Hot Springs

Hot Springs, AR  Nov 4 - 8, 2013

It was raining when we left Aubrey, TX and headed to Hot Springs, AR and kept up for most of the drive.  We struggled to find a place to visit in Arkansas so we could get the state sticker and decided on Hot Springs National Park.  Catherine's Landing RV park was fabulous.  It is one of five in a new luxury resort style RV parks in the nation and they know how to do it.  Nice large sites with lots of grass on a little lake.  We really liked it.  It was a little tricky to get to and Nadine (our GPS) took us on a couple of tiny streets through a neighborhood to get there.

Catherine's Landing

 

This National Park is not like any other we have been to in a small city and surrounded by low lying mountains.  The area is home to 47 natural hot springs which provide odorless, flavorless and colorless water which is thought to have therapeutic properties.  Bathhouses were built starting in 1877 for people to come enjoy the healing powers of the water.  It was a popular vacation site for many years and even had a government operated bathhouse that operated as a public health facility for those that couldn't afford luxury.  The visitor center is in the restored Fordyce Bathhouse that was built in 1915.  The typical day at a bathhouse consisted of a twenty minute soak in a tub where someone scrubbed you with a loofah, a sitz bath, a vapor steam cabinet, hot packs, massage and a needle shower.  The tour of the bathhouse was fun as we were able to see all of the facilities.  There was even an old gymnasium with antique work out equipment.  The men and women were kept completely separate.  Behind the visitor center they have one spring left open so you can see what it looks like, but the rest of them have been covered to keep them protected.  The National Park Service collects all of the spring water and then doles it out to the remaining spas.  There are still two houses that you can bathe in the spring water; one in the traditional manner of the early 1900's and a second in a more modern facility. 

Steam cabinet or what looks like a torture chamber

The fountain in the middle provided cold spring water for drinking

Beautiful stained glass everywhere

Antique gym

Natural spring water temp avg 143 degrees.  Hot Springs NP is not a volcanic area.  The surrounding rocks absorb rainfall, as the water percolates downward the warm/hot rocks it flows through heat the water at a rate of 4 degrees every 300 feet.  This is the average geothermal gradient worldwide, caused by the gravitational compression and by the breakdown of naturally occurring radioactive elements.  It takes 4,000 years for the water to make a round trip through the system.  Eventually the water meets faults and joints leading up to the lower west slope of Hot Springs mountain, where the water surfaces......4,000 years later!

Fordyce Bathhouse: In 1915 it was the best game in town.  Now it is the park visitor center and museum 

 

We also took a scenic drive thru Hot Springs National Park.  The fall colors were magnificent. 

Coming soon.... Memphis, TN, Mammoth Cave, KY, Gilmer, TX, Glen Rose, TX and then home.