Tuesday, June 28 - We started our sightseeing day at the Garvan Woodlands Gardens, and it's good we did, because we eventually had to cut short our visit because of a thunderstorm. The gardens is a 210 acre botanical garden and is associated with the University of Arkansas.
Its mission is to be a resource center for people desiring to improve their aesthetic, cultural, and scientific knowledge of plants, gardening, architecture, and landscaping within a woodland environment. Paul took some time to look at the Koi in one of the many ponds.
The Blue Hydrangeas were just about done blooming.
This garden is truly amazing.....even Paul loved it! The Gardens are more like a park with hiking trails than a backyard garden.
Miles of paved and unimproved trails guide you through the various parts of the gardens. There are streams and waterfalls at every turn. Large rocks, forest of oak trees, bridges, and meandering pathways leading you to the many beautifully landscaped areas of the garden. There is even an area for the kids. The bridge that leads to the area is beautiful.
It's equipped with rocks to climb on, bridges to run across, felled trees made to look like dragons to crawl on, and live peacocks to amazing them.
A humorous sign warned them about playing in a certain section filled with poison ivy. Can you imagine the parents screaming when their babies come home scratching like crazy.....ha! ha! One of the most fascinating architectural elements of the gardens is the $5.8 million Anthony Chapel.
Gorgeous doors.
The six-story, wood and glass chapel seems to melt into the forest. You feel like your sitting among the trees when sitting in the chapel.
Girls must dream about getting married in the chapel. And weddings certainly are held here.....365 weddings in 2010 according to the gal at the information desk. Before you reach the Chapel is a Carillon.
The bells rang every 15 minutes. The sound was fantastic. It was such a pure sound; we heard it all though the Garden.
We were overwhelmed with this garden and highly recommend it to people traveling in the area. With 130,000 visitors annually, the gardens have become one of Arkansas' largest tourist attractions. We will definitely be returning to this awesome display in the future!
If you would like to see more of this wonderful Garden, click HERE.
As showers continued to fall in the area (a welcome relief to us drought and heat stricken travelers) we drove toward Wright's Rock Shop so Marsha could get some interesting agates for her pine baskets. On the way, we passed, and turned around to return to McClard's BBQ.
The place was small, cozy and packed! (Only half the restaurant shown below.)
This is President Bill Clinton's favorite restaurant in the world. His pictures, as well as other famous people, were displayed on all the walls. Boy, was this the BEST BBQ we have ever tasted! We shared a huge BBQ sandwich and an order of homemade French fries. It was sooooo good, we are considering returning tomorrow evening for dinner. We bought a bottle of their sauce…YUMMMM! Paul asked about the ribs, and was told they're to die for....EGAD!
More on our travels in the next blog. We did too much in one day to put up all at one time.
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll back real soon. Have a great day.
Love bbq.... We will have to put that on our list of places to eat. Have a great trip.
ReplyDeletei totally love botanical gardens - it is now on the list... thanks
ReplyDeleteThese photos are gorgeous. You can sure tell you are in a different part of the country than you were. We're hungry for good barbecue but nothing compares to what you get in the south.
ReplyDeleteThese gardens sound absolutely beautiful, our kind of place. We will have to check them out when we are in that area again.
ReplyDeleteKevin and Ruth
www.travelwithkevinandruth.com