28 September 2020 Lake Catherin State Park

 For his 61^st birthday, David wanted to go for a hike. We researched the local hikes on All Trails and decided on the Falls Loop Trail (2.2 miles, 236 feet of elevation gain, 775 calories burned) that would takes us past several waterfalls in Lake Catherine State Park.  We figured that was a mileage that Etta could do as well so it was a family hike! The temperatures were nice and cool and the trail was mostly in the shade. There were some parts of the trail that were a bit rough which required picking Etta up and carrying her through it. We got to se a dozen or so waterfalls and enjoy a beautiful day. Back at the Wanderer, we had planned another kayak tour but the wind had come up so we grilled so awesome steaks and called it Best Birthday Ever! 

Waterfall #1

Leslie and Etta take a break

Leslie in front of Waterfall #2

Close up of Waterfall #2

Close up of Waterfall #2

Creek alongside of the trail

Waterfall #3

26 September 2020 Kayaking on Lake Hamilton

 Since we are staying along side a beautiful lake, we had to pull out the kayaks and go for a tour. We have not had them out in a while so it took a while to get back in the swing of yaking. We rowed about an hour before turning back. We managed to not dump a kayak despite the big waves from the speedboats, but David slipped and fell in the water when trying to help Leslie get out of her yak. It was a pretty day and other than the large number of speedboats on the lake churning things up, was a pleasant diversion. But it cemented David’s desire to get a different kayak that is a bit more stable. With his height and weight, it makes his current kayak a bit unstable and is constantly fighting to keep from rolling it. 

25 September 2020 Exploring Downtown Hot Springs

 Our first trip into Hot Springs we concentrated on the National Park side of the historic downtown area. This time we went to explore the shops along Central Avenue. After wandering through a few shops and picking up a few Christmas gifts, we made our way to the Superior Bathhouse Brewery. It is built in one of the historic Bathhouses along bathhouse row and is the only brewery in a national park! The use the 4500 year old hot springs water in their beer. We really could not tell much difference from other breweries and the food was not that good. But it was a fun novelty to enjoy. Before we left downtown, we dumped our hiking water bottles we keep in the truck (for spur of the moment hikes) and filled them up with 4500 year old spring water!

21 September 2020 Hiking Hot Springs National Park

 We decided to wait until Monday to go for a hike, to avoid the weekend crowds,  on the 26 miles of trails in Hot Springs NP. The trails are primarily split between the east and west mountains. But they are generally short. There is one 17.8 mile loop around the perimeter of the park, but that was a bit more then we wanted to take on. So we grouped a series of four tails together to form a 3.8 mile loop (610ft elevation gain, 1,032 Calories burned) on West Mountain (West Mountain trail to Mountain Top Trail to Oak Trail to Canyon Trail). About halfway through we saw a group of 5 deer a bit off the trail. Otherwise we were in the woods the whole way and could not see much. But the clouds were hanging low with bouts of drizzle so we were happy to get off the trail before it started raining. Afterwards we went to our Mexican food favorite for a late lunch before heading back to the Wanderer. 

Entrance Sign for West Mountain

West Mountain Trail

Deer in the woods

 

19 September 2020 Hot Springs National Park

 We headed into Hot Springs to get some lunch and get a lay of the park. We found a Mexican food restaurant with really good review and stopped in to see how it was. The front of the building is a Mexican grocery store and the restaurant was in the back. La Bodeguita was some of the best Mexican food we have had since we left Texas. We will be going back! After Lunch we perused the store and picked up some items we never see in any of the usual grocery stores. 

 

After lunch we headed into the central district. Hot Springs NP was formed in 1921. Prior to that, in 1823, it had been designated a national reservation to protect the hot springs and the surrounding rock formations. The park is like a donut with the city of Hot Springs filling the center and surrounding the outside. The Park encompasses the mountains to the north and south of the location where the majority of the hot springs are located. The area just below the hillside where the hot springs are located, is where the historic bathhouses are located. The area began seeing the building of bathhouses after the civil war. The bath spa era really took off in the late 1800s through the early 1930s. Wooden bathhouses were replaced with more elaborate buildings in the late 1910 through 1920s. The bath spa era fizzeled out by the late 1930s. In its hay day, over a million people a year visit Hot Springs for the rejuvenating hot baths every year. The roughly 100 hot springs were enclosed and the water routed to a central cistern in the early 1900s to preserve the quality of the water. All the bathhouses get the same water from the central cistern. Only one of the bathhouses is still open for bathing. Several were torn down over the years. The remaining bathhouses are now part of the National Park and have been turned into restaurants, museums, park store, and park visitor center. Due to COVID, most of the buildings were closed to the public.  

 

The water that comes out of the hot springs falls as rain in Mountains to the North East of Hot Springs where it percolates down through the rock layers to 6000-8000 feet below the surface. The water gets gradually hotter as it descends (The temperature of the earth goes up 4 Degrees Fahrenheit for every 300 feet of depth). Between 6000 and 8000 feet it begins running horizontally along a fault until it is below Hot Springs where it percolates back up to the surface. It takes 4000-4400 years for the water to percolate down to the fault line! But only 100 years to work its way back up to the surface. The water exits the ground in Hot Springs at an average temperature of 143 degrees Fahrenheit! There are almost no minerals in the water, it has an almost perfectly neutral PH and the high temperature kills off any bacteria (They have fountains where you can get the spring water to fill your water bottles). So drinking the 4000 year old water as well as soaking in it was part of the draw to the area. There are a couple of springs that are still free flowing. You can see the steam coming off the pools even on a hot day (we tested the water with our hands and it is definitely warmer than you would want to climb into). 

 

We were a bit surprised by the crowds in the central district. It was very busy. After finding parking for the Behemoth, we walked down to bathhouse row and found the park store. After getting our passport stamp, and shopping for our usual items, we made our way down Bathhouse Row, stopping to read the history behind each building, to the park visitor center. The building was closed, but they had an information desk outside, so we talked with the ranger there and got some hiking suggestions. We walked the rest of the way down the Bathhouse Row (there are 8 buildings still standing) to the green space at the north end. We climbed up the hill to the Grand Promenade, which runs along the hillside above the bathhouses, and walked it to the south end of the bathhouses. We then went back to the Behemoth and drove up to the top of the North Hill above bathhouse row and took in the views over the Ozark Mountains. Beautiful!

Entrance Sign

Bathhouse Row

Hot Spring

Hot Spring

Grand Promenade

Ozark Mountains

18 September 2020 Carthage MO to Hot Springs AR

 We took a zig zaggy route down to Hot Springs to stay on Interstates and avoid getting on any backcountry roads through the Ozark Mountains. We stayed on I-49 down to Fort Smith, then I-40 to Little Rock and finally I-30 to the turn off for Hot Springs. It made for a longer day (7 hours) than we like, but it was worth it to avoid overhanging trees and steep inclines. We are staying at Treasure Isle RV Park ($30 a night (weekly rate)) outside Hot Springs on a lake. We are not lakeside, but close enough we can carry our kayaks to the boat launch. Water pressure is ok, WiFi is strong but slow connect speeds, no satellite TV (there is a tree preventing Satellite TV lock), concrete pad and patio, but roads arejk gravel and narrow. We are here to visit Hot Springs National Park and enjoy some time in the mountains of Arkansas. 

11 September 2020 George Washington Carver NM

 With the rain finally clearing out and the sun poking out between the clouds, we decided that it would be our best opportunity to visit the National Monument. We knew from the website that the visitor center was not open but that the grounds and walking path were. So we found the park film on YouTube and watched it to learn about the life of George Washington Carver. Born into slavery (His mother Mary was “owned” by Moses and Susan Carver) in 1864 on the Carver homestead in southern Missouri, he lived a life full of learning. His mother, sister and him were stolen from the Carvers toward the end of the Civil War by raiders. The Carvers enlisted a Union Scout to find them, but he was only able to find infant George who was suffering from whooping cough. His mother Mary and his sister had disappeared. With the end of the war, the Carvers took George and his half brother Jim into their home and raised them. George being a sickly child was not able to help with the field chores so he worked around the house and spent his time exploring the woods learning about the plants that lived there. In the 1870s at the age 12, he left the Carvers and walked 8 miles to the nearest Negro school where he enrolled. A local couple took him into their home in exchange for helping with the chores. He graduated from high school and, after doing odd jobs to earn enough money, went to the University of Iowa where he initially majored in art before his teachers convinced him to change to botany due to his extensive knowledge of plants and minerals. After graduating with his Masters, he became a professor at the Tuskegee Institute where he taught botany and did research on the uses of plants for 43 years. He developed over 500 uses for peanuts and 300 uses for sweet potatoes and led the effort to convince Negro sharecroppers to switch over to growing them instead of cotton as their cash crop. Loving art and painting his whole life, he developed and patented techniques for creating over 500 paint pigments using natural plant materials and minerals. He was the “Plant Whisper” of his time. George Washington Carver was world renown and respected. During WW1 he developed an alternative for oil using soybeans. When he passed away in 1943, at the age of 81, congress authorized the dedication of a National Monument to be centered on the homestead where he was born. In 1951, the national park service acquired 210 acres of the former Carver homestead and was donated the remaining 30 acres in the 1980s. The log home where George was born, along with the Caver’s log home were destroyed by a tornado in the 1880s. The home that the Cavers built after the tornado was still on the property but had been moved from its original location in the 1920s. Although George visited the Carvers and their new home, he did not live there. 

 

With the visitor center closed, we walked the nature trail through the woods where George played as a child and learned about his life. It was a beautiful day for a 1 mile stroll through the Ozark woods. David later called the park and asked if they could send us a sticker with the stamp for our passport book.

 

Following the NM, we decided to visit the Grand Waterfall in Joplin, the #1 tourist destination in Joplin. We found the falls and took a few pictures, watch the kids jumping off the falls into the water pool below before heading back to the Wanderer for dinner.

 

Entrance Sign

Young George Washington Carver

The Carver 1880 Home

Grand Falls, Joplin Missouri

Yes, we were really there