at least once a year, and this year, we had originally planned to take the trip in June, but life intervened and we postponed it to September. We went to Nashville first, then to the main event, Hot Springs, Arkansas. This post continues the Hot Springs saga!
Taking the advice of one of our cousins who had visited Hot Springs before, we went to the Buckstaff bathhouse for an authentic traditional Hot Springs mineral bath experience. We weren't allowed to have cameras during the process, so you'll just have to use your imagination!We checked in, made our way to an upper floor where we waited on benches for our names to be called. We undressed, were wrapped in sheets toga-style and led to our individual bathing cubicles where we literally climbed, via a step stool, into the biggest bathtubs I've ever seen. These tubs are long enough that I stretched my legs out straight and had to have a spacer placed behind me so I wouldn't slide down too far! And they were deep enough that only my head was above the water. The water, cooled to a temperature of about 110 degrees before being piped to the bathing area, gushed out of a 2-inch pipe to fill the tub. The attendant turned on an old fashioned whirlpool machine and left me to cook for half an hour with two cups of hot mineral water to drink, which she replenished several times. "Be sure to keep drinking!"
When the stewing was finished the attendant helped me out of the tub, wrapped me in another sheet and took me to a table where she placed towels soaked in the hot mineral water and had me lie back onto them. Then she added more hot towels on my legs and arms, wrapped some ice in a cold towel to put on my face, and gave me a cup of ice water to sip. The whole time I was on the table, the attendant insisted that we all drink our water, and she kept our cups filled.
After the table, I got ten minutes in a sitz bath - basically, you sit your rear end only in a miniature version of the bathtub. The first few seconds were the hardest - hot seat!!! After that, it became bearable. After that, three minutes in the "vapor cabinet." They don't call them steam cabinets because it's just the "vapors" from the hot spring water, which isn't hot enough to be "steam." Three minutes was plenty, though! I must have looked ridiculous, with just my head protruding from a big white box.
After the sitz bath, it was time for a lukewarm "needle shower." This is an early version of the trendy shower tower panels of today. There are vertical pipes mounted in the corners of the shower stall with tiny nozzles that make a needle-fine spray over your body, part of the cooldown phase. After the shower, I could have had a Swedish massage, but there was a long wait, so we decided to skip it. The attendant led us back to the changing room, where we dried off and got dressed.
After that treatment, we were basically worthless. Completely relaxed, but worthless. It was GREAT.
About twenty miles north of Hot Springs is Hot Springs Village, a gated community (the largest in the world!) of mostly empty nesters and retirees. It's been around a LONG time. I mean, I remember going to the state fair when I was in high school and seeing a booth in the Exposition Hall with pamphlets about Hot Springs Village. It was kind of a big deal. We'd seen a couple of writeups in the tourist information magazines we'd picked up along the way that basically said that if you wanted to visit, you had to enter by the east gate. So, being the nosy Parkers we are, we decided to drive up there and scope out the place. We drove on two-lane highway most of the way, and it looked like there was nothing ahead but the boonies, when we started seeing signs to the East Gate. All right! Here we go! It turned out you can't go in without a sponsor - someone you're visiting (and who is expecting you!) or a real estate agent. We had neither, so we had to turn around and go back to Hot Springs. It was fine. We had a nice drive and we got to gripe (but good-naturedly) all the way back about the people who had written those misleading articles. The one bust of the trip. If that's the only thing that went wrong, that's not too bad.
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| Ronaldo's outside area |
One of the restaurants we hit was Ronaldo's Speakeasy - delicious Guatemalan fare. Another was the Ohio Club, a REAL historic speakeasy. During Prohibition, it was turned into a cigar store up front by the street, but behind was the speakeasy. We also visited a coffee shop, Kollective Coffee and Tea. All of these buildings are directly across the street from the bathhouses, so were backed up to the rock face of West Mountain. Ronaldo's has a back entrance where you climb up some stairs to the back door and an outdoor seating area that's on the mountainside, level with the second floor of the building. Kollective Coffee and Tea has big windows that overlook the "alley" behind the building. There are about three feet between the outside wall of the building and the mountain's rock face, so from inside, it looked like the rock face was right up against the window glass.
OH! There was ONE other thing that didn't pan out. We had wanted to take a boat tour of Lake Hamilton, but the one day we could go and there was space available it rained. All day. All night. So we missed out on the boat ride.
All in all, Hot Springs was a pleasant surprise. Plenty to do. Relatively inexpensive. We had FUN! And we never even went to the casino and horse track - HA!
Next, we drove to Memphis, but that's the next post. Until then...
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