Hot Springs

 12/4- Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas 

   Today was our first non driving day. We lazed around in the morning and I let Alayne sleep until 8am. There is a series of hiking trails that we wanted to check out. The trail started out nice but quickly became very steep. Fortunately it was not very long and we ended up at the bottom of this tall tower. It did have an elevator and even that was a little scary as there were all kinds of warnings posted inside about what to do when the elevator failed. Also it was on the outside of the tower with a window which was nerve wracking for me. The view was impressive as you can imagine it being 200 feet in the air on the top of a mountain. I was glad we went up but I was also damn glad to get down. 

   We learned a lot about the history of this area that I never knew. It was a huge resort area that attracted all kinds of famous people. Apparently Bill Clinton grew up here. Baseball teams trained here and the mafia entrenched themselves here. 

   We then discovered that the town we had been looking for when we got here was just down the bottom of the hill. We walked down and took a tour of one of the bath houses. There were several open springs in town as well as a bunch of fountains steaming away. The water comes out of the ground at 140 degrees so you could spot the steam rising easily. 

   After a nice lunch in town we walked a much easier path back to the campground. We managed to make it back before the rain started. It didn’t really rain though just sprinkling for the next several hours. 

   Back on the road again tomorrow. We are headed for either Oklahoma or Texas. The temps were not bad today but we are still running our furnace at night. 

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