24 hours in Little Rock, Arkansas | Fried Catfish, Central High, Pinnacle Mountain, & more!

When you last saw us we were exploring northwest Arkansas and its beautiful nature. We've now made our way down towards Little Rock for one final adventure in the state. With important history, tasty food, and beautiful nature nearby we're going to try to see as much as we can in 24 hours. And first up we're going to hike up the popular Pinnacle Mount. We hear this is a must-do trail here in the Little Rock area. It's pretty crazy. As you're driving around all of a sudden you just see this mountain peak jutting out of the ground from nowhere. Nothing else is around it. It's just there. It's pretty cool to see. And we're going to be taking the west trail up to the top which is about 1.2 miles round trip. 750-ish something feet of elevation gain. And we're going to end up at the top of that. Got it. So the first half has been all just stone steps. And I'll tell you what. They are slick. That combined with all the leaves on the ground. Pretty dangerous. Kind of scary. Slipping and sliding all over these rocks. And then now about halfway up you're going to start to do more rock scrambling. So that's what we're about to do. There's two ways to go and we're doing the harder way. We're just about to get to the summit and get our first view from the top. Oh and the water over there. This is amazing. I think it's what about 35 minutes to get up here. Not too bad. Not too bad. It's pretty quick. We wouldn't say it's hard but we wouldn't say it's easy. But you definitely have to watch your step on your way up here. I think the hardest part is just not slipping and just like you really have to pay attention to where you're going because it's really rocky. But the views. Incredible. 360 degree views up here. It is unreal. And we came here on a Friday night at sunset because we like to do this thing where we look at Google and you can look at a location and it'll tell you like when it's the busiest. And Friday night looked pretty low on the crowd level so we're like let's do it Friday instead of Saturday. It's proven to be a really good decision. Yeah we've been up here for probably 30 minutes now and it's really cleared out. It was kind of busy when we came up. Like it's busy for a Friday but now it's really cleared out. And last night we almost did this last night and there was a really nice sunset. Tonight's not as nice. It's not as nice but we're holding out. Holding out. There's a little bit of hope. It's kind of cloudy but sometimes those make the best sunsets. You just have to be patient. So we'll see. If not it's still really nice. The view's great. For sure. Alright I think the sun has officially tucked itself away behind the clouds to go to sleep so we're gonna head back down because they close the gates an hour after sunset and we don't want to get locked in. That was a pretty awesome intro into Little Rock but tomorrow we're gonna head into the city, explore the downtown, check out the history, and of course eat some good food. A couple fun facts about Little Rock. It's not only the largest city but it's also the capital city in the state of Arkansas and the name Little Rock is actually named after a little rock. So French explorers were in the area. They saw rocks on the side of the Arkansas River. They called it La Petite Roche, the Little Rock, and the name stuck. We're excited to check out a little bit of the city today but first up we gotta get some coffee. So I guess we're in the East Village area of town. That's what all the signs say around all the blocks and we came to a spot called Fidel & Co. for coffee. We actually have a patron named Jonathan who lives near Little Rock and he gave us so many suggestions for today. So thank you Jonathan. This was one of them and we're really excited to try it. Yeah this place is super cool. The outside they have this really big mural of their with their logo on it. It's really colorful and you go inside they have really cool light fixtures and a big coffee bar sign in there. It's really cool inside. Totally our kind of spot. Yeah for sure. So we got you know one each and I got a caramel latte. Why did I forget that? I got a churro latte which is one of their seasonal drinks. They're both gonna be bomb. Oh it's hot but it's so good. We need this so bad. We're kind of got tired face going on right now. They have their house made syrups too. Coffee shops instantly get like 10 points for us if they have house-made syrups. This is so good. It's very like cinnamony and warm and comforting and delicious. Oh that's good too. And I love churros. That's so good. Yeah we got the opposite of the what we would normally get. I would normally get the churro and she'd normally get the caramel but feeling crazy today in Little Rock. One of the most historical places here in Little Rock is Little Rock Central High School. This school played a very significant role in the desegregation of educational institutions all across the United States in the 1950s with the Little Rock Nine. In 1954 Brown versus Board of Education declared that state laws segregating schools were unconstitutional and in 1957 nine black students called the Little Rock Nine were selected to attend Little Rock Central High School, an all-white school. Their attendance was met with great challenges as they battled the governor trying to prevent them from entering the school as well as an uproar from the community and horrible treatment from other students. However despite the difficulty the only senior student among the Little Rock Nine, Ernest Green, graduated from Central High that year and the entire Little Rock Nine have been widely recognized for their role in helping integrate schools nationally. We highly recommend watching a docu-series called Eyes on the Prize and the episode they have on the Little Rock Nine. They go into a lot more detail of what happened both before, during, and after the Little Rock Nine. Such an educational and eye-opening story and we'll make sure to put the link below so you guys can go check it out. Today Central High School is still an operating high school and it's the only high school in the U.S. that has designated a National Historic Site. There's also a visitor center that's open daily where you can book a tour with a ranger that'll normally take you inside the high school but due to COVID they're not doing that right now. So if you're in the Little Rock area this is a must visit spot to see some of the city's and country's very important history. According to the plaque down here by the flagpoles it says the building and the complex around here are supposed to be one of the most beautiful capital complexes in the nation. I kind of agree. It's really nice out of all the ones we've seen. These bronze doors behind me look heavy duty and really beautiful and they really spruced it up with the Christmas decorations. Digging it. So according to Google one of the most iconic dishes here in Arkansas is catfish. And I read that it's because there's a lot of catfish. They're just very abundant in the lakes and rivers and streams that are all around the state. And the classic way to eat it is of course fried. That's the best way to eat most things. We came to this place called Soulfish Cafe. This place comes super highly recommended when you go in there. There's all kinds of awards they've won on the wall. Magazine features. Looks super good. All right so I got the fried catfish platter. I got the regular and it comes with three giant pieces of catfish there. Comes with hush puppies and you can sub your sides which I didn't know going in. So I got fried okra and sweet potato fries. Heck yeah. This looks super good. I haven't had catfish or fried catfish in a long time but I really like it. So crispy on the outside and meaty on the inside. The breading is so good and nice and salty and very good seasoning in there. It's nice and crunchy. And then so it's cornmeal so it's a little different than like your regular fried stuff. Oh man but the inside then is so meaty and tastes really fresh. Oh this is so good fried goodness and delicious. And I got the blackened catfish. It comes with two huge pieces of catfish. I got sweet potato fries and it comes with cornbread. And I'm not really a fish eater so this is a little out of my comfort zone but when I was little probably like fourth grade or so I used to eat fried catfish at this place by my parents house all the time. So if pickier version pickier fourth grade version of me liked catfish I'm thinking I might like it now. They asked me if I wanted it like lightly blackened or like more blackened and I said just put as much seasoning on there as possible just to give me a higher chance of actually liking it. So I'm curious to see what I think. I'm gonna eat it anyway but hopefully I do actually like catfish. Oh wow it's so flaky and it's just soft and oh it's steaming still. It's rare we actually get to eat food on the vlog hot but this food stayed nice and hot. All right here we go. That's actually pretty good. It's not very fishy tasting. Mostly like the fishiness you get of it is like the texture so it's just very very soft. It just kind of melts in your mouth. Seasoning is really really good. Yeah I was expecting it to have I was scared I was more scared it would have like a really strong fishy taste but I actually I actually really like it. I think it's probably better fried than it is blackened only because everything's better fried but I'm not gonna lie I'm pretty proud of myself right now for eating this. So we had been thinking about this place all week and it just hit me when we were standing in line they're like we're about to get fish she's about to eat fish and I'm still super shocked that she's sitting here eating fish and she's actually really liking it she's not. I'm like 30 percent of the way done. She's digging it. I'm so happy and proud of her. I want us to get more fish and eat more delicious stuff. Next stop sushi. I snuck a piece of the fried catfish and wow it is so good. It's very crunchy on the outside so soft on the inside. The blackened catfish is truly very delicious as well but if you can eat fried food get the fried catfish. It is so good. Alright it wouldn't be an adventures of A plus K vlog without an ice cream stop. I know we've been eating a lot of ice cream on our vlogs lately but we're just doing research so y'all know where to get the best scoops all across the U.S. We're making the sacrifice we're doing the hard work and we're now an ice cream vlog. So we came to this spot called Lob Lolly in Little Rock and if you're wondering what is Lob Lolly it's actually a type of pine tree and it's the state tree of Arkansas. Fun fact for you. Place is the cutest probably the cutest ice cream shop on the inside. Super colorful. Super adorable. The flavors oh man we're pumped about this. So mine's starting to melt so we gotta make this quick. I got pumpkin cheesecake on top and I'll tell you about my second flavor when I get to it. I got the apple pie which looks so good and Arkansas mud. I don't remember what's in all of these but I'm trying to keep it clean on the cone. They're so freaking good. They are amazing. Oh god it's dripping so bad. Yeah we gotta get to work here. The pumpkin cheesecake flavor tastes just kind of like melted cream cheese with pumpkin. It is incredible and I know I raved and raved about Clementine's. Still Clementine's is in the top five but this place might be now in the top six. This is delicious ice cream. So my second flavor is called the flavor that must not be named which is a Harry Potter reference and I believe it's butterscotch ice cream with like toffee and something else in it. Just sounded so good. Also we're finally getting to this cone and it's just like flaky and crispy and so delicious. You know we rave about the ice cream that has chunks in it. Both of these so far are freaking loaded with chunks. There's so many. You get so much crumbs and different textures in every bite. So I went back and looked. It's cinnamon apple ice cream the base with pecan oat streusel and the chunks are so huge in this. I can't get over it. So good. Okay I'm fully into my Arkansas mud which is milk chocolate base and then cookie and brownie pieces in there but it feels like I'm almost eating like an ice cream sandwich. The pieces I keep raving on the chunks but they're so big. Biggest of any ice cream place I've ever been. A huge nugget there. Like seriously like dime or nickel sized nuggets of deliciousness in here. It's so lob lolly freaking good. All right and that's gonna do it for our time here in Little Rock. Tomorrow we're gonna be exploring Hot Springs National Park which is about an hour southwest of Little Rock but instead of filming a vlog we're just gonna do a bunch of Instagram stories documenting our time there. So if you're not following us on Instagram make sure to go follow our page so you can see what we get up to. We're gonna do a story highlight with everything from Arkansas including Hot Springs so if you're seeing this a week, months, years after it's posted you can still go see what we did there. But after that we're headed back to Texas for the holidays and we have a few fun adventures that we can't wait to share so that's where you'll see us next.