Last year we wrote about the great travel itin­er­aries for the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, in New York and Pennsylvania. Recently, the Great Lakes Seaway Trail released twelve new itin­er­aries for tour­ing the 518-mile Trail.

You hear the word orchid, what comes to mind? Beautiful flow­ers­from warm, trop­i­cal islands? A plant grown in a hot­house, to be used as a cor­sage? Springtime in Missouri? Yes, Missouri. All three of those thoughts are cor­rect, but let’s not stop there. How about vanilla ice cream? The vanilla bean, used as a fla­vor­ing in many of your favorite foods, is the fruit from an orchid plant; rum is often fla­vored by the pods of another orchid species; and the tuber­ous roots of many orchids are edi­ble (they taste like potatoes).

Don’t let the name fool you. At War Eagle Cavern on north­west Arkansas’s Beaver Lake you expe­ri­ence more than a cool cave.

Today we decided to mix it up a bit, and take a small detour. “Let’s visit Metropolis, home of Superman,” I sug­gested. Everyone said “OK, why not?”

On day four, we left our cab­ins at Caddo River Ranch for the final time and headed to Hot Springs, Arkansas to see the his­toric bath houses and beau­ti­ful moun­tains and forests that sur­round the his­toric town.