A Hot Springs spa experience!

Since a girl always deserves to be pampered - especially a girl who's been dumped - I decided to take a day trip to Hot Springs which is a mere one hour drive from Little Rock.

Hot Springs - named appropriately for it's mineral springs that spout from the rocks at a blistering 140 degrees - is one of those towns with a history of being a major resort area in the early 1900s. Back in the days when people visited spas for the healing waters, folks would come to the area and bathe in the bathhouses to cure their ills. Today it's mainly a downtown area with various day spas, antique shops, art galleries, boutiques and tourist trap souvenir shops. Along Central Avenue, the National Park Service has maintained many of the old bathhouse structures and you can tour the Fordyce (pictured to the left) which has been maintained as a museum.
There are several hiking trails in the area which is actually designated as a National Park ... interestingly enough it was the first official National Park - even older than Yellowstone. Hot Springs is also home to a famous horse race track, but I didn't make it out there because it's not fun to bet on the ponies by yourself.

The downtown hotels are starting to show their age, but walking around you can imagine it in it's hey day when celebrities and gangsters roamed freely. This is the Arlington which really has a 1930s feel. Walking through the lobby you really feel like you're walking back in time.
This is the view of the hot water bubbling out of the ground, the same water that is piped into the bath houses, but it was hard to catch the steam in the pictures. The one on the left you can kind of see it floating above the rocks.

















This is me posing along the paved promenade trail that goes behind bathhouse row. Apparently back in the day, bathers were also encouraged to walk and exercise to improve their health - what a novel thought!
So after wandering around and shopping a bit, I decided to go for the full treatment. Instead of going to one of the fancy new spas, I went to the Buckstaff Bath House which is the only old bathhouse that is currently operational. It's old, built circa 1912, and is definitely showing its age inside, but I found that charming!!
I wasn't able to take pictures during my bath treatment, but for purposes of description the pictures are from the National Park Museum ... and those preserved facilities looked VERY similar to the Buckstaff.

There are separate areas for men and women, and the women's baths are on the second floor. I was led to a curtained stall where I was told to get naked (don't worry this story is PG) and put my clothes and belongings in a locker. When I was ready, a bath attendant wrapped me in a sheet and led me to the bathing room which consisted of little stalls which each had an old porcelain tub. Again these pics are from the museum, but it looked a lot like this.
The tub was full of water piped directly from the spring and cooled to 100 degrees.
The attendant had me step carefully into the tub, then with a loofah mitt she scrubbed my back, arms and legs (this is the part where uptight people probably have a major invasion of space issue). Then the whirlpool propeller was turned on as I was allowed to soak for 15 minutes. I was given three cups of the steaming water - from the faucet not the tub! - to drink which is supposed to raise my body temperature and assist with the "treatment." I should mention the baths are drained and cleaned thoroughly between each bather - it's even regulated by the Dept of the Interior.

After getting out of the tub, the attendant again wrapped me in my sheet and led me to the sitz bath. Basically it looks like a type of urinal and you sit in it submerging your butt and lower back (you gals who've given birth know what I'm talking about). It's supposed to help with lower back pain, hemorrhoids and such. The sitz bath water is more hot than the tub, and was the strangest part of the experience for me because there were no curtains in front of you - so basically you're naked sitting in this thing with a towel draped over you as bathers and attendants walk by.
Following the sitz bath, I was placed on a massage type table for hot pack application. Their "hot packs" are towels soaked in the hot water then wrapped around you. I requested the packs for my shoulders, back and knees and damn they were hot! During the hot packs, a cool cloth was placed on my forehead and I was given cold mineral water to drink.

Following the hot packs, I was put in the steam cabinet which is probably the funniest looking contraption. You sit naked on a bench inside the cabinet and just your head sticks out as you cook for 5 minutes. It was a strange feeling and you feel like you're sweating from every pore in your body. I was totally ready to get out after my 5 minutes.
Now that you're good and sweaty, they take you to the needle shower to be rinsed off. The water shoots out horizontally in dozens of spouts pointed at you. Now this is one of the parts I'd love to have at home! I could have hung out in here for a while!
After my shower, I was wrapped again in my sheet and taken to the massage area where a massage therapist did a 20 minute swedish style massage. They used lots of lotion so I left feeling all lubed up when it was over. This is me in my sheet after my whole bathing experience, what a relaxed looking Jenn :)

Some of the newer spas also offer full services like facials, manis/pedis and more extensive massage services that would be fun to check out. I don't know if you could spend a whole vacation here, but it would definitely be a fun day trip or weekend place if you were in the vicinity.

Next place I plan on visiting when I have a few days off is Eureka Springs which is in northern Arkansas.