Population: 38,697 Elevation: 597'
We left Louisiana and it's lousy roads on Wednesday. We went through Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Texarkana.
Catherine's Landing is on the shore of Lake Catherine and in a little valley. You can see a little inlet of the lake on the right side of the picture. It wasn't so crowded when we got here, but as it gets closer to Memorial Day, more people are coming in.
Hot Springs used to be The Place To Go, way back in the 1920's and 30's. There are historical markers for Babe Ruth and Dizzy Dean. I guess baseball players used to come here to practice and relax. As the name implies, there are lots of hot springs and lots of old bath houses. There are so many of them that they made the whole district a National Park. All the old hotel and shops are still there and I guess you can't touch the outsides of them.
One of the old bath houses was turned into a brewery.
They kept the old name so it's now The Superior Bath Brewery. The have a beer park off to the side of the brewery with outside tables and umbrellas. The beer park is on the edge of an actual park. We sat there and had a pretzel and beers. Jan had her usual hefeweizen and I had a flight of beers. I had an amber ale, a hazy IPA, a pale ale, a golden stout, and a bock. The best ones were the golden stout and the bock.
The mascot of the brewery is Stevie the ground hog (woodchuck).
We we were lucky because she made an appearance. She was just wandering around the hillside of the park. She was fine with all the spectators, but would run up the hill if anyone came too close. According to the bartender, her babies sometimes come with her. We didn't see them. I guess I never really knew how large ground hogs are. I pictured them about like prairie dogs. In reality, Stevie is bigger than Brie.
Here is Brie with a Superior Bath Brewery neckerchief.
Our neighbors here at the park are from Grants Pass, Oregon. They have only been full time RVing for a little while and ended up buying a house here in Hot Springs. It's not a bad place to live. It's in the hills of Arkansas and is surrounded by forests. One of the reasons they left Oregon was the fires. Hot Springs is wetter so it shouldn't have the same fire problems as Grants Pass.
Hot Springs is a touristy area. People come for the hot springs and the lake. Mostly they come from Little Rock, which is about 40 miles away. Because it is an old town, the streets are very narrow, and they weren't much fun towing a large trailer around on them. The weather on Wednesday and Thursday was not very good so we haven't done much other than drive to the old district. The rest of the weekend should be better with clear skies and 80 degree temps.
I have more pictures, but the cell reception here is bad. One to two bars at best. It took all morning to upload the pictures in this blog. I will stage all the pictures I want to upload and wait until we are downtown and upload them when I have a good signal.
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