Trip Home from DC

  We had been planning on driving home along the Atlantic Coast, but we decided that we wanted to get home a little more quickly. Plus beach visits when you are hotel hopping isn't so easy - packing wet and sandy clothes and towels around with you. We still did some fun stuff along our way home, though. Our first stop was Luray Caverns in Virginia. It was really amazing.

This picture above doesn't do justice to how amazing this area was in real life. There is a puddle there which perfectly reflects the stalactites above. It is so confusing to look at it and convince yourself that those stalactites aren't really there. It was pretty trippy.

While we were driving there was a huge line of cars waiting to get to some event, which turned out to be some sort of big show at a Dukes of Hazzard Museum! Look at all those General Lees! Oh wait, we have to rename them now. Look at all those General McClellans! That sounds like a good name for a much, much slower vehicle.

We stopped at the gift shop for Natural Bridge, but the weather was turning bad so we decided not to walk around outside and look at it. Plus time was not in our favor that day.

We didn't stop anywhere special the second day except at church in a small town in Tennessee. The ward was kind and inviting, but their accents made me think the bishop was saying something inappropriate for church. Yogurl made fun of me for being a  west-coastal elite.

Our third day we got to Hot Springs, Arkansas fairly early and decided to spend the night there. We had a lot of fun, since we really like Hot Springs. The kids just had to get their fortunes told by Zoltar again.

We went to a nature center that had a bunch of beautiful gardens and a fun Koi pond where we got to feed the eager fish. 

We also got to go up the tower in Hot Springs that we didn't go up last time we were there. The view was really amazing from up there.

Overall it was a very good trip back. The major hiccup was getting to the hotel in West Memphis and after checking in, finding out that they had no cribs or pack and plays despite their website saying that they did. So then we had to go find a new place. That turned out to be a really unfun experience overall, but all's well that ends well and the hotel we did end up in was very nice.