Hot Springs (April 2025)

 

Hot Springs

I never know how to start these entries, usually it's about some historical wish list of places to visit.  But who really wants to go to Arkansas?  I guess if you want to hit all the National Parks then you might as well book a trip to Hot Springs National Park, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Being 7 hours from Houston, it's not exactly close but just close enough that a road trip isn't really out of the question.  We left Houston in the afternoon with the intention of getting into Hot Springs not too late to enjoy a meal before bed.  We arrived just after 8pm after driving down quite a few surprisingly windy roads, dinner was at the German brewhouse in town.

First day in town was started with me taking a few meetings from the road before enjoying the afternoon checking out the town.  We had brunch at the Pancake House, then spoke to the ranger at the visitor's center (which is located in a former bathhouse in the heart of bathhouse row) in the heart of town.  I came back to handle a few more work things before trying to catch a ranger walk at the visitor's center, but the center was short staffed so we decided we would just tour the former bathhouse in the visitor's center ourselves.

Fordyce Bathhouse Visitor Center And Museum

Women's Main Spa room

Locker Room

The area around bathhouse row is very nice, wide treelined sidewalks and an even larger promenade behind the bathhouses.  We checked out the area behind the bathhouse and up on the hill behind resides a former army/navy hospital complex that provided care for a lot of soliders after the wars, but it has fallen into disrepair since it closed down. We hiked up the hill further up to a tower at the top of the hill which overlooks the town and the surrounding mountains. 

View from the Hot Springs Mountain Tower

Another view from the Tower

Back down to the city for a lunch snack at a brewery which is also located in a former bathhouse. Trying to squeeze a lot into the day we decided to walk (instead of losing our epic parking space near the place we were staying) out of town and up to a trailhead that lead to Balanced Rock. After getting 3/4 of the way there, the sideway ran out but we kept on walking to the trail.  After quite a few odd stares from the locals driving past us we made it to the trail and continued up the mountain to the Balanced Rock, the view from the rock was more impressive than the rock itself.  While at the rock we met a couple of locals who were out enjoying the day and also shocked that we had actually walked from town. Rebe and I secretly hoped they would offer us a ride back to town when we met them at the rock but they didn't.  We caught them just before the end of the trail, said hi again and we kept on going but just as we were about to make our way down the sketchy road they offered us a ride back down into town.  

On thy way back into town they shared with us some restaurants that we should hit up before we left, one they told us of was Deluca's.  A pizza joint, apparently they only have so much dough each day and by the time we got there a little after 6 they only had 2 pizza's worth left. We had just eaten 3 hours ago and were planning to come back at 8 but we figured we could kill some time and stall before actually putting in our pizza order so that's what we did.  It was a damn good pizza too. 

Day 2

The day started with a quaint breakfast at the Best Cafe, did not know if that name would hold up to the food but it was nice enough I'd say.  They were weirdly playing a lot of late 90s and early 2000s R&B music, definitely not what I expected to hear in this establishment and the crowd.

Photos from the Garvan Gardens:

After breakfast we made our way over to Garvan Gardens, this is the local I guess you could call it the botanical gardens of Hot Springs. Truly an amazing place to visit if you're ever in the area.  All sorts of trees and plants, and luckily this time of year while the trees are just now starting to put some leaves out, the tulips and daffodils are in full force. Also on site is the Anthony Chapel, this chapel is an exquisite piece of architecture nestled in the woods and even has matching bride and groom quarters (separate buildings) for hosting weddings.  There was even a wedding today and luckily we got to the chapel early enough to see it before it was closed for the day. 

Anthony Chapel

Interior of Chapel

Having walked about 4 miles in the gardens, we headed back to town for a bite of leftover pizza from last night before making our way over to Bathhouse Row and getting a taste of what this was all about. We started at the traditional bathhouse, Buckstaff-Baths, but since it was the end of the day all their services were booked up.  We then walked two buildings down to the Quafaw Baths building which is a more modern take on bathhouses and they said they could probably get us in 20 minutes. We sat out on the front porch killing time and enjoying the beautiful day before getting called back 30 minutes later.   Quafaw did not have any spa services or massages available this late in the day but we were able to use the public pools of which there were 4 but each at a different temperature. 104, 102, 98 and 95 no cold dunk tub was available like up in Radium Hot Springs but they did have a cold shower to where one could cool themselves off.  They also have lounge chairs for relaxing and taking a break from the hot pools.  We got in a little after 3 and yep we stayed until they kicked us out at 545. 

Dinner was at The Avenue, which is a restaurant at the Hilton owned The Waters Hotel, right on Bathhouse Row.  Service was good, food was as the kids these days say 'mid.' 

At the end of Bathhouse Row is the gigantic Arlington Hotel, probably the most famous and iconic hotels in town.  The current building will be 101 years old this year but the first edition of the hotel was built in 1875, the hotel was also a favorite of Al Capone who use to visit Hot Springs quite frequently. We walked over just to see the inside and to see what was going on, it was surprisingly crowded in the lobby bar and there was a live band playing music, very loudly.  Not really our scene so we headed out to find some ice cream, and actually in the basement of the Arlington resides Mamoo's Ice Cream. $5 for a waffle cone and a single scoop, a great deal if you ask me and great ice cream too. 

Interior at the Arlington

Exterior of the Arlington, and same place where we at our ice cream

We ate our ice cream in the park at the end of Bathhouse Row before calling it a night. 

Day 3 

Rebe had this grand plan to wake up early and head over to the Buckstaff-Baths for a traditional bath, but by the time we got there at ~10 it was already quite a wait.  Maybe the third time (tomorrow) will be the charm. 

As a change of pace we walked across the street to check out The Gangster Museum of Arkansas but the tour didn't start until 1030, we had to wait for the guided tour but I will say that this was definitely worth the wait.  The tour talked about the history of the New York gangsters who visited the area (like Al Capone and Meyer Lansky) and how the Arkansas government really left them alone until the 1960s.  Funny story is that they were ratted out by the lady who ran the brothels in town who didn't want to give them a cut of her earnings. 

You may have remembered I'm currently on this kick to visit the state capitols in addition to all fifty states, since Hot Springs is only an hour from Little Rock we thought it would be cool to swing by for a visit. What's another interesting fact is that the current capitol building in Arkansas is not the original building, just like Arizona the state outgrew the original building and built another one. When we arrived at the building there were barely any cars outside and the back door was actually closed, it was so deserted that we almost left without checking the front door.  We checked the front door and sure enough the building was open but the actual House and Senate chambers were locked and are only open during sessions. Meanwhile there were families galore taking wedding pictures and quinceañera pictures inside. 

Arkansas State Capitol building

Under the Rotunda

Entrance to the House viewing area

Bill Clinton's portrait

Also in Little Rock is the presidential library of Bill Clinton, this hasn't become a full fledge "gotta catch 'em all" thing in my head yet but I think they are all worth a visit.  So of course we dropped by to check this out, and you would think being from Georgia that I would have visited the Jimmy Carter one in Atlanta, but I actually haven't.  Now I have to add this to the list. 

Bill Clinton Presidential Library

We made our way back to Hot Springs, stopped by the main campground for a quick hike up to Goat Rock.  Not sure why it's called that but it was a nice easy hike up the side of the mountain for an overlook of the surrounding mountains. 

View from Goat Rock

View from Goat Rock

We wanted to do dinner at DONS but we were too late in getting a reservation, we decided to revisit the Superior Bathhouse and it's amazing burgers.  They did not disappoint. 

Day 4

Rebe grand plan to visit the traditional Buckstaff-Baths finally worked out for us, we arrived shortly before opening and no one was lined up outside so we thought we were actually going to be one of the first in line.  After getting to the door, we saw more than 20 people already inside waiting for reception to actually start taking customers. We patiently waited until our turn and were told there would still be wait for the traditional bath experience and a massage, this is what we came for so we were going to experience it regardless of the wait times. 

The bath experience starts with the locker room, which is straightforward and they hand you a bedsheet to cover yourself in and you are told to make your way out into the main bath room.  In this room they have all the bath tubs in individual stalls, where your attendant guides you to the room and then, at least for me took my bedsheet leaving me nude and then instructing me to get into this giant tub.  Think of a big clawfoot standalone tub, but reaching into the tub was a industrial immersion blender that agitated the water.  And the water was so active that I had to protect my man bits from getting sloshed around, Rebe confirmed her experience was similar with water attempting to enter her nether regions. The tub was filled with hot spring water and I was left to soak for ~20 minutes. 

After the hopping out of the tub I was handed a hand towel to cover myself with and then guided to the next activity of the bath which was the sitz bath. For me me the butt tub had little sprayers that sprayed hot water on your back.  I really do not have the words to describe this unique experience. 

Sitz Bath and the Steam Box

From there it was on to the steam chamber, my bath attendant lead me to the medieval torture looking  device and told me to have a seat. So, of course I did but I was a bit tall for this one so he had to move me to the 'big' box.  Which I then had to wait in line for.  Another gentleman was already in the box, a dad and his son were waiting to go before I would get my ride in the personal sauna. This was... well it was a hot damn box and after what I thought was 10 minutes but was probably 6 minutes I had had enough.  Not miserable, but the Finnish definitely do it better.

Last was the pack table, you are laid down on a table with some hot towels on your back, cold towel on your head and then swaddled with your bedsheet and left to sleep on the table for a good while. 

The pack table is the end of the traditional spa visit, but we opted for the massage at the end. While I was expecting an actual massage, I would say what followed the pack table was a intense rubbing with some baby oil. 

All in all the traditional visit to the spa was a worthy adventure into the past, would I call it a relaxing spa day?  Easy no, but if you are looking for something interesting and fun to do in Hot Springs, Arkansas definitely stop by the Buckstaff.

The spa visit actually ran long and we were late checking out of our room, but it wasn't a biggie.  We were then back on the road for 7 hours to Houston.