Hot Springs National Park - 2020 Vacation pt3
After camping in the rain for two days at Lake Ouachita, we finally got a dry day so we could go check out Hot Springs National Park. Knowing that dogs are not allowed at many National Parks, we did some research and found that Bagheera would be allowed in much of this park. Other than that, we really did not know what to expect.
My thought was that we would go straight to the visitor center when we arrived, and get a recommendation of what we should do. Of course, due to COVID, the visitor center was closed, but there was a park ranger at a table outside the door. Unfortunately, she was not the usual wealth of information that I have come to expect from National Park rangers. I basically got, “this is bath house row, and the park extends quite a distance outside of town”. So, we took our map, and went exploring.
The bath houses were neat from the outside. Of course, between Bagheera and the pandemic, we were not able to go inside any of them. They are located right on a busy street, so know that this part of the park is not necessarily a quiet, peaceful experience. We did find that the springs were marked on the map, so we set out to find them all.
It was interesting to find the springs, and see the water and steam coming up from the ground. Fountains had been constructed around some of the springs, and had a strange look to them from the years of mineral deposits. We strolled around for a while, and enjoyed the architecture and mild weather that we had that day.
Since we had Bagheera with us, we needed to find a lunch spot that had outdoor seating. Luckily, right across the street was Diablos Tacos & Mezcaleria. The food was pretty good, but the highlight had to be the margarita flight. We hadn’t even planned on getting drinks, but figured we had to get this as soon as we saw it on the menu.
After lunch, we spent a while longer looking around behind bath house row, and along the grand promenade. This area was probably my favorite in the park. One end had a stairway that went up past some springs, and intersected with the promenade at the top. There is part of me that wonders what this area would look like in the winter, with the steam filling the cold air.
We took a short detour to Fat Bottomed Girl’s Cupcake Shoppe (it was “ok”, but I’m not a huge cupcake fan), then we headed up the switchback road to the overlooks just outside of town. The views from back there were great, and there were several trails scattered through that area. By this point in time, we were a little tired (maybe from the cupcake 😁), and decided to stick to the driving tour of the area.
All in all, it was an enjoyable day. We only spent 3-4 hours exploring the park, but felt that we did a pretty good job of seeing the highlights. Aside from doing some of the longer trails, I definitely think most people can cover this park in a day pretty easily.