In contrast to night one, where I felt like I didn’t sleep at all due to the wind, I slept like a baby on Saturday night along Lake Ouachita. Maybe it was the exhaustion from a pretty long day of hiking. Maybe it was the comfort of a sleeping bag on a chilly night. Maybe it was the satisfaction of knowing Oklahoma and Michigan had won their games last night! Whatever it was, I was ready to take on the world on a foggy Sunday morning.
After my requisite camping pop-tart to go, we got a quick start into Hot Springs. The reason was simple: Elizabeth has booked us baths at the Quapaw Bathhouse, and for covid safety reasons we had decided to have the first bath of the day in a private room instead of using the public baths. Did I kind of regret this? Maybe a bit. Public baths seem kind of icky but also very historical, and I am torn on the subject. However, given the time in which we lived, it was the only logical option.
Anyways, when we got to Hot Springs we briefly took a break to collect some hot spring water out of one of the fountains into a bottle for Pam:
Quapaw took things pretty seriously when we got there. One of the big, stately buildings on Bathhouse Row where the political demonstrations had occurred the day prior, we had to have our temperature checked to even gain entry into the bathhouse, along with pretty strict masking rules. As time goes on, thinking about those regulations gets more surreal, but at the time we had settled in and it was just what was to be expected. Then they got ready to start with some of the pamperiest pampering I’ve ever seen. You might be wondering how excited I was in the moments before I took a joint bath with my girlfriend of 4 years as we celebrated our anniversary by sitting in the waters that have been praised for their healing powers. Here is the answer:
Our attendant led us into a rather large bathroom with an open roof directly above the bath. She added some salts of a type that I couldn’t even possibly remember this far away – just know that Elizabeth bought us bath salts from Hot Springs and they helped get me through the rest of the pandemic. We had fluffy towels waiting for us, hot and cold taps, and cucumber water to drink. It was a little weird wearing my swimsuit into the tub – nobody said we had to, but I felt like it was a bit of an unwritten rule. The tub was big enough to hold the both of us and had the good kind of jets. I laid pack into water that was the perfect level of warmth and just relaxed. Man, that was a nice time. My mind emptied for the entire length of the bath. I was sad to see that our time was up and we had to get out.
Even once we’d gotten out, the Quapaw attendant still pampered us. We’re talking miniature towels that smelled like peppermint that we could sniff while we finished our cucumber water outside! This was next level stuff. Then, as I alluded to earlier, Elizabeth raided the gift shop of the bathhouse and we returned to the chilly autumn day. At this point, we’d essentially completed our to-do list in Hot Springs, so the two of us were just getting a last look at the downtown area in before we left. Most importantly, Elizabeth wanted a coffee. She found a coffee shop right across the street and walked in. I took one look at the crowded crowd without masks and decided that I wasn’t going in. Elizabeth only took a minute or so to decide the same thing. Instead, we kept walking back toward our car, and coincidentally saw a sweets shop right before we got back. In addition to the pink walls and the giant amounts of candy, they scored Elizabeth her coveted latte. Now we could leave in peace.
We drove back to the campsite that had proved such a struggle to put up two days ago. It proved a much simpler task to take down than to put up, and we said a somber goodbye to it around noon. This time, we cut up to I-40 on the way back, stopping for Subway along the way and taking a route that led us through some of the highest peaks of the Arkansas mountains. It was a pretty route, only slightly marred by the cloudiness of the day and the sadness of leaving. We made it back by early evening, just before a highly impactful ice storm arrived that knocked out power for days and delayed the arrival of a certain Scipio.
This was one of my favorite weekends of all of 2020. By October, we had fallen deep into covid doldrums, and this trip was beyond a welcome relief. We got quite a bit of hiking in, some sight-seeing, and a bath experience that was nothing like what I’d get at home. Hot Springs may not be the most conventional park, but I really enjoyed it.
