Arkansas, Missouri & Kansas

On Saturday morning we left Memphis for the long drive to Hot Springs, Arkansas. We had to backtrack for 40 miles on the Blues Highway back into Mississippi. I thought that this time we’d see the crossroads sign at the intersection of Highway 61 and Highway 49, but no luck.

On the way through southern Arkansas we found this swamp with cypress trees, and stopped to take a picture. We stopped for a late lunch along the way, and finally got to our hotel a little after 4:00 PM. We thought about going over to the Hot Springs National Park, but we were both too tired. We’ll do it in the morning.

We woke up really early on Sunday morning, but mostly because of the daylight savings time change. We had breakfast at the hotel and made it over to the park by 8:00 AM. Because the Visitor’s Center didn’t open until 9:00 AM, we drove the Hot Springs Mountain Drive, a scenic loop that overlooks the town and Bathhouse Row. The leaves are turning and it was a lovely drive.

The eight bathhouses, built between 1892 and 1927, are the main attraction at the park. Behind the bathhouses, on the hill, is a half-mile paved trail called the Grand Promenade. We walked the bathhouse row, admiring the architecture, and then walked the length of the Promenade, waiting for the Visitor’s Center to open.

Out in front of the Fordyce Bathhouse, I found this fountain. The water comes out at about 140 degrees.

At the end of the Grand Promenade one of the springs is allowed to flow down the mountain into a small waterfall.

The Visitor’s Center is the old Fordyce Bathhouse. The rooms and windows have been restored, so you can see what it was like. Kathy and I both appreciated the scripture verse on the wall in the main lobby.

The Fordyce is not a working spa; only two of the houses still allow you to soak. The Buckstaff Bathhouse, in continuous operation since 1912, offers the traditional baths and steam. The Quapaw Baths and Spa offers a more modern, communal soaking experience. We didn’t do either, though. The stained glass ceiling here was over the Fordyce waiting area. The actual soaking was done in large, private bathtubs, in small stalls running around the sides of the waiting area.

Below is one of the wall features in the men’s steam area.

After the soaking, the clients would be wrapped in towels and then lie, or sit in a “cooling” room. The windows below are in the cooling room in the women’s bath.

The Arkansas Scenic 7 Byway

Sunday morning we set out for Eureka Springs in the upper-left corner of Arkansas. The Arkansas Scenic 7 Byway is a 300-or-so mile scenic drive that runs north-to-south across nearly the entire state of Arkansas. Driving this was one of my bucket-list items. 

North of Hot Springs the road goes through the Ouachita National Forest. The town of Russellville lies in a valley about half-way to Eureka Springs. We stopped there and had lunch at The Old Bank, which is literally an old bank that has been converted to a restaurant. We had a good, reasonably-priced lunch.

The road climbs north after Russellville into the Ozark and St. Francis National Forests. The leaves were all turning colors and every corner brought a new sight. There were not a lot of cars on the road, and so we took our time, pulling out at the overlooks and just enjoying the drive.

I’ve mentioned before that Kathy and I listen to recorded books as we drive. In Arkansas, we’ve been listening to Stephen Hunter’s Earl Swagger thriller called Hot Springs, about gambling and corruption in 1947. Hunter has actually written a dozen or so books featuring the Swagger family, father Earl and son Bobby Lee. The movie Shooter, staring Mark Wahlberg as Bobby Lee, was later made into a streaming series. 

In any event, Kathy and I are both fans of Hunter’s books, and so on our way to Eureka Springs, we had to stop by Blue Eye, the Swagger family home town.

Because I putt along at 40 or 50 miles per hour, we again got into our hotel, the Inn of the Ozarks, pretty late. Both of us were tired and so we had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, and then turned in.

Our Monday drive from Eureka Springs, Arkansas to Wichita, Kansas, wasn’t as spectacular as the drive through the Ozarks, but, once we got out of the forest it went a lot faster, even though we still kept to non-highway roads. Our hotel stay didn’t include breakfast, so we stopped at the Cubs Cafe and had some great fresh-squeezed orange juice with our breakfast. 

We got into Wichita before 2:00 PM. As we got nearer and nearer, it got darker and darker, and the wind was really intense. When we checked the weather app on our phones, we found out that the whole area was under a tornado watch. That’s a first for us. 

We bought some Chick Fil-A for dinner and took it back to our room. Looking at the news on our phones, we noticed that our Wednesday stop, Pagosa Springs, was under an evacuation order because of severe flooding. I tried calling our hotel, and found the cell service disrupted. Since I was able to cancel for free, up until midnight, I cancelled our booking (with Booking.com) and rerouted to Taos, New Mexico instead.

Watching the flooding in South Florida on the news tonight, we can’t help feeling a little like the Children of Israel walking through the Red Sea. In almost two months on the road we’ve had just a small scattering of rain, and haven’t had to really change our plans at all.