Day 18 -- to Hot Springs National Park

This morning we managed to take everything down, load everything up, *shower,* and still hit the road at a reasonable time. But on the way out of town we stopped for breakfast, and then for gas and ice. And the traffic! And that all added up to the fact that we didn't actually leave Austin until almost noon. Ugh.

We had a long day of driving ahead of us -- almost 500 miles and at least 8 hours to get to Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. We wondered if we could make it in one day after such a late start. But we stayed focused. And once we finally hit the road, we stayed there, with only one short stop between Austin and Hot Springs. We all became completely absorbed in an enchanting audio book called "A Drowned Maiden's Hair," by Amy Laura Schlitz, which somehow magically ended just as we pulled into Hot Springs.

As our friend Mark so eloquently and accurately pointed out, Arkansas is a toilet. And our approach into town vividly illustrated his point as we passed shabby-looking pawn shops and flea markets and boarded-up strip malls. The park itself is a queer little set-up. We're used to finding a national park on the edge of town, at the end of the road, enclosed within its own neatly defined boundaries. But Hot Springs NP encompasses an historic strip of the downtown and then it kind of skips down the street before it unfolds out into the mountains beyond. On one side of the street you're standing in the town of Hot Springs. On the other side of the street you're standing inside the National Park. It's hard to understand where the park begins and ends. To compound the confusion, apparently the town of Hot Springs was actually named, for a time, Hot Springs National Park. So there are all kinds of tacky tourist shops and attractions with "National Park" in their name, including National Park Aquarium, which has a 67-pound snapping turtle on display as if it were a carni attraction and which is so laughably *not* affiliated with the national park, even though it's just a few doors down from the visitors center.

Here's something else that's not affiliated with the national park, although it is truly just steps away from our campsite:



We also spotted this charming little bar on the way into town. Note the sign for "strip karaoke," which I cannot leave town without trying at least once. Who's with me?



So, It took us several minutes to find our way through town to the national park visitors center, and then to backtrack out of town to find the campground. By the time we did, it was dusk. We hustled to set up the tent and the screen shelter and to cook dinner and clean up afterward, and we accomplished all of that in the time it took the two ladies at the next campsite just to prepare their own supper. We are *pros*. <Fist bump.>