On Saturday, Ty, Sujith, and I went looking for a swimming hole south of Little Rock. We all really wanted to go swimming and to have an adventure at the same time. Ty found the Arkansas Swimming Hole website, which led us to this site south of Benton on the Saline River.
We had to stop 2 or 3 times for directions. Everyone knew where the place was, but everyone had different directions for it. In the end, we had to deal with two construction zones that derailed us!
The first site looked good for swimming, except the bank was littered with bait containers and hooks. I was unsure about swimming in a fishing hole, and the local fishermen said there was another place upriver where people swim. There were also some pretty interesting bridges in decay at that site.
The second place turned out to be right beneath I-30! We went downriver, away from the noise of the interstate and floated around in some medium fast moving waist-deep water. Right under the bridge, the river was 2 inches deep with large gravel underneath. Just before the bridge was the packed swimming hole. The water depth was just at 5 ft, and people were flying off of a rope swing.
Ty, Sujith, and I all took turns on the rope swing. I received a bad welt from not waiting until the rope swung back to let go. Ty was a pro. There were all sorts of folk there, grilling out, swimming, cooling off. The craziest site was a 2-3 year old kid in a life vest, tethered to a tree with a clothesline so he didn’t float down river. We also saw some interesting graffiti under the I-30 bridge.