For as long as I can remember, I’ve spent at least part of the summer in Hardy, Arkansas.  It’s been a special place for my family for generations, ever since my great-grandfather started a hospital on Wahpeton Hill back in the early 1900s.

[This mural, which depicts a visual history of Hardy, is painted on Main Street downtown]

My family has always had cabins on Blue Bell Hollow, a huge hill just across the street from Spring River (which is pretty much the best river ever).  When I was little, we started out in a small cabin near the base of the hill, then slowly moved up the hill into a cabin that my grandmother bought.  It was . . . rustic.  To put it nicely.  But we had some seriously awesome times there growing up, complete with plenty of bugs and snakes and trips to the river to catch polliwogs and crawdads.

My aunt bough a cabin on the hill a few years back, and now that’s become the hub of activity in the Hollow.

Another aunt of mine has a cabin just through the trees, and more distant members of our family have cabins sprinkled all along the river.  I love that going to Hardy is a tradition that is important to pretty much every member of my family, and that we can always count on spending time together, all of us, at least once a summer.

This year, the Fourth of July holiday drew a landmark crowd of family members up in Hardy, for a number of reasons.  I’m talking about 40 people, ranging from 3 years old to early 70s!!  There were 8 of us staying in my aunt’s 2-bedroom cabin, sharing 1 shower between us – luckily we all like each other!  In between the family gatherings, we all put on our bathing suits and river shoes and lugged our rafts down the road to the dock to take a leisurely float down Spring River – this is a tradition that simply cannot be missed:

Isn’t that a gorgeous river?  And believe me, it is FREEZING!!!!  67 degrees year round, so you always hope for a super sunny day before you dive onto your raft.

And when we weren’t floating or eating barbeque, we could always be found playing a feisty card game:

[Don't you just love that table that my uncle made out of salvaged wood??]

Back in the day, Canasta was our game of choice but we’ve now moved on to Contract Rummy – love it!

And, of course, no Fourth of July celebration is complete without fireworks:

We watched this display from a church parking lot with dozens of other people – these fireworks weren’t too shabby for a town of about 700 people!  When we were little, we used to set off our own fireworks down by the “beach,” which is basically the public swimming hole on the river just before the rapids.  Looking back, I can’t believe we used to be so brave!

It was a great holiday, filled with lots of fun and family.  I hope you all had as wonderful of a weekend as I did!

Do you have a special place that will always remind you of family?