Last weekend, Mo and I celebrated our first anniversary. We stayed at the brand new lodge at Mt. Magazine, one of Arkansas' state parks. When we arrived on Thursday around lunchtime, we stopped at the visitor center and used the restrooms. As I was washing my hands, I noticed a sign in the bathroom that had a picture of a beautiful sunrise and said something like, "Have an hour? Walk out to Sunrise Rock." I thought it sounded like a neat thing to do and told Mo about it. He thought it sounded like way to early to wake up when we had planned to spend our anniversary weekend relaxing and sleeping late. I agreed that he was probably right and pretty much forgot about it.
Friday morning I woke up and looked at the clock. It said 5:30. All of a sudden, I was wide awake. I remembered the sign for Sunrise Rock and I got excited about the possibility of going after all. Mo was fast asleep. I got up quietly and started rummaging through our suitcase and the papers on the nightstand looking for the park brochure with the trail map. I couldn't find it, but I woke Mo up in the process of looking. I pulled on jeans and a shirt over my pajamas, slipped on some flip-flops and whispered to Mo that I was going to get another brochure. When I got the new brochure, to my dismay, Sunrise Rock was not listed anywhere on the map. So I went to the front desk at the lodge and asked the man working there if he knew where it was. He had a look of disappointment so I asked if it was too late to try to go watch the sunrise. He told me, no, it wasn't too late, but that he didn't know where Sunrise Rock was. He said he remembered hearing about it and thought it must be on the north side of the mountain somewhere.
As I was ready to go back to my room and try to go back to sleep, he had an idea. He said Patti (I can't remember if that was her name or not, but it will do) the cook just might know where it was, and I should go ask her. The restaurant attached to the lodge was not opening for another hour and a half, but I tiptoed in, made my way toward the kitchen, and asked for Patti, apologizing for my intrusion. Patti came out of the kitchen and left her biscuits to bake while she walked outside with me. We went down the sidewalk behind the lodge and I could see the pretty colors of the sunrise beginning to peek over the mountains. She said she didn't know where Sunrise Rock was either, but that she got a great view from that sidewalk every morning. She got a free smoke break out of walking me outside to tell me she could not, in fact, answer my question, so I didn't feel too badly about taking her away from her cooking for a few minutes.
Well, I thought, if you can get this view from the sidewalk, we should be able to watch the sunrise from the balcony off of our room. As I walked back toward the room, the nice man at the front desk asked if she had known where Sunrise Rock was and told me he'd tried to look it up on the internet for me in the meantime, but to no avail. I got back to the room and convinced Mo, who was still sleeping peacefully before I interrupted him, to get out of bed and come out to the balcony. Too bad I had not accounted for the indoor pool part of the building blocking our view. Still, I was now on a mission to see this sunrise with my husband, so I talked him into getting dressed and coming down to the sidewalk where I'd stood with Patti. By the time we got there, though, it didn't have all the pretty colors anymore, and I was disappointed. So disappointed that Mo was willing to go back to the room, get the keys, and drive me around the mountain to look for Sunrise Rock.
As we walked back by the front desk again, the man working there told me he'd just called the lady who was opening the Visitor Center for the morning and she didn't have a clue where it was either. I wonder who in the world posted that sign in the Visitor Center bathroom!
As we drove around Overlook Drive, I asked Mo to pull into one of the parking lots and let me out to get a better picture of the sunrise, even if it wasn't from Sunrise Rock. He sat in the car and nodded off while I made my way down a little path which I soon saw was leading to a rock! It had to be Sunrise Rock! I ran back to the car to get Mo to join me and we made our way to the cliff. The sky was pretty cloudy but it was pretty-especially the one bright spot trying to peek through. Yes, it was the sun-already risen by this time. We didn't get to see the sun rise from Sunrise Rock, but at least we have a story to tell. How many husbands would put up with all of that? I definitely got a keeper!