Obfuscator writes: The night of storms in Texarkana continued through the morning. We drove into town to check out some of the sights. Of course, since it was basically pouring on us, we didn't feel it necessary to look too closely. We did stop at the Post Office which straddles the state line, and is quite lovely. In front of it is a little statue to the Confederacy (of course), which was also picturesque, and crosses the state line as well.
We drove northeast from there, heading toward Hot Springs National Park. We stopped briefly in Hope, Arkansas to see the first home of President Clinton. It was closed though, since it was a Sunday, and we drove on. Eventually we did get to Hot Springs, which is rather peculiar, really. The National Park surrounds the city, and has for many years, and they control the actual hot springs. Nevertheless, they've never really interfered with the private uses of the springs, and so there is a rather prosperous looking town smack dab in the middle of everything.
Hot Springs had a hey-day as a tourist mecca back when people believed in the healing power of their water, and grew
into something to rival the baths of Europe. Now along the main street, you can visit Bathhouse Row, where six magnificent bath houses still stand. Across the street you can find all sorts of little shops, cafes, and boutiques. Only one of the old bath houses still operates as such. The others are all still there, just not in business.
One of the most stunning is now the Visitor's Center for the National Park Service. The Fordyce Bathhouse is three stories tall, and has been heavily restored. The Park Service lets you take a self-guided tour through pretty much the whole place, so you can see what the whole bathing experience was like for turn of the century visitors. The centerpiece is certainly the men's main chamber, which features a beautiful statue of De Soto getting water from a native woman, and a lovely stained glass skylight.
Outside the bathhouses is a nice park at the base of the hot spring mountain, where you can see the smooth rocks that the spring water has built up. We would have stopped and looked around, but it was still raining heavily. Instead we took the scenic drive up to the
top of the mountain and the observation tower. We were disappointed to find that as we got to the top, the cloud cover and fog was so thick that we couldn't see anything, so we opted not to pay to ascend the tower and see nothing.
We drove on to Little Rock, where we found the Capitol had already closed for the day. Instead we drove to the nearby old Capitol, where the various women's political organizations have set up a great museum. The museum had a ton of cool old furniture, a collection of artifacts related to the state's governors and their families, and a lot of history about politics and major figures in the state's history. We stayed there educating ourselves about Arkansas until they kicked us out at five.
We walked to the nearby river to catch a view, since the rain had finally abated, before briefly stopping outside the old county courthouse, and the nearby U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Eventually we drove to a motel, since we knew the forecast for the night called for more rain. Allow me to say now that the Executive Inn in Little Rock, Arkansas has roaches, and is a
generally unpleasant place. Nevertheless, it was a place to stop for the night.
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