Hot Water & Hikes

    Sunday began with a short drive to downtown Hot Springs where we enjoyed breakfast at The Colonial Pancake and Waffle House and a walk along Central avenue and the The Grand Promenade.  Hot Springs is a neat little town with a fascinating history. It was once a hotbed of organized crime activity and the place to be if you were into prostitution, gambling or bootlegging. Here is a link that'll tell you all about it.
   Some photos I took during our walk around town (you can click on them to enlarge)...

                                                Standing in front of some really hot H2O

                                                              The Grand Promenade

                                                 More hot water (in the form of a fountain)

                                          I didn't meet the proprietors, but now I'm curious.

   We spent about an hour walking around downtown H.S. - a lovely little town with lots of fun looking restaurants, quirky shops and a number of (as you might guess) very nice bath houses/spas.

    Suzanne was anxious to watch Eli's return as the Giant's QB so I got her set up in front of the tv (I had to do some pretty creative audio/visual engineering to make that happen - too detailed to go into here) and Travis and I struck out on a 3 mile hike. There are several great hiking trails here in the National Park. I brought a trail map along with me that turned out to be for a different network of trails. I had also left my phone with Suzanne (as part of the aforementioned A/V setup) so in the interest of not getting lost by taking any of the many side trails Travis and I did an out-and-back on  Dead Chief Trail.  Last night I went online and printed the correct trail map and as soon as I finish this post we'll be heading out for another hike. This time we'll attempt some sort of loop.

     I found a tick crawling on my shirt later in the afternoon - so I'm going to be super vigilant about checking both Travis and myself over for the little bastards after our hike.
     This afternoon I have a couple of jobs to do. There's mold inside the vent/fan hood in the master bathroom and the only way to access it is from the roof. I'll take some cleaner, maybe some bleach up the ladder and clean that up. I need to flush and fill the fresh water tank, adjust the difficult-to-turn shower control and fire up the coach so I can use the on-board compressor to air up one of the tires on the Suzuki. I'm sure I'll find other things to do. Oh, before I head out on our hike I need to visit the kiosk and pay for another night at Gulpha Gorge Campground. In my last blog I referred to it as Hot Springs Natl. Park Campground... but it's Gulpha Gorge.
      Here's a photo I took last night before turning in showing the lighting I installed a couple days ago above the crown moulding.  Christmas colors...

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

Thanks for checking out the blog.