We had been to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park on the border of TN & NC trying to see all the waterfalls.  We were heading home but were not yet ready to go home.   Polly and Karen Welch Dodd had talked previously about us traveling all the way to TN/NC to see waterfalls and Karen told her there was one much closer, that being Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas, so I headed west on I-40, didn't even tell Polly where we were going.

Petit Jean State Park is south of I-40 near Morrilton, AR which is just west of Conway, which is just west of Little Rock.  It has a lodge with rooms for rent and a restaurant, rental cabins, and RV camping areas.  Behind the lodge is a one hour hike, each way, down to a waterfall, not the biggest in the world but a nice one.

The dining room in the lodge has a wall of windows overlooking the valley behind the lodge.  If you are not eating in the dining room during it's serving hours be sure to bring food with you as it's a pretty good drive back down the mountain to the nearest convenience store.

There are numerous hiking trails, even an old car musuem.

Oh, they also have several tepees for rent next to the lake and a canoe comes with each tepee.  And, if it's threatening rain be sure to move your bed away from the smoke hole in the top of the tepee.  The smoke hole is not very large but we found out that rain will find it's way down that hole.

RV's and travel trailers will have no trouble reaching Petit Jean.  That said there is another neat peak about 30 minutes west of Petit Jean, I think it's Mt. Nebo.  RV's and travel trailers will not want to attempt this drive, steep, hairpin turns.   It has a Sunrise Point and a Sunset Point, we did both of them at the appropriate times, in cool weather be sure to have warm clothing, it does get cold up on top.

Thanks, Karen for making us aware of this place.  Oh, and be sure to visit Petit Jean's grave and read the legend of her love and demise here.