We decided to tour the Hot Springs Museum, do a scenic drive suggested to us by a Best Western employee at breakfast, then drive to Fort Smith, stopping at three quilt shops along the way.
Most of the National Parks we visit are in rural settings - many requiring significant time to drive through them. Hot Springs is more typical of urban National Parks with scenes like these across the street from the National Park bathhouse buildings.
There are "filling stations" along the streets near the National Park like the one pictured here where anyone with a container may fill up on water from the springs. There used to be a popular spring near Ridley Creek State Park on Pennell Road where I can recall filling some containers 30 years ago.
Who knew that early baseball players thought they could imbibe than counteract it by treatments in the hot springs baths? Nice try!!
Inside the museum, we saw some artifacts from their heyday - including some signs that apparently were needed to maintain the decorum and purity of the baths. Not unlike the pool rules at some of our community pools.
There were separate sides of the building to separate the genders. Can you guess which were the men's and women's dressing room areas?
There were, of course, also gender-separated areas for massages. Here is one for men - note the contraption on the table which was some sort of machine to assist with the massages. 
There was also a gymnasium which contained various apparatus - some of which I remember from my high school days and may remind you of the Olympic gymnastic events currently being televised.
There were also areas for more genteel diversions - again categorized by gender with the piano on the women's side and the pool table on the men's.
The bathhouses were also very ornate - as seen in the photo yesterday. Here are a couple of photos with Kathy in them so you get some perspective. The first is in the lobby, the second in one of the historical gallery areas showing one of the emblems attached to the outside of one of the active bathhouses.
After leaving Hot Springs, we had to retrace our route to get back near Little Rock before we could travel northwest to Fort Smith. There was a more direct route, but it was slower and did not pass near the quilt shops we visited today. The first shop was in Little Rock - the person at that shop had an adult child living in the West Chester, PA area.
The second shop was near Mulberry, AR - back a gravel road 100 yards or so from the paved road. Note the barbed wire beneath the sign where the gravel begins.
We spoke with the owner for a while - especially when she found out we were going to the B-52 reunion. It turns out she was an Air Force wife during her husbands two tours in the USAF. Interestingly, like I did, her husband worked on both B-52s and KC-135 refueling tankers - AND as an even better coincidence he was stationed at the same Thailand base as I was (just two years later than I was). Unfortunately, the I didn't get the photo of Kathy in front of this shop, but I did get the shop exterior with the farm implements in the background.
The last quilt shop was the first where we were out of luck. First the GPS put it on the wrong side of the road. Then the road from the main road to the quilt store was about 1/4 mile of two tire tracks - no gravel, no leveling.
Finally, when we got back to the last property on this dirt road, we found this building - closed up. No one else seemed to be around - only a friendly dog greeted us. All in all - this was the first disconnect in all the shops we tried since last Saturday. Not a bad track record.Not sure of the timing of our itinerary for the next few days. Our only definite timing is to be in Omaha not later than 8/17, although we have a reservation to arrive on 8/16.
Marty
Don't kick the wall???? what's that all about?? Just as hot here, mid 90's temps "feels like" 105+ stay cool p.s. I'm not sure I would have gone down that dirt road!!!
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