Spring 2022 trip - Days 12 and 13, Wednesday May 4th and Thursday the 5th - Hot Springs (AR) - 2 hikes totaling 6.3 miles, estimated 500 feet elevation gain

Wednesday

We started our last day in Eureka Springs by having an amazing breakfast at Three Bird Cafe.  I had the most flavorful breakfast burrito I've ever had.  It was covered in Hatch Chile chili and filled with potatoes and Chorizo.  Really exceptional.  We also had a blueberry pastry.  After breakfast we walked around Basin Springs park which is one of the oldest parts of town.





Brian wanted to visit a candy store that opened at 10 am so we had a little time to explore downtown again.  On the way to Hot Springs we were mostly on scenic AR-7.  We had driven a good part of 7 before (but this trip was southbound not northbound) and last time it was so foggy that it was a chore driving the whole way. This trip started out foggy on some other roads but by the time we got to AR-7 most of the fog was gone and I really enjoyed the non stop curves and very sparse traffic for miles and miles. We stopped for lunch and an opportunistic walk in Clarksville Arkansas.  They had a nice nature trail that we walked 1.5 miles out and then 1.5 back. We turned around at an interesting castle like American Legion Post building.  The weather was good and the scenery along the walk was enjoyable.







Getting to Hot Springs took much of the day.  We drove up the scenic loop road over Hot Springs mountain but didn't really have time to do much else in town.  We had dinner at a taco place half a mile from our hotel.

Thursday

The weather forecast had been poor for Thursday and while the storm didn't arrive on Wednesday evening as originally predicted, it did arrive with very strong winds and tremendous rains most of Thursday starting before we awoke. Finding something to do that kept us out of the weather was challenging. We ended up going to a bowling alley which had just opened a few minutes ago and had some VERY time consuming updates they needed to apply to their scoring system.  We puttered around their family fun center etc just thankful to be out of the rain and probably 90 minutes after we go there we were actually able to bowl.  We had lunch and did laundry back at the hotel then had a surprisingly great Chinese dinner at Hunan Palace.  After that the storm seemed to be finally done so we drove back to the historic bath house district of downtown Hot Springs and parked so we could walk the path we'd seen that leads up the mountain.  We ended up on a series of different paths including the Grand Promenade but also worked our way to the very top of the mountain where the  viewing tower is.  Walking on a full stomach was rough but it was great to salvage a 3 mile hike out of a day that seemed like it wouldn't have any walking opportunities.

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