HOT SPRINGS

If you only have one day at Hot Springs National Park, you can easily experience it at a nice pace. There is no entry gate or fee to this park, which is located in the heart of downtown Hot Springs, amongst the hustle and bustle.

There are plenty of places to eat and stay in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and beautiful homes surrounding the area.

If you want to stay in the park, Hotel Hale has a nine-room boutique inn, or there is Gulpha Gorge Campground, which has 40 spots available for full hookups and is open year-round for reservations.

I had my kids with me, so we walked Bathhouse Row and the Grand Promenade. We started in the middle of the row at the museum and walked through Fordyce, and we had the best time learning about the spa experience. We picked up the Junior Ranger booklets from the entrance and toured the three floors filled with chiropody, electrotherapy, the gym, the rooms they would stay in, and where they would socialize.

We learned that the hot springs were designed to treat the body, mind, and spirit. Patients would bathe in the thermal water, receive a massage, and then exercise in the gym or go hiking on the outdoor trails.

Back in the day, the bathhouse routine mirrored a European Spa and consisted of the following: First, you would soak in a private tub filled with 100-degree water for twenty minutes and then scrub with a loofah to increase blood flow. Then, you would sit in a steam cabinet.

Then you would go back to the tub, this time at 108 degrees for ten minutes. After that, heat packs would be applied to sore areas of your body for twenty minutes. Then you would stand in a cold shower for two minutes and finish with a full-body Swedish massage.

Going with kids will limit what you can do, however. My kids were not old enough to enter the thermal cave in Hale or soak in the tubs.