August 4th, Hot Springs National Park, AR

  


Friday, August 4, 2006
Day 40
Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas

It took me awhile, but I realized that I have been using the wrong abbreviation for Arkansas. I thought it was AK, it is actually AR. OOPS. Today we “did” Hot Springs National Park. Hot Springs is a city. Yes, an actual city with thousands of people. Not tens or hundred, but thousands. It was different to go to a National Park in the midst of a city. We had to find parking! We had to pay for parking. Although, if we were better at reading signs we could have found the free parking which we saw after the fact. Well, Rod saw the sign earlier, but we missed it when we needed it. Oh well, it only cost us one dollar for 4 hours so we really can’t complain.

The Hot Springs National Park is headquartered within an old bathhouse on “bathhouse row”. The building was very interesting, and so was learning about the source of the hot springs. No, the area is not volcanic, but rainwater seeps into the mountain and over a period of about 4000 years it seeps down lower and lower toward hotter and hotter rocks. Eventually it is pushed back upward through cracks in the rock, under pressure from all the other water above it. It comes up rather quickly and remains near 143 degrees Fahrenheit. This water contains various minerals and things that are dissolved, and it is very clean and pure. You can collect it from different fountains in the town. We did! We are bringing home about 2 gallons of hot springs water to “heal what ails ya”.

The hot water is too hot to bathe in, so it is cooled at two heat exchangers before being piped into the bathhouses. People still bathe in the water, but not at the old bathhouses, but there are spas in the city still. The fountains in town are mainly hot also, and that was interesting. While filling a water bottle I got “sprayed” with the hot water. It was really hot, but not hot enough to burn me in the spray. Now if I’d been sitting in it…ouch!

We spent about three hours touring around, including driving up the mountain on the scenic drive. Oh, and if anyone cares, this is the hometown of former President Bill Clinton. (Not my favorite guy, but still interesting.)

We went to Cracker Barrel for Dinner tonight. It was hard to find because all the streets around here seem to be either 7, 7S, 70, or 270. With various B’s or S’s added on for extra confusion. Anyway, we found it. We had to ASK at a gas station, how humiliating. But, we had been on the right track, we just hadn’t gone far enough before turning around. Oh well. It was good! We all love Cracker Barrel!

Tomorrow we are driving to Greer, MO. Maybe going canoeing on the Eleven Point river in a couple of days. Yeah!