Hot Springs National Park

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Woke up early and walked the road and took pics.  Came back to a delicious breakfast of sweet potato, apples with an oatmeal topping along with some of the Costa Rican coffee.  Delicious.  More wonderful stories about her travels and on our way to Hot Springs.  Continue on back roads through the countryside. Heading toward Hot Springs and stopped for breakfast at Debra’s.   Jodi had a bisquit with her eggs and Jack had his Eggs Benedict.  Off to Hot Springs National Park.  Jodi is convinced that this really was the first place for physical therapy. 

The Hot Springs were discovered in the early 1800’s and people started coming here for the healing waters.  Eventually hotels and bath houses were built and many people started coming here.  When the railroads came, even more people came to be healed of their rheumatism, aches and pains, “liver problems”.  There were hot pools, massages, hot and cold packs, electro therapy, and promotion of exercise.  They had a gymnasium with all sorts of equipment.  The baths were beautifully decorated and is now a museum

Hubbard Tank

There is a promenade to walk down and many trails on the hill behind the bathhouses that were for exercise. The doctors at the hot springs encouraged people to exercise.  Way to go! Jack and I did a 4 mile hike in the woods.  A bus came by as we were coming down as the trail crossed the road.  The driver stopped and asked us if we wanted a ride.  We said no thank you twice and then the skies opened up and we were caught in a downpour!  We got soaking wet but it was warm.  We came to a shelter and waited it out.  We both took off our shirts and wrung them out.  Thank God for Dri fit.  We walked around the town and discovered that this was also a big gambling town.  They have a gangster museum.  Al Capone came here, it was a neutral city so all types of people and cultures were able to mix here without incident.  

 We then headed off to Crystal Springs to find our next ATC hosts, Dean and Kathe Miller.  They live in Kilgore, Texas and have a cabin in Arkansas.  They were kind enough to drive up to Arkansas to host us.  We had the best time!  When we arrived we went to Burl’s smokehouse and got the best sandwiches to go out on the pontoon boat. We got to meet Burl who was on a roll, quite the character.  He said something about us being Yankees and that did we know the war ain’t really over.  He has a bunch of interesting artifacts from the area, South America, Native American.  He had framed pictures with licenses of prostitutes from the 1890’s. It cost $2.50 for a 3 month license.  I got a BBQ pork with coleslaw and Jack got a beef brisket and ten we got a 3 meat sandwich for lunch the next day.  Ouachita Lake is simply beautiful.  There are no houses directly on the lake.  It is a huge lake of clear water with great bass fishing.  We brought the pontoon boat up on the shore and looked at all the rocks.  Quite beautiful.  At dark we went back to the cabin and talked of travel and family and then went to bed.  Lovely evening.