Road Trip: Up The Middle Of The Country

Day 6: Thursday, May 09, 2024 - Fort Smith and Hot Springs, AR

Day's statistics:
Weather: 84°, overcast
Steps: Steve 8,281; Linda 7,697
Travel: 198 miles

This morning's shower presented a minor challenge. Until this morning, every shower we have ever taken had either a separate faucet for the shower, a dial to change the flow from bath to shower, or a knob on top of the the tub spout that gets pulled up to change the flow from the tub to the shower.
This shower, after a couple minutes of figuring out, was activated by pulling down on a ring on the underside of the end of the tub spout.

Today's breakfast was a full buffet. They even list the main entrée on a whiteboard.

Linda had a bagel, and I had an egg and cheese omlet with sausage.

Today's first stop was the St. Scholastica Monastery.
The monastery was just a couple miles down the road. We entered the property, and Linda got out to go inside to find out what we had to do and or where we had to go to visit. But the door was locked. We eventually saw a sign on the door that incidated they weren't open, and visits were by appointment anyway.
OK... so what to do...
We continued down the road we were on and headed into the main part of this little town.

We pulled into the church parking lot, and Linda went inside to inquire about our visit.
The church was open and we were welcome to go inside (like most Catholic churches). However, there was a funeral at 10:00, so our time in the church was a little limited.

Of course there was stained glass. Interestingly, the predominant color around the altar was: light blue. We don't remember ever seeing a church with that color around the altar.




















As we were finishing up viewing the inside of the church, Father John came in, getting ready for the funeral.
We spoke to him about our visit, and why we were at the church. He suggested visiting Saint Boniface that was a half-dozen or so blocks down the street.
We left the nave, and entered the entry / exit foyer.
The body of the deceased had just been brought in.
On the wall to our right was this photo from November 2000 (and yes, it does appear to be damaged).

Instead of going through the door we came in - which would have been to the left of where we were currently standing - we went through the door to the right.
Out this door, there was a tiny courtyard with a statue, fountain, and flowers.





Then back out in front... (yes, the lens hood is on wrong in the first shot; and no, I don't use it often.)




I noticed across the street - from the side - that there was a park or monument or something like that. So I ran (OK, it was more of a job) over to see what it was.
From this vantage, I was able to get a good angle on the church's sign.

There were three statues dedicated to Judge Isaac Parker, Mother Mary Teresa Farrell, and educator John Carnall.


I returned to the other side of the street, we made our way to the car, and we headed out to Saint Boniface.

We pulled out of the lot, turned right, turned right again, and just five blocks down we were at Saint Boniface.
We parked in the lot across the street, and headed to the side door - but it was locked. So we went to the front door - but it too was locked. While in the front, we got these shots.


I wanted to get an artistic shot of the sun behind the steeple cross, but I probably would have needed my darkening filter as taking without it was just one big bright spot.
Then we went to the rear door - and it was locked as well.
A group of parishoners were coming out of the chapel attached to the office back across street. We spoke to them and they suggested we go to the office. We rang the bell, and the office worker talked to us. She grabbed a key and took us back over to the church. She went to the unlocked door on the opposite side - the one door we didn't try - and took us inside. We looked around a little, and she told us about the layout and the ceiling. If looked at one way, the physical layout of the church resembles a cross, and the interior ceiling structure and style resemble the hull of Noah's Ark.
This is a stitch of the ceiling, from the altar, as if it were from the top of a cross.

This is the same as above, except the cross itself is highlighted a little in case it wasn't obvious above.

This shot is as if it were from the base of the cross - and the feet are from a Jesus statue above.

This Pietá-like statue has a feature we have never seen before. The figure of Jesus has bruises on his knees.


And then the rest of the sights of the church.




















In the main entryway - one of the ones that was locked - were these sets of windows.


We exited the side door whence we came, walked across the back, and came upon a prayer garden.


We were told a story that a car came down the road too fast, left the roadway, crashed through the fence, hit the statue of Mary, and pushed it into the back wall of the church. Nothing was damaged.
We got back to the car in the lot across the street from the church.

Our next stop was the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum (RAM).
But it was too early as it didn't open for a half hour.
So we got on the main road, and headed back toward the church and town. A couple blocks from the church was the Post Office. We passed it, did a quick u-turn, and then pulled in. Linda ran in while I parked and waited.
I was soon visited by a [supposed] residence challenged skateboarder. I gave him a dollar (it was all I had as I gave my cash away at Pizza Twist) and some bottle water.
He told me he was from New Mexico.
On the wall near the PO parking lot was a butterfly mural.

And across the street was this fountain that looked a lot like the one we saw in Reims.

Even with the visit to the PO, we were still early to the RAM.

We sat in the car for about fifteen minutes, playing on our phones, and trying to solve the days Spelling Bee.
Then it was time to go inside.


The museum was three stories in all, two up and one in the basement.
We met Casey at the front desk.

We then proceded through the first floor, which had various works by Kristen Tordella-Williams.
Some of these were a little... unusual. We aren't huge fans of this sort of art, but we can appreciate their effort.
Most of the works will be presented without commentary, except for this first one beccause the light changed and I captured a couple different lit patterns. That's all.


And the rest - there were only about eight works in all.









We then went up to the second floor.
There were more works by more artists upstairs, and it was more traditional like paintings, drawings, photographs, and mixed media.
Here are what we thought were the more interesting pieces, though there was quite a bit more on display.












Then we went all the way to the basement / lower level.
THe lowest level had a classroom. On the walls were some self portraits (though the third looks like - and probably is - Danica Patrick).



A diarama some younger students created.

Across the hall from the classroom was a room with a number of Boehm porcelain pieces, and a couple others.
Here are the pieces, with closer-ups of the particularly interesting ones, or those that were on display separately.














Right after stepping out of the porcelain room, a young man approached me and asked me about my picture taking. I told him that it is just for our family website - the one here... - and the pictures were for our memories, not so much for the artistic aspect of it.
It is true that there are some shots that are composed, and some of them just turn out that way, but generally, they are not intended to be anything special.
He said that he was an art student and was on assignment as his teacher wanted the students to take pictures that weren't necessarily just straight on, and he was looking for some suggestions. I told him about a couple things I do when trying to make a shot special. One is to focus on an object, then move it to the side of the frame so it isn't in the middle (I usually do this with flowers because it works pretty well). Sometimes I'll follow that shot with one where I leave the shot aligned as it, and then change the focus to the flower in the background. Another variation I do is change the angle of a shot. Lastly, one more thing I try is to frame something in the background with something in the foreground, such as tree branches or fence posts.
He thanked me for the suggestions, as we headed back upstairs.
Before leaving - we were at the RAM for an hour - we talked to Casey about the restaurant next door. We figured why go drive somewhere if there is an acceptable spot next door. She said it was really good. So we left the car where it was, and walked over.

The restaurant was R & R's Curry Express, and they served North Indian Cuisine, and... Bar-b-que. Odd combo, IMO.
Wait, what? Yes, North Indian, and barbeque. In the same restaurant.

We were given menus, and seated. Based on the menu cover, the addition of "barbeque" seemed to be an afterthought.



One walks to the counter to place their order, and a server brings it to the table when it is ready.

We had a serving of naan (included); and Linda had the Bengan Bharta (eggplant), medium heat; while I had the Chicken Tikka Masala, also medium heat.



There were over a dozen patrons in the restaurant during our meal.
It was a little before 1:00, and time to head out.

Our plans were to visit Hot Springs NP, about two-and-a-half-hours away.
At this rate, we should have almost two hours at the park.
Yes, the name of the city is "Y" (without the quotes). Yes, Y. I don't know! He's on third and I don't give a darn!
I'll refrain from making any jokes about their inability to spell, or anything like that...

Some random sights along the way, both before and after Y.




We don't blindly follow the GPS route - meaning we would never just drive off a cliff or into a lake because the GPS told us to "turn here".
As we got closer to to the park, the GPS had us exit the highway and start going through some "more local streets". OK, no problem. This was only our ninth NP and we had no idea how the approach would be.
But the route was getting a little more remote. And more. And more. Then we finally came across the park.

Or did we? No, not really. For some reason the GPS routed us to this sign. Admittedly, in hindsight, we realize we didn't plug in "Visitor's Center" (VC) into the Google machine, but just the park. But why it mapped us to this sign, we don't know. We were literally on the complete opposite side of the park. The back of it, if you will. So we had to drive completely around it to get to the entrance.
But we were so remote, we lost our cell phone connection - one of the drawbacks of using the Google Maps app on the phone, and not a dedicated GPS navigation device, or the navigation in the car (Avis didn't subscribe to the navigation service, and the Toyota app wouldn't sync with the car to use its GPS). From this sign, we continued forward, and started up a narrow winding road along the mountain side. This allowed us to eventually regain a cell signal and we were able to plug the VC into the Google device to get us where we really needed to be.
The town of Hot Springs was commercialized, though not quite as over-the-top as Pigeon Forge, and Cherokee, NC, outside Great Smokey Mountains NP.
As we looked for a place to park, we followed the signs to the visitor's parking garage. While it was a block away from the main strip, it was free - so who cares?!!? The first spot we found was up on the third level.
We parked, and headed to the VC.

Had we planned better - I mean, did more research - we would have spent even MORE time at Hot Springs. Not because there was so much to see, but because Linda would have had us take hot baths and had massages. But we didn't.
We entered the VC, and got our stamp.

We talked to the ranger who told us about the site - it was a bathhouse as well as a spa, and that the NP Service acquire the facility and renovated it to look as it does today. We took a tour to see what the bathhouse was like and what visitors would have experienced "back in the day", though it was self-guided as the last tourgroup left at 3:00, and there wasn't going to be another.



We went up to the first floor, and started to look around.
The men's side and the lady's sides were kept separate.











At the end of the floor was a small museum space, dedicated to the past of the hot springs and bathhouses.

Then we went to the third floor, where there were spa-related rooms such as a beauty parlor, massage room, music room, overnight rooms, exercise gym, and more.











We took the rather old elevator all the way to the basement.


Hot Springs is called Hot Springs because of the... hot springs.
While not really visible in the shot below, this was one of the original springs that fed the bathhouse.


And because the hot springs were actually TOO hot, there were cold water tanks that were used to help regulate the temperature of the water for use in the baths.

Finally, on the way out as our tour was complete.

We got a picture of the outside of the VC.

And as we walked back to the car, we passed some of the commercial bathhouses still operating today.




After crossing the street, we passed a mural, a couple of statues, and a commemorative plaque.




I don't get too many spam calls on my cell phone. Spam texts, on the other hand... Just before we got to the garage, my phone rang. I didn't recognize the name or number, so I answered. The person was asking about voting. I asked how long the call was going to take - it would have been fine if it was just a question or two - and she responded with "fifteen to twenty minutes". "I'm on vacation and can't talk right now, thank you, bye." And then immediately blocked the number.
We got back in the car and headed up to the overlook the ranger told us about.
We had to drive a couple miles on a oneway street, up the mountain, to get to the tower.

In the building at the base was a gift shop. Admission to the lookout actually cost $10 for those with a park pass. We paid our fare and took the elevator ride on up.
It was a great view. There were only seven of up there when we got there - and four of us took the elevator together.
It turns out the woman we road up with was a foreign exchange student host and she was there with her student from Italy.
We walked the perimeter of the entire balcony. Rather than take a series of pictures and stitch a gigantic panoramic, I did a walking video like I did in the TV tower in Berlin.

I also took a few shots looking more down rather than at the horizon, including the former Army Navy Hospital in the last shot.




Unfortunately, there was only one elevator working. Fortuantely, it wasn't that busy so there was no line waiting for the elevator. Unfortuantely, we still had to wait a little because it took a while for the elevator to go up and down. Fortunately, oh, wait, I've got nothing - just sort of got hung up in the moment...
We went down one level which was immediately below where we were walking. Had I noticed that stairs on the one side, we would have just walked down. But I didn't, so we didn't.
This level had a museum in it, with windows for viewing. There were a number of Myth / Fact plaques about,
The steam / mist effect in the mountains that appeared were pretty neat, and similar to what we saw at the New River Gorge NP.

We weren't staying in Hot Springs. We were staying in Little Rock - but fortuantely, it was less than an hour away.
As we head out of town, we saw the tower we were in a short time prior.

Further down, we came across this... genius. How can this even be legal? How does he even know when the car in front of him left the stop line at a red light?


And a couple other sights from elsewhere.

We found the La Quinta hotel, and I went in to check in. I asked the clerk if she knew where there was a supermarket, and she told me "go down this road, turn left, down a bit, on the right." Great, we found the Walmart to get a salad for snack dinner.
We returned to the hotel and found this truck towing a truck that was flat bed towing a pick-up...

It was comparatively early - a bit after 7:00 - when we finally got to our room.

We ate, did the luggage thing, relaxed a bit, washed up, and went to sleep.

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