Starting 2015 from Hot Springs

Sun dog to the northeast, New Year's Eve

In the early evening of New Year’s Eve, Hot Springs could be comfortably described as “quiet but festive.” Bathhouse Row glowed brightly with Christmas decorations. Steam bellowed from the few open springs behind the ornate, century-old bathhouses.

East of the steaming boulevard, we arrived at the Alpine Inn, greeted by a Scottish gentleman who ran the hotel with his wife. He upgraded us to a room that looked like a large one-bedroom apartment, with the drawing room where we would play Scrabble during rainy evenings to come.

For a nice dinner, we went to Steinhaus Keller, a German restaurant where an accordion-tuba duo that reinterpreted rock songs with a German flair. Some worked, some didn’t, all excited one raucous table of tattooed men wearing tuxedo T-shirts and puffing on e-cigarettes. They shouted approval by exclaiming “Das Boot." It got old quickly. After some rich German dishes and a lineup of German beers that ranged from sour Belinerweisse to hoppy American collaboration brews, we adjourned to the Alpine and awaited the year’s end with a nice bottle of grower-producer Champagne.

For a New Year’s lunch, we could only pick Rolando’s, an Ecuadorian restaurant we visited with J.A. two years earlier. With a drizzling rain outside, we had a soup course followed by taquitos and goat cheese quesadillas. All of the national park-related items were closed on January 1, so we had to explore some of Hot Springs' other attractions.

Hot Springs has a small aquarium featuring a number of rare animals. An African tortoise named Pokey wandered freely through the exhibits (during our visit, the tortoise never budged from a warm, dark corner far from the front door). For a nominal cost, it was worth an hour of our time. We drove west from Hot Springs, half-hoping the rain would relent. The downpour only strengthened, dashing any hopes of a New Year’s hike. This stretch of Central Arkansas runs rich with prominent mountains and dense forests, but rain already owned 2015’s first day.

Most of the Park Avenue boutiques were open, so we visited a fragrance shop and a few of the gift shops, as well as stopping for a few drinks at the Copper Penny Pub. Before dark, we visited a water-filling station on Spring Street, where anyone can come to freely fill up on the 140-degree water rising from the springs. We filled one growler to test out the water. While I filled it, another couple patiently filled dozens of water jugs.

Al's lone appearance

Footprints on our front porch after dinner gave away a visit from Alpine, better known Al the cat. We would not see the hotel’s resident outdoor feline until the morning when he graced the porch again. While friendly and eager for pets, poor Al had been on the losing end of a fight. One eye and side of his face suffered some ugly wounds. Such is the life of the outdoor cat. But Al didn’t seem too fazed. He let us scratch his back before trotting off on some unknown mission behind the inn. We didn’t see him again, even if that didn’t stop us for calling his name whenever we stepped out.

Behind the inn, we noticed the channel cut by Hot Springs Creek. As its neared Bathhouse Row, the creek went under Central Avenue and its waters grew stronger as it picked up runoff from the hot springs.

Capped spring, Mountain Valley HQ

After a big breakfast at Grandma’s Kitchen, one of Hot Springs’ many diners, Mountain Valley Spring Water beckoned. The columned building houses a small museum and corporate headquarters since the 1930s, when Mountain Valley bought the DeSoto Water Company.

Like the bathhouses, Mountain Valley had an excellent early 20th century decor, even if a gift shop filled most of the former soda parlor. The third-floor ballroom with Japanese décor was off-limits, unfortunately. Mountain Valley is sold in most grocery stores, and the museum pieces tell of its long history in the public eye (served in Congress, drank by celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Woody Harrelson). The rear of the first floor showcased the capped DeSoto Spring. In this town, there was always water below you.

The Quapaw Bathhouse was closed during our visit, so we could not soak in a warm, coed pool.

Mountain Valley exterior

But we could not skip a quick tour of the Fordyce Bathhouse, the park visitor center restored to its 1920s appearance. \
I still admire the gym's wooden weights and workout equipment that seems antique next to today's treadmills measuring heart rate and distance.

To shake up the trip we crossed the mountain passes to spend an afternoon in Little Rock. Fog hid the tops of several skyscrapers. We took a short trip to Arkansas’ first post-Prohibition distillery (well, legal one), Rocktown. The tasting room pours little splashes of many spirits. Of course we skipped the moonshine/white whiskey line, instead going straight for several excellent bourbons, whiskeys and gins. We went home with a bottle of the Arkansas Bourbon and the Rye-barrel-aged gin.

 Debating whether to tackle the Clinton Presidential Library, we snaked through Little Rock’s bustling downtown and surveyed our options. Having been in high school and college during most of the Clinton presidency, much of that history still feels a little too new and familiar to me. Ultimately, Little Rock had other slices of history we wanted to explore.

You cannot tour Little Rock Central High School when school is out of session, but the excellent visitor center details how the school became ground zero for the civil rights movement in 1957. Those nine students had to endure unbelievable pressure and hatred from the public and white students. The Nine exuded class and grace when they faced a wave of racism determined to break them. When one of the Nine was expelled, white students handed “One Down, Eight to Go” cards.

With the Little Rock school board looking to integrate the massive high school in wake of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, hundreds volunteered. But only nine would cross the lines. Gov. Orval Faubus deployed the state national guard to keep the African-American students out, forcing President Eisenhower to federalize the Arkansas guard as well as send in federal troops to let the students in. It seems so long ago, but also seems like it could happen today.

Nancy on the front steps of Little Rock Central

Placed in their position, I could not have summoned that courage. Arkansas was the only place in the Southeast where it could have happened. A circuit court judge based in North Dakota (which inexplicably sits in the same circuit as Arkansas) paved the way for the students. As the rain eased we walked the quiet grounds, eyeballing a straight where 1,000 soldiers and many more protesters harassed the Nine. It was all emotionally heavy and easy to read the saga of the Little Rock Nine as a statement on how far we have or haven't come in 55 years.

For a late lunch we crossed the Arkansas River to North Little Rock’s Diamond Bear Brewing. A full menu was our bigger concern, and Diamond Bear’s food ensured we didn’t have to eat again. A newer nano-brewery, Stone’s Throw, sat a few blocks from my friend Jon’s old apartment. The hours didn't coincide with our visit, but it's on the list for next time. Passing it brought back fun memories of his front porch on a hot Memorial Day weekend, but they faded as our short commute back to Hot Springs began.

While Rolando’s has three locations across central and western Arkansas, the Hot Springs restaurant is only occupies half of the building. The second floor has become Rolando’s Speakeasy Bar, which serves strong cocktails and preserves a Prohibition atmosphere. In Hot Springs’ quiet season, most places closed up early, so we soon returned to our porch at the Alpine as the rain poured ever harder. As the drizzle faded, we met with the innkeeper to turn in our key, and ended up talking with him a little longer. Then we loaded up our water jugs and hit the road.

Don't leave Hot Springs without it.

We caught up with the rain by the time we crossed the mountain passes a last time and reached the interstate. Little Rock remained encapsulated in fog, and the rain pounded harder once we crossed the Mississippi again. In Arkansas, the fog held firm until we hit Forrest City. The muddy fields beyond the highway were not completely barren. Their winter migrants had arrived. Thousands of snow geese congregated in the dormant fields. At the fog ebbed and flowed, we got glimpses of their strength, sometimes a few birds landing in formation, sometimes a massive flock that could erupt into a defensive tornado at first sight of a raptor.