Amy's Rear View Mirror

Hot Springs, AR

August 17, 2005

 When I left Oklahoma City I headed across I-40 to Maggie Valley NC to visit friends. While staying in Maggie Valley I took several car trips. The first one was to Knoxville TN to surprise some friends for their anniversary. This was all arranged by their daughter who manages the band Sev'n9. I hung out with them while listening to the band perform.

Back in Maggie Valley, several of us attended a few events of Folkmoot which is North Carolina's International Festival. It's a two-week long celebration of cultural heritage through folk music and dance by more than 350 performers from a dozen or so countries. Performers demonstrated their cultural heritage through colorful, authentic costumes, dance and music. During its 22-year history, over 200 folk groups from more than 100 countries have shared their heritage and culture at this festival.

My second car trip was to visit a friend who was working in Valdosta GA. I stayed almost a week while my friends in Maggie Valley watched Lady. It was a great visit.

When I left Maggie Valley NC I headed back west on I-40 making a few stops along the way to visit friends. The first stop was to see friends that live in Hot Springs Village, AR. Along with visiting and catching up, we did a little sightseeing and dulcimer playing .

Originally called the "Hot Springs of the Washita", Congress established Hot Springs Reservation on April 20, 1832 to protect hot springs flowing from the western slope of Hot Springs Mountain. This makes it the oldest area currently in the National Park System ... 40 years older than Yellowstone National Park. Documents indicate that Native Americans knew about and bathed in the hot springs at least as far back as the 1700's. People have used the hot spring water in therapeutic baths for more than two hundred years to treat rheumatism and other ailments.

The average temperature is 143 degrees. Scientists have determined that the water coming out of these springs is more than 4000 years old, flowing at a rate of 850,000 gallons per day. Hot Springs National Park is not in a volcanic region. Chert and Novaculite absorb the rain, pores and fractures in the rock send the water deep into the earth perculating downwards. Increasingly warmer rock heats the water about 4 degrees for every 300 ft down. The water collects minerals by dissolving them out of the rock as it moves along. Eventually the waterflow works its way back up to the surface of Hot Springs Mountain.

Hot Springs Reservation eventually developed into a well-known resort nicknamed "The American Spa" using slogans to promote the city. The first bathhouses were built out of canvas and lumber, then later were wooden structures. Huge bathhouses built on Bathhouse Row attracted the wealthy and health seekers from around the world with the latest equipment to pamper bathers in art surrounded rooms. After World War II, changes in medical technology and the way people spent their leisure time caused business to decline and the bathhouses began to close. Today only one building, the Buckstaff, operates as a traditional bathhouse.

The park protects eight historic bathhouses with the former luxurious Fordyce Bathhouse housing the park's visitor center. The entire Bathhouse Row area is a National Historic Landmark District that contains the grandest collection of bathhouses of its kind in North America. By protecting the 47 hot springs and their watershed, the National Park Service continues to provide visitors with historic recreation activities such as hiking, picnicking, and scenic drives. The National Park Service is restoring the exterior of the bathhouses and is hoping through the Historic Property Leasing Program to have them reopen for business. Hot Springs Reservation became Hot Springs National Park by a Congressional name change on March 4, 1921.

When I left Hot Springs I continued west on I-40 where I stopped in Oklahoma City OK for the night to have supper with a friend before continuing west the next morning.

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