It is a Happy Day!! Exactly
two weeks from when we pulled into Red Bay, Alabama we got our “Get Out of
Jail” card and pulled out of parking space #75 at the Allegro Service Center in
Red Bay and headed West – not fast enough!!
Just like our work years – it all seemed fine while we were there
getting things done. BUT, when we knew
we were leaving – we could NOT be on our way fast enough.
So, we headed for the spas of Hot Springs, Arkansas –
perhaps the most interesting of our National Parks. While most of our national parks cover hundreds
of thousands of acres far from city streets keeping natural resources away from
commercial users – Hot Springs does the opposite. This smallest of national parks borders a
city that has made an industry of tapping and dispensing the park’s major resource
– mineral rich waters of hot springs.
In 1832, long before our National Park system was adopted,
President Andrew Jackson set aside the hot springs as a ‘special reservation’
in order to preserve the slopes behind the spas where the rain and snow soak
into the ground and ultimately produce the hot water – 143 degrees Fahrenheit -
of the 47 hot springs in the park which in turn supply the spas. In 1921 the federal land became a national
park. However, Hot Springs claims the
time it was a ‘special reservation’ and bills itself as the oldest NP, outdating
Yellowstone!!
The heart of this peculiar park is Bathhouse Row on Central
Avenue – the main street of Hot Springs. In the early years of the 20th
century the street was lined with elegant bathhouses where the rich and famous
came to “take the waters”. A couple of the bathhouses are still in
operation providing baths from the Hot Springs as well as other spa
services. Some of the bathhouses are now
used as restaurants, shops and even the NP Visitor Center.
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| Hmmm..guess where we are. |
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| Most of these old bathhouses aren't operating any more.....at least as bathhouses. |
Baseball players liked to come here to rejuvenate their
bodies and many say that spring training originated here. Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio were regulars as
were many of the Mob, Presidents and actors.
An interesting mix!! Oh yes – and,
this IS the boyhood home of Bill Clinton.
In fact, when he flew in all that BBQ to the White House – it came from
McClard’s right here in Hot Springs.
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| This BBQ joint was made "World Famous" by former Hot Springs resident Bill Clinton. |
Other historical buildings along Central Avenue include the
Ohio Club, which opened in 1905 and served the likes of Babe Ruth, Bugsy Segal
and others. If you knew the ‘secret
word’ you could get into the back room and get a drink even during those
prohibition years;-) The bar has a
beautiful VERY LARGE back that was purchased up north, brought by barge then by
a specially built wagon to the Club where the front of the building had to be
removed to get the bar in place.
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| The Ohio Club is the small building in the middle. |
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| E bellying up to the Bar where Babe Ruth sat (maybe)! |
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| LARGE mirror with interesting detail work. |
One can get a birds eye view of Hot Springs from the
Mountain Tower where views of the Spa City and the Ouachita Mountains can be
seen. While the Tower has been updated
over the years, it has been providing these views since 1877!!
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| The Mountain Tower - didn't do the stairs;-( |
Great views of Bathhouse Row
Not too far from Central Avenue sits the Garvan Woodland
Gardens – a joint venture between Verna Cook Garvan and the University of
Arkansas School of Architecture. Garvan
inherited the land the Garden now sits on from her father, a brick and timber
businessman who purchased the property in the 1920’s for future timber for his
company. Vera loved the beauty of the
peninsula on Lake Hamilton and therefore abandoned the thought of harvesting
the timber and decided to conserve the site as the Twentieth Century
Gardens. After working for several years
on her own developing the gardens’ infrastructure and planting thousands of
trees, shrubs and plants she realized she wanted something bigger. She contacted the University of Arkansas and
entered into an agreement and today we got to visit a beautiful garden.
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| The Gardens provided lots of color - including a glass exhibit |
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| and interesting architecture in this Chapel. |
We also found that Arkansas, like Alabama, has a golf trail
and two of the courses were right here in Hot Springs just down the street from
our campground. So – off we went for a
perfectly delightful morning of golf. E’s
round was pretty good and G had his best round ever;-)!! What more could one ask for?????
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| We golfed at the very traditional Hot Springs Country Club - Park Course. |
OH YES – the ‘campground’ here in Hot Springs. Never thought we would be so happy to have a
cement slab, grass, a picnic table and something like a river out our front
door. BUT – after our gravel, dusty,
barren parking spot on the runway in Red Bay – WE HAVE BEEN IN HEAVEN THE PAST
TWO DAYS;-)!!!!!!
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| What a difference a little grass and water makes - GREEN, GREEN, GREEN;-) |
OH HAPPY DAYS!!! How
little things can please.
Tomorrow we are on our way to Branson, MO to meet up with
friends then we head the wagon west.
Look out – here we come – E & G on the move
