Hot Springs, AR Mini Vacation: 2/2

 Here are some pics from our last day in Hot Springs.

For those of you just tuning in, me and the rest of the Ramsey Clan went to Hot Springs, AR for a mini post-Christmas vacation.

We went downtown and did a bit of strolling around. We decided to take a tour of one of Hot Springs many bathhouses. Many of the bathhouses were built in the early 1900s and now some of them just serve as street decor, some are now cafes, some have been converted into modern spas, but the one we visited has been kept intact for history's sake.

 In my last post I mentioned that Hot Springs is best known for its hot springs.

Well, as you can see here this decorative fountain is squirting toasty warm natural water right from underground.

 In fact pretty much every business had a fountain in front of it. There are even huge public drinking fountains around so you can fill up your water bottles and jugs and take home as much clean pure water as you want.

The tour of the bathhouse was actually pretty boring. Not because there weren't cool and interesting things to see but because the tour guide was a total windbag.

It took him foooooorever to explain each room and everything in it.

 This amazing stained glass ceiling art can be found in the men's bath room.  

 I bet that in 1916 if the men's wives knew what was looking down at them from the ceiling, they would never be allowed to set foot in Arkansas again.

 So here's a bit of the fancy equipment used back in the 1900s and beyond for hydrotherapy. I wasn't really listening to what the tour guide was saying because he was sooooo boring. I only caught a wee bit of what he said about these contraptions.

#1. "The Spray You Raw"

Step into this head to toe shower and have the living hell blasted right out of your body though violent jets of pulsating water.

#2. "The Bendover"

A device that's waist high and could possibly be used for self administered aqua enema... or just a nice pleasant spritzing.

#3. "The Don't Ask Don't Tell"

Get inside one of these cozy metal boxes, peek your head out the top and wait for a surprise. Could be something nice... could be something more than nice... perhaps- pleasurable?

If you see a man with a look of ecstasy plastered about his face whilst in his metal box, never bother him to share what he has received. You wouldn't want to ruin the surprise would you?

Don't ask. Don't tell.

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Ok, yeah. Those aren't entirely accurate descriptions...I should probably pay better attention next time.

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Hot Springs, AR Mini Vacation: 1/2

Hot Springs, AR mini vacation post #1

Instead of bombarding your brain with a bunch of boring old text and your screen with a million photos, I'm just going to share with you a few pics from our mini vacation in Hot Springs, AR (along with brief descriptions of what's going on). And because I'm super nice, I'm going to break down what would be one massive post into two smaller ones.

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Sooooo, here are some photos from the weekend-after-Christmas Ramsey family vacation.

By the way, Hot Springs is a small touristy town in Arkansas, best known for its... hot springs...

On the two hour drive to Hot Springs, I learned that a glove box is the perfect place to put yarn so it doesn't get dirty and tangled and smashed up on the floorboard.

I. Is. Brilliant.

  We all stayed in a cute little cabin that had rocks outside that had been decorated by previous renters. If I had known it acceptable to do this, I would have brought a bit of paint... or at least some nail polish as it seems that's what some people have used.

 When we got there we ate some lunch and opened presents...

 River's Auntie painted this lovely Yellow Submarine painting for his nursery per my request.

 And I received this crazy awesome print from my bro and sis in-law who clearly understand my taste... or maybe they took a random swing? but they definitely hit the nail right on the head.

 Actually I got A LOT of gifts but I'll share those in my next post.

River with his Granny and Gramps, Auntie and cousin.

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Later that evening we went to Garvan Woodland Gardens which is an ENORMOUS park that has been completely decked out in Christmas lights.

 Check this out. These vellum lanterns were all over the place. Aren't they pretty?!?!

 

 This lighted tree was incredibly tall and the lights were perfectly in sync with the music that played from it. It might look cool in the pics, but there was something mildly creepy about it...

 A lot of the photos I took required the flash on my camera so a lot of them came out looking like horrific stills from the Blair Witch Project so it was pretty easy to weed out what not to post.

 Also, in the gardens is this glass and wood chapel, a VERY popular wedding venue here in the south. It was pretty cool to finally see it in person.

We went back to the cabin, had a bit of dinner and settled down for bed...

...and we accidently forgot pack River's play pen that also serves as his crib. So the poor little guy got to sleep on a pallet on the floor. He didn't seem to mind too much, though. It was a rather cozy setup.

Well, stay tuned for part 2 of our little family vacation: Bath houses, grumpiness and warm water.

NY: Day Five

A little grumpy, a little tired and very hungry.

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Day five was our last day in NY. We all took it easy and chose to stick around in Tarrytwon instead of going back into the city... which was a good idea because my husband's bank froze his credit card when they saw the charges being made in NY so we only had so much money until the bank released the freeze.

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The weather was NICE! Say what?!? YES and the temperatures were expected to drop eve more... once we left. I told you NY hates me. HAHAHA!

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So in Tarrytown we hit up a pizza joint and I got this massive spinach mushroom roll.

I. Ate. The. Whole. Thing.

At home, I would have only eaten about a fourth of something like this but I... I , don't know. I have no idea why I ate that whole damn thing. I just did.

No shame. No regrets.

Later we did a little bit of shopping and then we hit the road for another 25 agonizing hours.

The end.

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Now lemme share with you a little bit of what I picked up in NY. This isn't including husband's clothes and touristy souvenirs.

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I got this sun dress at the festival in Tarrytown for $20. I think that's the most I've ever paid for a casual dress but I looooved it so much. When I put it on my boobs made is tent out in the front and tuned it into a mumu, so I cinched it was waist with the sash from the dress I wore to the rehearsal dinner.

These sandals came from a retail shop called Pay Half - buy one pair get one 50% off. Yay!!

So the total for both pairs of sandals was like $9!

The baby clothes also came from Pay Half as well. You can't find anything cute like this in our town AND it was all under $10.

You for sure can't find ethnic decor like this here so I snatched up this swag (and some AMAZING incense) at the festival for $15. 

This tank dress came from H&M for $7. I thought it was just a cute tank until I got home and tried it on and discovered it's a dress. I'm a little uncomfortable with the tightness but I really really like it. When I turn to the side my body shaper makes my belly look round and tight like I'm six months pregnant so I'll hold on to it until fall so I can wear a cardi with it to help cover all that up.

This top also came from H&M. It's all about the details. It's super soft with shiny gold buttons, natural cotton fibers embedded in fabric and I especially love the longer back... and it was only $7.

Dang, I wish we had an H&M here!

This necklace didn't come from NY but it was waiting for me in the mail when I got home. It's another one of my 99. eBay finds. Love it!

Sorry there's not more to share from my shopping excursions but um... we spent most of our money on... dining out on tasty NY food.

I adore fashion but you can't eat a dress!

NY: Day Four

Are ya sick of hearing about New York yet? HEEHEE!! Sorry!

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The day after the wedding we all piled up into the bride and groom's apartment for brunch. Er... lunch... dinner? The party was supposed to start at NOON and the food wasn't ready until FOUR! I'm not going to complain too much about all that though. There was AC in the apartment, delicious leftover wedding food to snack on and good company... and lots of mid-day boozing so the wait wasn't so horrible.

While waiting for the shindig to get started Caleb snuck off to a festival that was happening not even a block away from the apartment. What a douche! He came back with this French fireman's helmet...

 .... and this beaded elephant for my ornate pachyderm collection. I guess I'll forgive him for leaving me. 

 Guess what? After sitting in the cool for hours waiting for the food... the power went out. Bye bye AC. Why does NY hate me so much?

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After a while we all started to get a bit bored and restless. I didn't come all the way to NY to sit and wait for food for four hours. So me and my sis-in-law Krista went to check out the festival. It spanned about five blocks and it was aaawwweesome. 

 The booths at our festivals here in Texarkana sell nothing but kettle corn, blowup toys, crap mass produced Native American decor, cowboy figurines and "country chic" art. This festival was such a lovely change from our little world of cheap dream-catchers and rooster shaped cookie jars.

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Later that evening I took my first train ride ever to get into the city. 

When we got to Grand Central my husband kept saying:

 "There's the clock. New York's most famous clock."

I looked around, up, down - "Where?"

"Right in front of you."

"I don't see a clock."

"How can you not see it? It's right there?"

  "What clock?!?!"

"Right THERE!!"

"That clock? I was looking for something more impressive... you know like Big Ben."

"Nope, that's it."

"What's so great about it?"

"It's old..."

(Click this link to find out what's so great about this clock)

Moving on: we set off down Fifth Ave just to see where we'd end up.

 at some point we stumbled across and into the Rockefeller Center - just aimlessly wondering around..

 ...and I got the world's worst characture done. It looks nothing like me. The only thing he got right was my jugs.

I look so terrible in this photo!! All fat and shiny and blubbery lookin'.

He got the boobs perfectly right! They're huge and one is bigger than the other!

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We hailed a rickshaw and asked the driver to take us to the nearest Japanese restaurant.

Food time!

Sorry veggie heads, you might wanna skip over this part.

We had very rare marinated duck, a mushy raw salmon thing with a raw quail egg on top and smoked eel box sushi. As gross as it all sounds... it was AWESOME!

Soon after we ate, it started to sprinkle a little and we had to haul booty to get the station to catch our train back to Tarrytown. On the way there we spied the Chrysler building. Cool beans, no?

At the station I sent Caleb to get some coffee while me and River waited. 

He got stopped by a few TSAs and they questioned the heck out of him about where he was going, what he was doing and all they jazz. He told them his train was leaving in just a couple of minutes but they didn't let up. We missed our train and I spazzed. I was sure we were going to have to spend the night at the station and I was pissed (I don't know anything about how the train system works) but thank God there was another one coming up just a few minutes later. 

There was a lot we didn't get to see due to time issues, but I'm not bummed about it. I know we'll be back.

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There's one more post left!

Next up: Great buys, no more sweat and heading home!