Piney, AR

Sunday - A 250-mile drive today through Memphis and Little Rock to a small RV park near Hot Springs, AR. The Jeep gets really filthy after sitting in the RV exhaust for the last 800 miles. That is how far we’ve come since the TT park in NC. I guess I should wash the Jeep just so you don’t get dirty when accidentally touching it. 

We have a site that backs up to water which is nice. It was in the 90s (°F) today but there was a slight breeze blowing over the water so it didn’t seem too bad. Plus, the humidity, at 38%, is much lower than it was closer to the coast. I believe that we are here for 3 nights. 

Monday - This morning, we drove to the NPS visitor center which is in the middle of Bathhouse Row. Kind of odd to see hot springs as individual soaking as opposed to the large pools such as at Chena Hot Springs. 

The bathhouses are rather ornate buildings and they catered to the wealthy. They were modeled after the bathhouses in Europe with statuary and gardens. 

One of the bathhouses is now a museum run by the NPS. Four levels with this gym on the top floor. Since all of the baths are private rooms with tubs, they can be multilevel buildings. 

What is unusual about this National Park is that it is urban. Right outside the NPS visitor center is a busy street lined with businesses. 

This is the “Display Spring”. The real spring was enclosed at the turn of the century so this was put in for the tourists. 

Instead of paying the $25 - $58 (and much higher) fee to soak in one of the bathhouses, I spent some time in the RV park pool. Not very big but the perfect temperature to just float around and cool off. And, it’s not like it’s crowded. 

And, AT&T was good enough here for me to join the afternoon test session.

Tuesday - No plans to do any exploring today. It seems that the big activities for this urban national park is hiking and spending money. Hiking is still painful for Bridget. After walking to the local grocery store (just across the street from the RV park) to pick up a few groceries, I signed up for a test session and got tagged as a lead. 

Just a couple of chores today. I added some more hydraulic fluid and washed the tow bar as it was covered in oil and dirt. While I was at it, I washed the back of the RV as it also had a thin layer of oil and dirt. After that, I spent some time at the pool. Very relaxing. 

We leave here tomorrow. The RV park was fine. Mostly filled with people living and working here. Very few traveling types like us. Having 50amp power is nice as it allows up to run both A/C units and they run just about all day and most of the night. It’s 94°F right now at 1:30pm but it really doesn’t feel that bad unless you are actually sitting in the sun. 

The MagneShade on the front windshield is nice. We are able to open the curtains during the day and the front cab area is cooler. We should’ve gotten them earlier. We ordered some Reflectix for the front, side windows (all single pane glass), and the tall hallway windows. These are double pane but they let in a lot of light and heat.