Hot Springs, AR

Hot Springs, Arkansas

A dear friend recommended Hot Springs as one of his favorite places, and we have to agree — it’s a great town and National Park existing in a symbiotic relationship. The town popped up in the 1800s around the natural hot water springs, and the park without the town would just be some picturesque but not particularly remarkable mountain passes and trails.

A mural off the main drag in Hot Springs

The centerpiece of the park is Bathhouse Row, where you can survey spa contraptions used for health cures and relaxation during what's described as the “Golden Era of Bathing” (e.g. the mid 1800s, unlike now when I guess we go around stinking). Pictured are a steam box aka vapor cabinet, plumbing for a needle shower, and other peculiar implements, function unknown.

The National Park Service leases several historic bath houses for commercial operations including spa services, where we enjoyed a hot mineral water bath. The springs themselves are covered over by the bathhouses and these pictured odd boxes dotting the landscape, which are locked to prevent curiosity-seekers from simmering themselves in 140-degree water.

We indulged in an afternoon cocktail at the Arlington Hotel, and checked out the shops and an interesting mural on the town's main street. Dorian* was a sport and accompanied me for a night of live jazz at The Ohio Club, billed as the oldest bar in Arkansas and a speakeasy during Prohibition, and frequented by the likes of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Pippi felt an affinity for this white-suited fellow. Maybe Pippi finally found someone she could trust absolutely to never judge her.

*Dorian says he has an unsophisticated ear and doesn't appreciate or even like jazz. If humans communicated solely through jazz music, Dorian would be a deaf mute.

Would We Come Back Here?

We really liked our time here and we'd certainly come back...if we were already in the area. This is being written by our future selves (wearing futuristic garb much like George Carlin's in that most excellent movie, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, of course). Our future selves have seen so much since then and had to regretfully skip so many things that were so close by...at this point, Hot Springs ranks relatively far down on our list of places we'd like to see again. But if you've never been there and happen to be within a hundred miles or so, it is definitely worth the trip.

Thoughtfully considering Hot Springs

Would We Live Here?

If one of us walked with a cane and ambled about town while ruefully contemplating how much things have changed and taking it as an obvious, unspoken assumption that all the changes have been for the worse, then Hot Springs would be a wonderful place to spend the rest of our doleful lives. However, neither of us have a cane and we're happy about at least some of the changes, such as talking pictures and most excellent sunglasses, so we're unlikely to move here. Not that it's a bad place, but it does feel a lot like living in amber--assuming there's a lot of tourist traffic going through the heart of that piece of amber.

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