Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas

We spent several days at Beavers Bend State Park in Oklahoma.  Found a spot smack dab on the lake and settled into a few cold, windy days.  The Park looked "tired" and "run down" -- hardly a place that could be billed as a resort destination.  We did go down to Red Slough National Wildlife Refuge; thanks to a kind ranger who unlocked a few gates and let us drive into the Refuge.  Um, we saw, an alligator, a purple gallinule, and a few common moorhens.  Everything else had already left OR was about to arrive.

A whole couple of days and not 1 picture.  Pretty drab.  Glad to leave Oklahoma!!

And get to Hot Springs National Park.  Which is a very interesting & sort of "how not to have a National Park."  The Hot Springs were some of the first land ever set aside by the Federal Government -- as early as the 1830s.  But...they did not set aside any of the surrounding area, so today there is this incredible mish-mash of commercial business superimposed on the visitor center, etc.  Like The Museum of the Gangster, Ginger's Popcorn, and the Vapor Store....um....like trashy.

BUT, we did manage to find one of those commercial ventures offering hot mineral springs bath -- oh my, does it make one's skin so soft.  No chlorine or other chemicals.  Oh it was nice.

And we hiked a bit -- I guess the walks were part of the scene at America's Spa in the 1880s.

We walked a bit of the Baseball Trail -- turns out that spring training was held in the Hot Springs area in the era of Babe Ruth & Cy Young & Honus Wagner.  They came to "boil out" the nights of drinking.  Honest, that is what the sign said!

We walked the Garven Botanical Gardens.  Late for the tulips and other spring flowers.  Nice walk.

America's First Health Plan -- go soak in the Hot Springs!!

Looking down Bathhouse Row 

One bathhouse has been restored as the "Visitor Center"

Yesteryear's steam room

Hot Springs just ooze from the ground

The Formal Promenade on hill above the Bathhouses

Spring colors at the Gardens

View at the Gardens

Lovely Bloom

Stained Glass ceiling in the lounge area

Local connection:  Eastman Hotel & Babe Ruth.  Reminded Alan of when Frank skipped school and peeked through the fence to see Babe Ruth hit a home run in Seal Stadium in SF about 1920.  

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