2019-01-26 Van Buren AR to Shreveport LA

Today's goal was to go back east a bit and see Hot Springs National Park, and we were successful, mostly.. The government shut down ended Friday and we had this crazy idea that the national parks would be open the next day. Did not work out that way as you could have guessed..
Van Buren is next to the larger town of Fort Smith, and was an ok town, but we were itching to go. We drove through a nice part of Arkansas and made the transition from the very hilly north-west of the state to the more rolling and finally flat parts to the south. Arkansas actually surprised us with how nice the landscape was. Must be nice in the fall when the trees are all full.

Deb had been following someones blog that raved about Hot Springs and it is an unusual national park for sure. While there is a large natural area, the focus is on the restoration and protection of the town and it's history of the hot springs. The headquarters are in an old bathhouse and that building and another 4 or 5 buildings make up the national park headquarters.

Hot Springs was visited by native Americans forever, then Cortes  back in 15-something, and then by the French when they owned this area (think pre-Louisiana Purchase). It attracted people because of the 143 degree water bubbling out of the ground. The town has been through all the usual cycles of discovery, frontier years, abandonment, trading post, crazy people, wooden cabins evolving to wooden hotels which all burned eventually, replaced by non-flammable buildings, then the pre-depression tourist boom, the post WW2 boom, then the slow down in tourists. Right now there are a lot of high rise buildings built 50+ years ago that seem mostly empty, waiting for the next cycle.
But what is open is pretty nice and all in all it is a nice small town. And a National Park.

We walked all over town and after chatting with the local tourist info ladies (who do not seem to get along with the national park folks..) we drove to the top of the mountain behind town and took the elevator up the tower to get a birds eye view.
The park was closed of course so we headed south toward Louisiana. It gets flatter and flatter and wetter and wetter as you go south. We finally ended the day in Shreveport LA just as the sun dropped over the horizon.
My back got tweaked out this morning so I was in pain all day, but Deb pumped some Advil into me and I am on the mend tonight. We found a local place (not fancy) that had catfish, shrimp, oysters (but no crayfish).

Good dinner of catfish and back to the room to get John to bed and get his back healing. Another fun day!!