On the morning of our third cross-country day, we cut south from Interstate 40 toward Hot Springs National Park and followed a historic scenic drive through the Ozarks and found the park in a city of the same name. A sign proclaimed Hot Springs, Arkansas as the childhood home of Bill Clinton; the likeness of Bill was a travesty.
I was driving; I parked under a shady tree, near the trunk of the tree. This detail did not stick with us as we walked to the visitor center, where we toured the old bath house. We are pretty sure that this National Park has wilderness areas like other National Parks, but we did not see that part, we only saw the historical bath houses and downtown district.
As one would guess, Hot Springs National Park has hot springs. Long ago, wrongheaded people thought that sitting in the hot water would cure medical conditions. Of course, that isn't true, but that was in the late 1800s, during the heyday of prescientific medicine, where people responded to nonsense such as that the water "assists secretions of toxins from the skin" (makes you sweat). A number of bath houses were constructed, some high luxury and some more modest, such as those run by and reserved for black visitors, or run by the federal government and reserved for the poor.
In the early twentiety century, the rise of science saw the decline of medical baths. Eventually the bath economy petered out, but by that time the National Park had been established, so of course the history do-gooders stepped in the preserve things. One bath house was turned into a museum, which is the one we toured. The men and women bathed separately because both were nude. We watched a video which explained the bathing experience, including massage, scrubbing the skin with a luffa, a Sihtz bath where you sit in a commode-type thing, a regular soak in a long tub, and sun bathing. The women had the shady side of the building because tans were considered unbeautiful. Apparently tans were okay for the men on the sunny side.
A second bath house offered the traditional bath experience. Ashleigh pondered having a bath, but the hot weather temperature dissuaded us. I also was not feeling well, probably from being a bit tired and dehydrated. We headed back to the car. Ashleigh got in the driver's seat and we pulled out. Well, we started to pull out, but heard a strange sound. She stopped, not yet out of the parking spot. I got out and looked and saw what had caused the sound. The tree trunk we had parked next to at the beginning of the story had turned into our foe, ruthlessly tearing at our rolled-up awning. Where she had stopped, it was pulled unnaturally from its normal position and the internal spring was visible. It looked terrible.
The awning joined the sad fraternity of broken items, along with two tires, trailer wiring, water pump, window, windshield. Ashleigh felt bad but it was not her fault: I had parked next to the tree; neither of us had noticed the dangerous tree. We freed ourselves with a little help from some park rangers, put things back into approximate order, and hightailed it out of town. We found our way back to I-40, went down it a ways, and stayed at another Wal Mart. We dined on pasta on the well-clipped lawn, and slept restfully.
No comments:
Post a Comment