fungi looked like a row of potato chips, good enough to eat.

We had to remind Blake that we would feed him the Golden Flake potato chip samples we brought from Alabama, so he shouldn't eat the trail potato chips.

The misty rain stopped on our way down Pinnacle Mountain, and we even got a look at the valley below.

When we got to the bottom of the west trail, we still needed to hike around the base of the mountain to our car. Claire ran most of the base trail, as we finished up our five mile hike.

It was back to the hotel for more games and more birthday desserts. Then we explored some areas around Little Rock. Since we were into climbing today, there was the rope toy on the playground by the Arkansas River that flows through the city.

We also happened onto a St. Patrick's Day celebration downtown. The street was closed with a tent stretched between the businesses on both sides. Denisa is happy to report that one of the bands played some good two-step music. What would a St. Patrick's Day celebration be without some Irish music? We took this picture of the bagpipe band right before they took the stage. It's an interesting crowd when there are more men than women wearing skirts.

The next day we explored some more historic sites in Little Rock. The capitol building was locked up for the weekend, but we could take pictures standing in front of the golden front doors.

The Japanese magnolia trees are at peak bloom, and the ones just outside the capitol were just beautiful. 

As full of blooms as they were, the ground was also covered with blooms that had already fallen. Denisa is certainly happy to be here with Blake and Claire! You would think we were celebrating her birthday, instead of Blake's.

We also got a picture of Mark with some of our favorite travelers.

We found that just a tap on the branches made it rain magnolia petals!

Also on the capitol grounds is a statue of "The Little Rock 9." 

Today the Oklahoma 3 are reading the quotes from the Little Rock 9.

To learn more about the Little Rock 9, we traveled just a few blocks from the Capitol to the National Historic Site for Little Rock Central High School. This is the all-white high school that was forced into integration in September of 1957. Even though the Alabama governor ignored federal laws to integrate students in Little Rock, President Eisenhower would intercede. He enlisted the help of national troops to escort the 9 brave African American high school students into the school that day. There was a total of 1,200 troops in Little Rock for over a month, needed to control the crowds of angry patrons that were protesting on the school grounds.

The nine students would get national troop escort the first days of the academic year. But it was a tough time for those nine students, as they withstood the physical and verbal abuse the entire school year. In fact, all the high schools in Little Rock were closed the following year when the voters rejected the forced integration. A federal court order would re-open schools in 1959, with only a hand-full of African Americans brave enough to attend Central High School again. 

But integration would finally happen in Little Rock, as evidenced by the following photo. It was interesting to talk to two men proudly taking pictures outside the high school this day. They were both drum majors of the band while they attended high school here in the early 1980's.

So we soaked up a little more cultural knowledge while we soaked up more birthday desserts. It was a great weekend, that ended in time for all of us to make our trips home in the opposite direction before severe weather hit Little Rock. We were blessed with good weather for our trip back to Alabama, and beautiful redbud trees bursting into bloom along the interstate.

We really enjoyed getting to spend time with our son and his girl friend. Claire, you did a great job of surprising Blake and blessing us all!