Hot Springs, AK, aka Bubbatown

Imagine a paper mill. Imagine you were a block down-wind from said paper mill. Now imagine you could capture that odor and cram it into the smallest space possible. Now sit in that room for 10 hours and you'll have a close aproximation of what its was like to drive to Arkansas from the Smokies. That kind of powerful odor has a nearly psychotropic effect at times. While I rationally knew all I needed to do was find a motel with a working shower somewhat near our destination, I had moments where I thought about driving the entire way to my sister Emily's in Austin, TX (for context that's about a 20 hour drive).

Stopping in Hot Springs, one of the two AR towns claiming to be the home of Bill Clinton, was worth it for more than just the shower. Hot Springs is a combination of an Ocean City, MD with a Berkeley Springs, WV, so picture a quaint historic town surrounded by natural beauty, combined with all the tie-dyed keychains and personalized airburshed unicorn shirts your heart could ever desire. We rolled in too late to do a full tour of the bath houses, but did get to walk around the hillside park behind the bath houses and see the "display" hot springs. Pretty hot!

One of the curious things we've noticed while touring the south is that the tourist attractions seem almost exclusively visited by the over-70 set and bikers. At least we're now feeling younger and cleaner than most! I guess we'll see how this theory plays itself out through TX...
-D