DATE DAY

Josh decided to take today off so we could enjoy this lovely weather and go hiking at Petit Jean. We love hiking there and usually go a couple times throughout the year. This year has been so busy and HOT (to me nothing is worse than hiking when it is 100+ outside....are you noticing that I hate hot weather??). Anyway I have been talking about going hiking for a couple weeks now, so when Josh presented his idea I jumped on it. 

On our drive up we finished reading The Five Love Languages book, by Gary Chapman. We had both read it several years ago, but lately the book kept coming to mind so I decided to read it again. While Josh drove we both both took the 'test' (I read it out loud to him) in the back of the book. Surprise, surprise we both came out with different primary love languages than we had the several years earlier. This led into a great talk at which one point Josh said, "I get why you ask me to help with this and that, all the time" (mine is acts of service and words of affirmation a close second). Taking the time to reread this book saved us from a lot of frustration down the road, which I think we had already slowly started down. People change over the years and with that your love language can change too. 

Once we got to our destination we went the the overlook area where Petit Jean is supposedly buried. From there you can see the Arkansas river. In the picture below you can see a revetment sticking out (2000 feet to be exact), it is one of the projects Josh designed. I guess I haven't written it on here before, but he is the Arkansas River Engineer. Anyway, it was fun for me to see one of his projects up close. 

Next we headed to the main lodge where we had a little picnic. Then we hiked down the main trail to the waterfall. After enjoying it for awhile we decided to hike the 'blue hole trail'. It takes you to a neat little area where you can cross the stream on some stones. As you will see in my pictures below we came across 2 HUGE snakes. One was a king snake (non-poisonous), the other was a cottonmouth (poisonous). Of course both were in the middle of the trail and we were very happy to notice them before stepping on or getting too close....but close enough to zoom in and take a picture.  

Snake #1 - King Snake

Snake #2 - Cottonmouth (we believe), Look at how long it is!!!

Josh decided we needed to end our date day with some DQ....very special treat since there isn't one close by. I went with a vanilla waffle cone and Josh got a snickers blizzard. Yummmmmy! 

All in all it was a wonderful day and i got to enjoy it with my best friend!