After several weeks in Texas (a "RED" state), we journeyed north and east, ending up in Hot Springs, Arkansas (a "BLUE" state). In case you are ever gaming and have presidential trivia as your topic, this is the boyhood town of Bill Clinton.
Two days ago, the weather turned gray, then rainy. Undaunted, we headed off to the old section of town to Hot Springs National Park. Some more trivia: it is both the smallest national park, and the only national park to be completely contained within the city limits of one town! Hot Springs main claim to fame is the very pure and very hot water (148F) that flows out of the mountain. In the late 1800's through the mid-1920's, several bath houses were built here to take advantage of the steamy waters. During that era, weathly people from all over the world traveled here to soak, relax, and revive. In those days, you actually needed a doctor's prescription to come to one of these spas! We took a guided tour through one of the restored spas - it was very interesting to find out what people went through back in those times.
The water is actually so pure, that NASA uses it to store moon rocks - no contamination. In the center of town, there is a place where you can bring jugs and take all the water you want. Local businesses sell empty plastic jugs at a killing to the tourists. I went back and filled several containers. It's very good!
Last night the rain and thunder were so loud, that Abbey kept us up pacing and panting. She finally settled down about 4:00am I think.
Due to the storms moving through Illinois and Indiana and the rest of the midwest, we decided to move east, not north, and hang out for another week before heading north to Indiana. Today we moved further east into Tennessee, and are staying at an RV park in Hornsby. The wind following that front gave us a great tail wind on our journey today, but was no fun once we got to our site. We had a little excitement getting to our site - the office is closed from about noon on, and we got here around 2:15pm. The instructions on the door said: "Find a place; we'll catch up to you". Great, except there weren't any maps. So we took off, logically, on the main road from the office. Hmmm, as we made the loop, we saw that we should have gone the other way. No problem, I'll back the rig up on that big field, straighten 'er out, and back in to that nice spot facing the lake. Good plan, except that the field was rain soaked. The "back-up" part went great, but the "go forward, up the slight hill" part didn't...sneaky mud. Another rig that came in right behind us did the same thing, so there were two of us stuck. The elusive manager showed up and got us both out. We got turned around, and parked on a high-ground site.
We're heading for Nashville tomorrow, where we'll hang out for about a week before heading north.
Two days ago, the weather turned gray, then rainy. Undaunted, we headed off to the old section of town to Hot Springs National Park. Some more trivia: it is both the smallest national park, and the only national park to be completely contained within the city limits of one town! Hot Springs main claim to fame is the very pure and very hot water (148F) that flows out of the mountain. In the late 1800's through the mid-1920's, several bath houses were built here to take advantage of the steamy waters. During that era, weathly people from all over the world traveled here to soak, relax, and revive. In those days, you actually needed a doctor's prescription to come to one of these spas! We took a guided tour through one of the restored spas - it was very interesting to find out what people went through back in those times.
The water is actually so pure, that NASA uses it to store moon rocks - no contamination. In the center of town, there is a place where you can bring jugs and take all the water you want. Local businesses sell empty plastic jugs at a killing to the tourists. I went back and filled several containers. It's very good!
Last night the rain and thunder were so loud, that Abbey kept us up pacing and panting. She finally settled down about 4:00am I think.
Due to the storms moving through Illinois and Indiana and the rest of the midwest, we decided to move east, not north, and hang out for another week before heading north to Indiana. Today we moved further east into Tennessee, and are staying at an RV park in Hornsby. The wind following that front gave us a great tail wind on our journey today, but was no fun once we got to our site. We had a little excitement getting to our site - the office is closed from about noon on, and we got here around 2:15pm. The instructions on the door said: "Find a place; we'll catch up to you". Great, except there weren't any maps. So we took off, logically, on the main road from the office. Hmmm, as we made the loop, we saw that we should have gone the other way. No problem, I'll back the rig up on that big field, straighten 'er out, and back in to that nice spot facing the lake. Good plan, except that the field was rain soaked. The "back-up" part went great, but the "go forward, up the slight hill" part didn't...sneaky mud. Another rig that came in right behind us did the same thing, so there were two of us stuck. The elusive manager showed up and got us both out. We got turned around, and parked on a high-ground site.
We're heading for Nashville tomorrow, where we'll hang out for about a week before heading north.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Tell us what you think!