Today is my baby boys birthday! Happy Birthday Gabe, we love you. He is 23! Wow how time has flown.
It is one hot day! We decided to take another day trip of looking over Arkansas campgrounds. It’s too hot to do anything else. Heat index predicted to be in the 100’s!
We decided to go to Mammoth Spring State Park. We had driven by several times and it looked beautiful.
First we headed toward the hatchery. We went inside to the aquarium. My pictures are not the best with the lightening my camera doesn’t do well.
Then we went outside to the hatchery. once again my camera didn’t do well, even though i turned the flash off. All i could get pictures of were the coy fish.
Then we headed over the museum, we learned some history. Did you know that Mammoth Spring, Arkansas was the inspiration of the Ole Grand Opry? I didn’t!
The museum is where the old train depot was.
You couldn’t go inside the train but you could see inside and snapped a picture.
Then we headed to the visitor center and the part i wanted to see ….
Yessssss … the dam! Oh it was so hot out walking but when you got below the dam, it was so nice and cool. The water made the breeze nice and cool. I could of stayed here all day long .. this type of stuff, dams, water falls .. basically water memorizes me.
This is the view when you walk across the dam.
What a day to go swimming and yes people were swimming.
Here is the museum from the dam side
This picture is taken from the top of the dam looking down .. beautiful!!
After you walk across the dam the old electric building is open to tour. It was pretty neat as this is where the electric came from to run the dam years ago ..
Wow … look at this huge machine …
This picture if walking back from the electric building.
Little Grand Canyon??
On our way back we say a sign that said Grand Gulf State Park, which is located near Thayer, MO. So since were on an adventure we followed the sign. We were beginning to wonder if we would ever find it. finally a sign that said turn here and then we came to the end of the black top and there it was. The sign that said Grand Gulf State Park. I was thinking it was a campground type park .. wrong ……..
We went inside the park and parked in the only parking lot there was. all we could see was trees and a trail. We got and started down a trail that was rocked and had hand rails .. should of been our first hint ….
Hmmm we never dreamed we’d find this …
The sign above says this …
Grand Gulf State Park preserves one of the state’s most significant geologic wonders – a major collapsed cave system often called the “Little Grand Canyon” When a portion of the cave roof collapsed, it created a three-fourths mile long canyon and one of the largest natural bridges in Missouri.
We walked around the other side and down about 20 steps and there was a nice rail patio and this is what you saw when you looked over the side .. sorry the last photo turned out bad but i got very light headed and we had to get me out of there before i ended up on the ground!!! I don’t do heights very well and looking at this really got me!!
Hubby got me safely in the truck and he walked around another side of the canyon and said that it was 1/8 mile long, 119 steps down and and the canyon on that side was 70’ deep! I have always wanted to see the grand canyon and hope that someday i do get there but not sure that i can actually see it without fainting .. hmmm if i almost fainted seeing Little Grand Canyon what will i do seeing the big one ??
On our way home we stopped at Wal-mart and picked up a few things we needed. I also got me a new memory card for my camera as my camera doesn’t hold many photo’s. I purchased a 4 GB disc .. it was a great day although it is very hot outside and the rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in our nice and cool home.
