Everyday in the Life of the Harts: Texarkana Trip 2026 - Day 10 (Hope, AR

Day 10 - Our plan for today changed when we woke up. It had stormed overnight, causing lots of standing water in fields and parking lots. Our main stop for the day was going to be (digging) at Crater of Diamonds State Park but we changed our plans with all of the rain from the storm. Going into this trip, we knew that this would most likely be a stop, but we weren't prepared to dig in mud (we really weren't prepared to dig in dirt either, lol . . . I'll expound on that in a bit)

We pulled through McDonalds for breakfast. I had placed the order ahead, on the app, which then gives a letter/number code to tell the cashier. The code happened to be "E67". As soon as the code popped up, I started filming . . .

I couldn't stop laughing!

We left McDonald's and headed next door to a gas station to fill up before leaving Hope.

A quick side note from earlier: As we pack up our hotel rooms, we always look around the bed/nightstands to make sure we have everything. When I checked my side that morning, I noticed a pack of cigs pushed underneath. We decided to take the box with us to throw away at the next gas station. We didn't want to throw them away in the room and possibly be charged for "smoking in the room".

We were now at the gas station and we went to throw the pack away. We were still flying high off the "67" episode and the giggles continued to get the best of us (me).

Photo op done (yes, we know that smoking is not a joke, but goofyness got the best of us that morning), we tossed the cigs and hit the road for stop #1.

Delight, Arkansas is the boyhood home town of Glenn Campbell. When he died in 2017, he was buried in the Campbell family cemetery in Delight/Billstown. We stopped at the cemetery to visit his grave and to listen to him signing "Amazing Grace" (motion activated to play when people visit is grave).

We listened to the song a few times, it was such a sweet time in a peaceful setting. I'll remember that for a long time.

Getting back in the car, we realized that we had a dead bird with us. Sadly, he hit the car earlier in the trip and wedged himself in our grill. We didn't realize that he was still there until now!

We had made the decision to NOT dig at Crater of Diamonds but still wanted to visit the park. As we pulled in to the parking lot, we quickly realized that we were totally out of our element! Seeing the true diamond diggers . . . wow . . . they put us to shame. By the time that we locked up our car to head towards the visitor center, I was laughing pretty hard. The reason for the laughing . . . I had run in to the Dollar Tree the night before, and purchased a few gardening tools (diggers, gloves, kneeling pads) to use at the park. As we looked around us, we realized that we were among some very serious hunters (multiple buckets, large digging tools/shovels, sun hats, wader boots, coolers with drinks/food, sifting trays)! While I can totally appreciate that, that isn't us (especially on vacation . . . even though we do tend to over pack!). You see our outfits . . . that was what we would've worn if we went out to the fields. I had on sandals! I *think* we had baseball caps, sunscreen and bug spray in the car . . . somewhere. Needless to say, we definitely felt inferior and unprepared. We learned our lesson if we ever make it back.

We took our picture with the park sign and then headed in to read about the park, use the restroom, etc.

We left the park (finding a letterbox along the way) and headed to our next stop - Norman, AR - to see their small library (170 square feet). This library was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest freestanding library in the U.S.

While these stops weren't necessarily on our original itinerary, we love finding unique things along the way to our next big city/stop. The stops along our route today were just that!

We stopped in Belleville to visit Piney Fork Cemetery, where Abel Ahart (1834-1897), my Great Great Great Grandfather (on my maternal side) is buried. We looked and looked (spent way too much time looking) with no luck. We backtracked and visited another country cemetery - still nothing. We stopped and asked a local about any other possible cemeteries in the area. We tried but came up empty. What is sad, Find a Grave has a picture of his gravestone! We knew exactly what we were looking for . . . and where . . . but still couldn't locate him. We drove away very frustrated and disappointed.

While driving, Matt saw a sign for Mt Magazine State Park (the highest point in Arkansas at 2,753 feet). He asked how far we were from the park (he had seen a reel and knew that it was the highest point in the state and had amazing views). We realized we were very close to the park and it wouldn't add any time to our drive - only add time if we stopped (which we did). We drove the scenic drive through the park, stopping at a few overlooks along the way. It was overcast but totally worth it!

Close to the peak! We opted to not climb the trail that takes you to the peak due to the rain.

We left the park and continued heading towards our stop for the night, Bentonville. Along the way we made two stops - Paris & Alma.

In Paris, we visited the Eiffel Tower (the small one, from Arkansas!)

The drive from Paris to Alma - the clouds were impressive!

In Alma, we stopped at this cute little city park to say hello to Popeye! Alma is the "Spinach Capital of the World"! Sadly, we missed seeing the largest can of spinach (also in Alma, the city painted their water tower into a spinach can with Popeye on it).

Our original plan (out of Alma), was to drive US 71 north, which is a scenic drive. However, due to the time of day, we opted to hop on I-49 for the final stretch into Bentonville.

More cool clouds. It looked as though we would get wet, but we never did.

As we got close to Bentonville, we discussed bypassing the city and finding the AR/OK/MO Tri-State Marker (45 minutes away). We decided to drive to the marker at that time, instead of in the morning. It made our day a bit longer, but we knew it would help with our schedule going forward.

Back in Bentonville, Matt tried his hand at some log splitting (unsuccessfully, I might add)

We were bummed to miss the Walmart Museum (it actually looked like a nice museum with fun things to see). They are open til 9 & 10 pm during the week...but only 6pm on Sundays. We did walk around the city square, enjoying the evening. We really loved the small town feel of such a large city.