Our Fun but SKETCHY Trip to Fayetteville, Arkansas and Devil’s Den
Arkansas is one of those places I never thought I’d go for vacation and yet, it happened. Our idea of Arkansas was pretty accurate for the majority of the state: backwoods, lots of bugs, meth heads, and general feeling of being on the verge of being robbed. This excludes Fayetteville; well, most of it.
My wife and I happened to stay on what I would consider the wrong side of the highway. Our motel turned into one giant drug deal at night and things got pretty sketchy there. The staff weren’t much better and even they left the premises at 8pm. I can only assume the 3.7 star rating on Orbitz had only reached that height while being compared to other motels in the area. The other side of the highway however told a different story, as long as we stayed near the college campus and the nightlife there was…surprising fun.
Below are a few photos of us in the nicer side of town.
This part of the city was actually pretty safe so if you come to the area, be sure you hang out on Dickson Street. I highly recommend the following places if you visit Fayetteville:
Puritan Coffee & Beer (Try their drip coffee and Ozark beer.)
Walker Park (If you skate, hit up the skatepark here! Weird angles, but really fun.)
MiSO Japanese Cuisine (Inexpensive, free Miso soup and edamame, and really good sushi!)
Dickson Street Bookshop (Small, but they have a ton of books. Guy that owns it never said a word. I like being left alone.)
Nightbird Books (I really loved this shop. It was a bit over-priced, but I really liked the setup and they had a huge cage of birds. WHO WOULDN’T LIKE THAT?)
I’m sure I missed a bunch of great places in the area, but my wife and I were only there for the weekend and the latter part of our trip focused on hiking in Devil’s Den State Park. We chose a particular trail called Fossie Flats Trail, (or Fossil Flats Trail if you look on Google Maps) and set off on our adventure.
This trail was pretty gnarly. Not because of an elevation change or heavy foot traffic, but because of the INSANE AMOUNT OF BUGS. We ended up getting a few ticks after this trip, but thankfully neither my wife or myself contracted Lyme Disease. The path offered a lot more small, wildlife than just ticks though.
We came upon snails, which my wife loves and I admittedly do as well. We found frogs, spiders, lizards, (though the lizards were too fast to snap a picture of), and a variety of butterflies & Moths.
Fossie Flats boasted a calm stream right off the trail. Water can be rushing through a rapid or merely meandering slowly through some rocks and I can still stare at it for hours without ever getting bored. I’m sure that stems from a deeper connection we have with water on this planet, but that’s a philosophical idea to explore at a later time and a subject that has already been torn to shreds, though it never means any less to me.
The spiders weaving in and out of the rocks kept it interesting as we did our best not to disturb them, especially the ones carrying egg sacks. These spiders were EVERYWHERE. You almost couldn’t pick up a rock without one being there, but it wasn’t a problem at all.
Overall, this trail was probably our favorite part about this trip. We took a lot of photos along the path, but my favorite is the one below that I took of my wife. To me it represents her in her best form; her comedy, beauty, and so much more. If you’re in the area, you should definitely check out this trail, (but watch out for Tiff - she may still be lurking with that stick…)
We got quite a bit of video on this trip as well so I threw together an edit which can be found below. I added the word “sketchy” into the title mainly because of how wary we were of the area that surrounded our motel. Watch the video below on my skating YouTube channel for more context.
Here are some leftover pictures from our trip I couldn’t fit in earlier parts of this post. Overall, I would recommend visiting, but be wary of where you stay as well as the massive amount of ticks in the forest during summer. Thanks for reading!
