Travel Update 19

We started out the week near Memphis desperate for showers. Luckily for us, February 9th was National Pizza and Bagel day and Planet Fitness was inviting anyone to work out at their gyms and get free bagels in the morning and pizza in the evening. We took full advantage of both times, getting two free workouts, bagels, pizza and WiFi to watch the Ducks get their revenge against Arizona State.

From Memphis, we drove to Little Rock, Arkansas, where we took advantage of free scavenger hunt tickets we received though the Let's Roam app we used in Austin. We walked all around the town, seeing sights and learning a bit about Little Rock history.

Little Rock Capitol Building

We ended the day in Hot Springs, AR. There we visited Hot Springs National Park. It got a bit cold that night and made for a really cool looking fountain at the park.

After visiting our 11th National Park, we headed west towards Oklahoma City to try and catch up with a friend of Kathleen's from the Peace Corps. We took the scenic route through the Ouachita National Forest and into Oklahoma. We decided to pass up the Ozarks, even though we heard they were beautiful. They'll be going on our "places we didn't get to, but would still like to see someday" list. We're eager to get to Big Bend and the large cluster of National Parks in that area and want to keep moving.

Hot Springs National Park

Hot Springs was yet another national park where we had absolutely no idea what to expect, which always makes for a nice treat. Until the Gateway Arch in St. Louis became a national park in February of 2018, Hot Springs was the smallest of the national parks. It has a long history and is the oldest "entity" in the system, having become a "Reservation" in 1832.  Part of becoming a reservation was the agreement that they would always offer free water to the public, so there are fountains all over offering fresh, warm spring water.

The national park is formed around a collection of upwellings of a natural hot spring. The water comes to the surface with an average temperature of 143º F. People have been coming to the hot springs for bathing and rituals for as long as there have been people in the area. The Dunbar-Hunter Expedition "discovered" the hot springs for the United states in 1804 while they were exploring the new Louisiana purchase. Almost immediately a small town popped up as people flocked in to bath in the springs for the health benefits.

Over time, the springs became more accessible with the introduction of trains and then roads and the community and the baths became more sophisticated. The wooden structures on bath house row were slowly replaced by fancy stone bath houses with all of the possible amenities, two of which are still open for baths.

The current visitor center is in the fanciest of the old baths, which has been turned into a museum. The baths were very ornate and had fancy stained glass, like this piece on the ceiling of the men's changing rooms:

They also included "state of the art medical interventions."

These cabinets were for alternating between a heated sauna sit, on the right,
and a cold ice block sit, on the left. You would sit down in the contraption
with your head sticking out the hole on the top. 

Patients would stand in the needle shower on the wall, while a technician
would shoot them with high pressure water streams in a form of hydromassage. 

There have a "needle bath" that shoot water at you from the side to rinse all of the sweat and minerals off after a soak. 

A "Site bath." A small tube to sit in while mercury was applied to cure your syphilis. 

In the upper levels there was a gym that included early physical therapy machines, large lounges for spending the afternoon, a beauty parlors for hair and nails, and rooms for massages. In the peak of the popularity of the baths, in the late 1800s, rich people would come from around the country to stay in hot springs taking baths prescribed to them by a doctor every day for an average of 21 days.

There are still a few bathhouses that you can bathe in. Every package includes a bath in the natural spring water and needle shower and many include a steam room and massages as well. These were all a bit out of our price point. We did consider it though, it being Valentine's Day.

After touring the museum we took a hike on some of the paths in the hilly area included in the park. There was a nice walk up to the top where there was a lookout tower, but we elected not to pay to go up the tower. The view was already nice.

All in all, there isn't much to "see" at this National Park, but the history is interesting.