Three states in one day?

The south makes some interesting things possible… Like crossing through three states in one day, and still having time to set up camp before dark. Here’s the recap for the weekend of February 10th:

We arrived in Hot Springs, AR on Thursday night, and Aunt Theresa proceeded to thoroughly spoil both dogs. See, Uncle Richard’s brother visits sometimes, and he brings his dogs, so Theresa bought these fleecy rugs for the dogs to lie on. She brought them out for our dogs, and Elvis was just in heaven. Those rugs were his favorite place to sleep. (He’s old, so he sleeps a lot.)

We spent Friday (the 10th) in the town of Hot Springs. After figuring out the max height of the rig (it’s just shy of 8 feet, and we found that out by very slowly driving into the parking garage with an 8 foot clearance), we enjoyed a soak at the Quapaw Baths. This place was really fun. I haven’t been to an indoor hot spring before, and the Quapaw was quite beautiful, with stained glass ceilings and tiled floors. There are a total of four pools, rated at 95, 98, 102, and 104 degrees. We tried them all.

Friendly staff was on hand to give out free spring water, although one woman did give me a hard time about my swim top. It’s an old, stretched out triathlon top, but it’s not a sport bra, I swear!

Anyway. We had a wonderful soak, then collected the dogs to take a walk on The Grand Promenade. Back in the day, people used to get dressed up in their “peacock finery” (NPS’s words, not mine!) to stroll the Promenade in between soaks. Not sure my second-hand jeans and t-shirt count as finery, but whatever. We all enjoyed ourselves. Along the Promenade we got to see the source of all of the baths, where the water comes out of the ground at 140 degrees.

We also checked out the Arlington Hotel, which was apparently Al Capone’s favorite, before going for a short drive along Tower Mountain. At the end we filled our water containers with delicious (and free!) Hot Springs water. Don’t worry, at the filling stations the water’s cold.

We checked out Bridge Street, one of the shortest streets in America, and home to the world’s shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

I know it’s hard to read with the glare, but the poster says that 6:25pm is the official measuring of the parade route… and the parade begins at 6:30.

(Also, Ric Flair is the Parade Starter and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders will be there!)

So what does Bridge Street look like?

Yep. I’m trying to imagine the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders here.

Anyway. Saturday we got underway towards Florida. Many, many thanks to Richard and Theresa for hosting us during our stay in Hot Springs, feeding us, and shoving food into our hands as we packed up “for the road.” You saved us from an extra trip to the grocery store!

We made it to Memphis around 1pm, and thanks to a recommendation from our friend Barton, we went to Rendezvous for lunch. This cavernous BBQ place has an alley entrance and is a Memphis institution. For good reason – the ribs were delicious, as were the baked beans and the coleslaw. I was so excited to have slaw that’s based in vinegar instead of mayonnaise. Tangy and not too sweet, it was love at first bite.

After polishing off our rib plates, we took a walk down to Beale Street. I somehow expected this area to be… bigger. And while Beale does continue past the entertainment district, the actual entertainment district (with all the bars and BBQ joints) is only about 2 blocks long. It was fun to see, though.

We camped on Saturday at a place called Graham Lake. There were about 6 free sites there, and while it wasn’t the cleanest it was pretty quiet there. We found Graham Lake from a website called FreeCampsites.net, which so far has been one of the most helpful websites ever. All the sites are rated so you can decide for yourself if you want to stay there or not, before driving out. Some of them – like Graham Lake – are actually kind of remote.

After a quiet night, we packed up camp – it’s like riding a bicycle, it all came back to us quickly, in spite of not setting up the tent in about three months.

It’s nice to be back on the road.

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