Tuesday morning we headed to the nearby Grand Saline, Texas where we visited the Salt Palace. The Salt Palace is a small museum constructed entirely of salt blocks which contains a few exhibits on salt and the Morton Salt mine elsewhere in the town. From there we visited The Light Crust Doughboys Hall of Fame and Museum which contains nice exhibits and memorabilia dedicated to the memory of the seminal western swing group that at one time or another included such greats as Bob Wills, Milton Brown, Tommy Duncan, and Hank Thompson. Next we headed north up to Paris, Texas, home of a replica Eiffel Tower with a cowboy hat on top. The story that goes along with it (I have no idea of the veracity of the story) is that Paris, Texas erected the Eiffel Tower as a tourist attraction, only to be upstaged by Paris, Tennessee who erected a taller replica Eiffel Tower. So, not to be outdone, the folks in Paris, Texas stuck a big cowboy hat on top of theirs, making it a few feet taller than the one in Tennessee. It’s a good story, anyway. Our next stop was in Texarkana where we paused at the Texas/Arkansas state line for a few pictures before moving on to the Crater of Diamonds State Park where we spent a few hours hunting of diamonds. After coming up empty in our search for diamonds, we headed into Hot Springs, Arkansas for the night, having a surprisingly good dinner at Doe’s Eat Place.
The next morning we headed into Hot Springs National Park where we went up in a large observation tower to enjoy the panoramic views of the Hot Springs area before heading to an alligator farm, home to a merman, along with numerous alligators and other exotic wildlife. Our first lunch of the day was at McClard’s, where we enjoyed fantastic chipped beef sandwiches amid all the memorabilia of the famous and not-so-famous who have visited. Full, but ready for more eats we hit the road for Little Rock where we split a Hubcap Burger at Cotham’s in the City. I was amazed that the burger was not only gigantic, but incredibly tasty! Our next stop along the Arkansas River was the Big Dam Bridge before a long drive up to Nashville for some ‘cue at Joe’s Bar-B-Q & Fish. Then it was a straight shot back up home, where we arrived tired but happy at around 1:30 AM.
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