When in Hot Springs, you want to soak in the Baths, right?

The history of the area was that back in the day people thought there was a health benefit to soaking in the water coming up from deep beneath the earth. It comes out of the ground at 147°F. The bathhouses here were built to create a place for people to visit and soak in the springs. The original bathhouses are long gone. The ones here now are from the earlier part of the 1900s. You can find more of the history of the bathhouses and the Hot Springs HERE.

We visited the Quapaw Bathhouse. For $25 per person, we went in and sat in the geothermal water. There’s no time limit. There was a bit of a wait and we sat on rocking chairs on the porch until it was our time to go in. There were four pools to choose from, all at different temperatures. The hottest was the center one which was 104°F. A sign recommends you not spend more than 10-15 minutes in here. The other two on this level were 102°F and 98°F. Across the length of the room in the upper back was the coolest pool there, 95°F. I think we spent about two hours there, soaking in the different pools. It was very relaxing.

Walking on Bathhouse Row after our baths was nice. The day was beautiful. Only two of the bathhouses are still in operation as bathhouses/spas. The others house the National Parks Visitors Center (where I again got my National Parks Passport book stamped), and Emporium, and a brewery,

We got lunch at the brewery. There was an hour-and-a-half wait to sit inside and eat, so we just went to the beer garden and had beer and burgers.

We had spotted the Fat Bottomed Girl Cupcake Shoppe on our way to the bathhouses from parking. They have an incredible selection of cupcakes. They have a deal where you buy 5 and get 1 free, so we each chose 2 cupcakes to bring back with us to the camper.

It was around 4PM when we returned to camp. I did some work for about a half hour, then left the boys there and went geocaching. I found a park down in town that had a few geocaches in it. Entergy Park was donated to the city by the company that owns the dam here. It was once where the workers who built the dam lived. The park is pretty and was nice to walk around in. I can finally say I found my first geocache in Arkansas! I also found two earthcaches and a multi here, before I decided to head back to camp. It was just enough to get those few.

Tomorrow we have a drive to Killeen and see my granddaughter and daughter-in-law. We’re planning to be up early for that.