The Gifford Family: Arkansas

Arkansas: Part two

Heather came home and it was a relief to see her! The next three days we got to explore Arkansas ourselves. The first day we left Grace with Heather and took off for Kansas City. Pretty much the rest of our vacation was sampling southern cuisine. We ate at a Sushi house in Bentonville twice! The food was amazing and the portion sizes were HUGE! I couldn't believe it. They gave us miso soup, two separate samples of sushi rolls, edamame, the sushi rolls we ordered (which were still like twice the size of a normal roll), and cut up fruit at the end. Geez! It was awesome.

Meet the What a Burger. Aaron had to have one because they are the southern equivalent to IN-N-OUT. I thought they were more like a glorified Burger King, and even though again the burger was huge, it just didn't make the cut for IN-N-OUT.

Joe's Barbecue has won a whole board of awards for the best ribs ever. They were certainly tasty. I was a little shocked they run out of the same building as the gas station. It looked pretty sketchy, but the food was really that good!

Since we weren't that far away, Aaron had to stop at the Kansas City Motor Speedway. NASCAR is a huge part of his life, sadly the gates were closed so we could only see it through the fence.

We used our GPS to send us to the temple, and it sent us here. It wasn't the LDS temple but the RLDS temple. It was open for tours though, so we took one. It was really strange to hear all about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon classes they offer, and key principles of the gospel used so differently than the LDS religion. Apparently, there are more than 40 different religions that actually believe in Joseph Smith that are not ours. The temple looked quite a bit like our conference center.

Their view of tree of life. They believe it to shows how each of us our connected together.

Where they worship and sing hymns. Their big motto is publishing peace. Across the street we found the LDS visitor center. We took their tour and found out that Aaron's neighbors in LaVerkin were there serving their mission. We took a picture with the Wilson's and caught up for a minute. It was fun to hear about Zion and see the land dedicated for it.

We got the address for our temple, and stopped at the Liberty Jail because it was on our way. The Liberty Jail is a replica of the original, but the foundation is original. Someone had torn it down and turned into a mansion until the church bought the land and reconstructed the jail from notes.

It was a huge spiritual experience to be inside and see how fast the church was prosecuted due to rumors. A handful of the Doctrine and Covenants was written in this space. It was interesting to see the jail and to know the jailer was actually locked inside with the prisoners. So even if they could have escaped the downstairs, they wouldn't have been able to get out of the building.

The temple was beautiful! By the time we got there it was dark and it's just a little one, but it was so fun to see. We loved walking the grounds and seeing how beautiful they made it.

The next day we stole Grace back and drove to Eureka Springs. I have wanted to see the Ozark Mountains since I read the books, "Where the Red Fern Grows," and "Summer of the Monkeys". I was thrilled to drive through them! Even though it was the dead of winter, and it looked pretty dead, I could just see the scenes playing out in my head. There was also a cat sanctuary we saw on the way out. They had tigers, mountain lions, lions, and jaguars. There were a few bears and little critters around too.

Driving through the Ozarks

We looped past Beaver Lake and decided to get out and stretch our legs. It was beautiful!

Town Square was one of favorite places. Heather said the Station Cafe had the best burger she had ever eaten, so we decided to try it out. It was good, but the Pit and Oscars totally have them beat.

They have a replica of the truck that Mr. Walton drove around with his hound dog. Aaron was absolutely in love.

That weekend we hit four different states, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri.

Heather threw an awesome Superbowl party after church. Aaron was super bummed because we had to catch our flight at half time. During the plane ride they told us they had gone into overtime, and then they told us to close our ears if we didn't want to hear the final score. Aaron was bummed out because he couldn't believe they won, and he now owed Mark a 4x4 burger at IN-N-OUT.