Bathhouse Row
Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas
Yesterday, I swear, The Coach and I visited the nation’s weirdest national park. Okay, I haven’t been to every national park, so maybe that statement won’t be particularly accurate in the long run, but Hot Springs National Park is one of the oddest parks I have been to so far in my life. In some ways, it reminded me of TQE’s adventures in Turkey, only The Coach didn’t make it to the bathhouse before it closed.
Maybe I should start from the beginning? You see, when I first planned The Coach’s birthday trip, we were going to stop at the Superman Museum in Illinois. Of course, I planned that side trip before we acquired Patton — you know, before we ended up with the two critter tag-a-longs. Since we are good pet owners, we don’t leave our animals in steaming hot cars in the summer (if you do – shame on you!), so we ended up having an extra day in our trip to Little Rock. The Coach, seeing that Hot Springs was only an hour from Little Rock, decided that now would be a good time to ‘bag’ another stamp in our National Parks Passport Book. So, we grabbed the camera, put down Sally’s roof, and cruised down I-30 to the back road into the park. Along the way, we passed many signs indicating that Arkansas is overly concerned with religion {“Vote Out Incumbents! Support Pro-Life Candidates!”} but otherwise it was a pleasant drive.
We arrived in Hot Springs, drove down Central Avenue, tried not to run over pedestrians, and found one of the fanciest parking structures I’ve ever seen — including a nifty water feature:
The fanciest parking garage I have ever seen
Hot Springs, Arkansas
So, with the car stowed away, we wandered down to the Visitor’s Center, located in the old Fordyce Bathhouse. That’s when the weird park sensations began. You see, the hot springs were thought to have curative powers so people would travel by stagecoach and, later train then car, to come to the springs. The master vision was to have an European-style spa community — and this was the vision embraced by the park service prior to the Depression and World War II. As you might imagine, sick people don’t want to soak in springs. Oh no, they want creature comforts — thus, the bathhouses were built.
We toured the Fordyce, looking at the old tubs, the vapor closets, and the massage rooms. At one point, people were given electric shocks while in the water. Obviously this was before the Loony Tunes educated a generation of children, showing us that it was a bad idea to drop a toaster in a tub. Of course, the men had a larger bath room; they also had the better rooftop patio where they could sunbathe in the nude. But, my particular favorite moment in the center was the video — circa 1980s, judging by the hair — which told us how to take a bath. You go to a room and strip. An attendant wraps you in a sheet. You soak in a tub. Someone walks in and scrubs you with a loofah and so on and so forth. I was good until the loofah part; well, that part and the part where they talked about how they scrubbed the tubs out after each person. That skeeved me out a bit. All I could think about was getting athlete’s foot on my ass. The Coach? Not so skeeved out. While he was all for going down to the Buckstaff Baths, I think I’ll wait for the Quapaw Baths to open. I’d rather play in the pools, thank you very much.
After looking through the visitor’s center, The Coach asked one of the rangers to recommend a good place to eat. We ended up going to the Exchange Street Cafe, which was charming in its own way. The service sucked, the floors were sticky, and The Coach never got his fries, but the BBQ was good, the decor was cute, and I had some rockin’ good sweet potato fries. To be fair, I think that the waitress didn’t show up, which would explain the service. The poor lady at the counter was busing tables, serving food, and watching her kid all at the same time.
The rest of our trip included filling a bottle with hot springs water so that The Coach can “quaff the elixir,” as the orientation film put it. We also spent an ungodly amount of money to ride in a “duck,” which was an okay experience — but not worth $13/person. Plus, we then saw a different duck group giving the rides for only $10/person, which really kind of annoyed me, but whatever.
For the record: We did make it back to Little Rock in time for The Coach to go to the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum. He said that it was a squeeze to get through the USS Razorback. Me? I stayed in the hotel room and played with our neglected cats.
Originally Published: July 7, 2008
Tags: 2008, Arkansas, Hot Springs, National Park, Retrospective