Taking the waters

Gina and I left Hot Springs, AR two days ago. It's located in a geologic cleft in the Ouachita mountains from which hot water gushes out of 47 springs. It's a town caught in a time warp....prohibition, bootlegging, gambling, gangsters and hot baths.

Economic activity surrounding the baths was robust up until the end of WWII. The US military had a convalescent hospital here and sent men here for decades. Doctors advised patients with arthritis and other ailments to come take the waters. The bath houses were busy along with the casino and, during Prohibition, speakeasies and  booze. Al Capone stayed in our hotel when he was in town. Major league baseball teams had spring training camps there. After the war the military closed the hospital. The baseball teams moved to Florida. The casino was shut down in 1967. The Park Service preserved bath house row and leases space in them. Here's one of the bath houses with the old military hospital in back.

Gina and I stayed in the old Arlington Hotel, a 470 room behemoth with a rooftop hot tub (big enough to fit 25 people!) and two heated swimming pools, one cascading into the other. Wow, a lot of free hot water feeding the pools straight from the forest covered hillside. We were the only ones up there until a couple from Louisiana came. Check out this construction...looks like something in an 1880’s photo. It connects the roof of the hotel to the springs coming out of the hillside.

Those are magnolias in front of the hotel...must be nice in spring.

Bill Clinton's mother moved here with Bill was three. He grew up and graduated from Hot Springs High School. We left Hot Springs yesterday and visited the Clinton presdiential library in Little Rock (a hagiographic look at his political career) on our way to Memphis. 

We pulled in to Memphis for ribs and blues on Beale Street...we weren't disappointed...

We camped at Chickasaw state park and visited the Shiloh battlefield today. Now we are headed north alog the Natchez Trace. More later.