Hundreds of people ascended Hot Springs and North mountains to observe the first total solar eclipse in the state since 1918.
Visitors traveled from all over the country -- from Pensacola, Florida, to Seattle, Washington -- and at least two overseas visitors came from England to see the event.
Earth to Sky Eclipse Coordinator Cris White, who works with both NASA and the National Park Service, walked the crowd through the event from "first contact" through the end of totality for those gathered at the Hot Springs Mountain Tower parking lot. She gave facts about the eclipse along with cues to the crowd to put on or remove their eclipse glasses.
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"I've done an annular and a partial before in 2013, 2017," Howard Whang, who traveled from San Diego to see the eclipse with his girlfriend Kimberly Febus, said. "But this was incredible, actually seeing the prominences. I used to think that was just a photographic effect. I didn't realize it was something you can actually see."
The two flew to Dallas for the eclipse, but when the forecast was not ideal, they shifted their plans and came to the Spa City.
"Dallas was, I think, forecast like 50% cloud cover," he said. "The weather (in Hot Springs), when I checked at least this morning, said about 20%. I like those odds."
Whang brought a small telescope with a solar filter which he focused on the sun throughout the day, allowing other visitors to use it to observe the sun.
"It was spectacular," Febus said. "I mean, that moment when you take the glasses off and you just see it, just took my breath away. I thought tears were going to come to my eyes because it was just breathtaking, something that I never imagined would look like that."
Mattison Shreero, an interpretive ranger who came from Badlands National Park to aid the park service for the eclipse, said she was astonished by the overall event.
"We saw the crescent shapes and shadows on the sidewalk and stuff like that, but this was something else," she said, referencing seeing a partial eclipse from Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2017.
"I had no idea. I always heard people say, 'The totality, you have to see totality because it's unlike anything else,' but I didn't fully believe it until just then. That was incredible. I could not control my own reactions. I was almost falling over. I was in tears, literally. It was amazing," she said.
Melissa Smith and Amber Carey, a pair of friends from Pensacola, brought members of their family for the eclipse, deciding to forego Texas for the Natural State.
"Everybody was going to Texas, and ... Texas was about the same distance for us anyways," Carey said, noting neither woman had been to Arkansas before.
Smith said she has a friend who lives here who encouraged her to visit for the eclipse.
"I asked her, 'I really want to go, but I want to go to Hot Springs.' She said, 'Oh my gosh, go,'" she recalled.
"Then one of two national parks in (totality) here," Carey said. "That's pretty cool. We knew something big would be here. NASA was here."
Ailene and Bob Ettinger and their children Charlie, 8, and Roger, 11, came to Hot Springs from Seattle, and while they had a backup plan for the weather, they had to come up with another one this weekend.
"I've been checking on the cloud forecast hourly for the last two weeks," he said. "We pivoted a lot of times. And so it's kind of crazy that it's all of this buildup to a thing that we all knew was going to happen exactly when just whether or not you'd see it. ... We flew to Houston, and I thought I was planning way ahead by booking a hotel in both Dallas and San Antonio, and then we ended up here."
Ailene Ettinger said getting to experience the event with a group made it even more special.
"It was amazing to be with a group of people in the national park, and just all appreciating it and in awe of it together," she said. "I think there's so few times that we gather for astronomical events, so it felt like a very special thing to be in community with other people, even people you don't know."
Kimberly Febus, right, explains to another visitor and his son about the solar tent NASA and the National Park Service set up for Monday's total solar eclipse. (The Sentinel-Record/James Leigh)
Hot Springs National Park Interpretive Ranger Cane West, left, gestures while explaining the connection of Hot Springs to the states where different visitors are from. (The Sentinel-Record/James Leigh)