May of 2016, and my oldest daughter is graduating from college!!! YIKES! She went to school at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota Florida, and I am super proud of her. But, true to form for me, the trip to Sarasota gave me the opportunity to do some additional travel – to visit some new NPS properties I hadn’t been to.

This trip was a doozy!

I flew from Sarasota to Birmingham and picked up a rental car. I then drove it to Austin, TX for a conference I needed to attend for work. After a few days at the conference, I drove to Des Moines, IA for another conference, then finally home. In all, it was over 3000 miles of driving. I adjusted my route so that I could take in as many NPS properties as possible! I have a separate post to describe each one.

After visiting Graceland, I headed southwest to Hot Springs National Park. The park is in and around the City of Hot Springs, but they are two different entities. The park consists of acres and acres of wilderness, hiking trails, a lookout tower, along with a visitor center and several buildings. One of the things to do there, is to have a spa treatment, and I was looking forward to a massage, soaking in the hot water, etc. However, because of visiting Graceland in the morning, I got there too late to get a full Spa Treatment.

The Visitors Center is in one of the old Bath Houses. I toured the bathhouse and talked to the rangers about where to go for soaking in the hot springs, even though I was there in late afternoon. There is no gift shop or movie that I could find at this Visitor Center, but I did find a shop later, at the lookout tower. I ended up going to the Quapaw Baths & Spa and was able to soak in the hot springs tub. The hot tubs are interesting. First, they are very old, and have been in use for decades. The water comes out of the spring at 144 degrees, then gets cooled before filling the tubs. There were several different tubs (like very big hot tubs) at this spa. Each tub had a different temperature of water. I was able to go in for as long as I wanted.

After the soak, I went for a hike. I know that is backwards, but I didn't want to miss out on the soak, and they were going to close. It was a bit rainy, but I took a hike to the top of the mountain, to the lookout tower. The lookout tower is very tall. At the base, there is a giftshop, and an elevator to the top. The fee for the elevator is $4 if you have a National Park Pass. Since it was raining, the tower was in the clouds, but I went up anyway. There were two floors to visit on top - one was just the lookout, and the second floor had exhibits describing the history of the area. It was interesting. There was a lot of controversy over the years on the ownership of the water, and the mob was a big part of the history.

In the more recent years, the use of the hot springs has gone down. In the past, people would come here to be healed from one ailment or another. With the influx of new medicines and clean water as a norm in most homes, less people are coming to the hot springs for that reason.

This is a beautiful park to spend some time in, to hike, camp, and to soak in hot springs. I wish I would have been able to spend more time here. The official NPS website for the Hot Springs National Park is at: https://www.nps.gov/hosp/index.htm

#Arkansas