I thought we should stop in Little Rock for a couple of days. Could have honestly done without. Had we stayed an extra day, we would have checked out Hot Springs, AR.

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Hilary Rodham Clinton’s Children’s Library

What can I say, I am a nerd and the thought of 12 million and 30,000 square feet intrigued me. It was neat that they have a teaching kitchen, garden area, greenhouse and lots of children’s books. But, I was not as impressed in person as I was on paper with it.

River Market

It was a few blocks but, nothing really that stands out. It was pretty empty, since we went on Monday night. The place we ended up eating at was the one that had all the funny signs. We actually tried to drive a short distance to a brewery we heard good things about. We went in and it was 3-4 big huge tables that everyone all sat together, wherever they could find a place. It was super crowded and Kenzie kept complaining about the noise. Zoe kept complaining about the smell, so we left. Back to the place with the funny signs. It was a pizza joint, that had trivia night. Turned out to be pretty fun, minus Zoe losing her mind during our time there. She calmed back down (she is way beyond tired) and ate a little. She was definitely a Snickers commercial in the making.

William Clinton’s Presidential Library (and Big Bug exhibit)

I would have loved to been here without the kids. We bribed them to please let us do the boring history stuff and then they could do bug exhibit and we would leave and go to close by park/splash park. That really didn’t work. They do not like boring adult stuff, at all. They have copies of his daily calendar for each year. It was really neat to flip through some of his daily calendars and realize how little downtime a President actually has. There are also life-size replicas of the Oval Office and The Cabinet Room. Lots of articles, videos and history. The good and the bad.

After touring, we decided to eat at the restaurant located within. It is called Forty-Two. I kept trying to hint to Kenzie regarding the name and asking her what number President did she think Bill Clinton was. It never sank in so I finally just said it is a number and the number name of the place we are eating is 42, do you think… Anyways… the food was beyond impressive. I don’t think they could have a bad item on the menu!! If you ever visit the area, you can go eat there without paying admission and having to do the rest. Well worth it!!

Riverfront Park

It was way too hot to really enjoy this. It winds around the Arkansas River and has a few playgrounds, splash parks and sculptures to enjoy along the way. The playground by the larger splash park was really neat. Tunnels everywhere with different ways of going down underground (rock wall, rope ladder, etc). Stone walls to climb everywhere. Kids loved it. We just sweated. They stayed at the splash park for a very long time. Only way we finally got them to agree to leave was promising them ice cream. It was more for the adults because did I mention the heat with no breeze or shade? The last photo is the Governor’s Mansion here. There is a bronze looking head/shoulder statue of Bill Clinton within the gates, the photo just did not come out well.

River Lights

There are 3 bridges over the Arkansas River that are illuminated using thousands of LED lights. Since they can all be seen at same time, together, they are lighted using different themes, at different times. The colors happened to be red, white and blue. Hard to get good photos but here are best I was able to do. You could see them all out of our RV at night (we were parked facing the river) and I would just stare at them. Since I can’t drink, this was my way of letting some stress go. Craig thought they were cool but not enough to stay up and look at or sit outside with all the bugs. Kids were not impressed at all. Also, at the bottom is a photo of the Big Dam Bridge lit up. It was a few miles away and could not be seen at same time as others. I think it is the longest pedestrian/bicycle bridge around area that was built and only used just for that purpose.