Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Day 12
In the morning we drove up into the foothills of the Ozark Mountains to the town of Hot Springs and Hot Springs National Park. Many of the bathhouses from the early 1900's are still visible on "“Bathhouse Row" but only one is still functioning as a bathhouse. One houses the National Park Visitors' Center and still contains many of the accoutrements of the former opulence of the bathhouses, including men's and ladies' changing rooms, baths, massage tables, etc. We wandered around town a bit, finding a couple of springs still visible on the surface. Most of the hot water is now underground, but there were fountains for filling bottles with the hot mineral water; we filled some of our empty water bottles with hot water. We then headed out of town, driving toward Little Rock. We found a gem store along the way and purchased some "Arkansas Crystal" for our garden pond (we like to bring back rocks from various places we visit to put around the pond). We drove around Little Rock and then into Tennessee toward Memphis. Our goal is to visit Mammouth Cave National Park (in Kentucky) tomorrow so we were hoping to make it to Nashville, but we couldn't quite make it so we are camping in Lorretta Lynn country at a crowded KOA just off Interstate 40. No WiFi here so I am writing this in Word in the hopes that I can get a connection tomorrow.
It's getting dark and I am sitting with the computer on the tailgate of the truck plugged into our exterior outlet and I’m beginning to feel the bugs coming out, so it's time to call it quits.
We haven't had any wireless connections at the last camp grounds, so I am posting these entries after the fact.
These pictures are of Bath House Row in Hot Springs. Only one of the bathhouses is still open to the public, Buckstaff Bath. The buildings are owned by the National Park Service and are being restored. The Fordyce houses the park headquarters and is open for tours, showing the lavish decorations of the bathhouses.
Bathhouse Row:
Buckstaff Bath:
More Bathhouse Row:
The men's area of the bathhouse was more lavish than the women's; here is the stained glass ceiling in the men's area:
Statuary in the men's bath:
Ken inspects the elaborate plumbing:
The opulent parlor:
A tiled bath, used for invalids:
The Gymnasium:
Ken tests the hot water, coming directly out of the ground. Ouch, it's hot!
Hot spring pools:
Art Deco architecture in downtown Hot Springs:
It's getting dark and I am sitting with the computer on the tailgate of the truck plugged into our exterior outlet and I’m beginning to feel the bugs coming out, so it's time to call it quits.
We haven't had any wireless connections at the last camp grounds, so I am posting these entries after the fact.
These pictures are of Bath House Row in Hot Springs. Only one of the bathhouses is still open to the public, Buckstaff Bath. The buildings are owned by the National Park Service and are being restored. The Fordyce houses the park headquarters and is open for tours, showing the lavish decorations of the bathhouses.
Bathhouse Row:
Buckstaff Bath:
More Bathhouse Row:
The men's area of the bathhouse was more lavish than the women's; here is the stained glass ceiling in the men's area:
Statuary in the men's bath:
Ken inspects the elaborate plumbing:
The opulent parlor:
A tiled bath, used for invalids:
The Gymnasium:
Ken tests the hot water, coming directly out of the ground. Ouch, it's hot!
Hot spring pools:
Art Deco architecture in downtown Hot Springs:
# posted by Marty Hankins @ 8:25 AM 
