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Shamrock Tour®: Hot Springs and Western Arkansas
In a bygone era, Hot Springs was a crooked place. This past fall we lit out for those storied hills to prove that it still is.
Men and women soothe their rheumatoid arthritis in the carbonated, pressure-heated springs seeping from the deep cavern of the mountains. They relax in a resort on Hot Spring Mountain, in the Zig Zag Mountains of the Ouachita Range, just below the Ozarks. But, regardless of the locale, it isn't all Bible-Belt recreation here. Upon a time, two dark birds, Al Capone and Baby Face Nelson, flew south to soak in the geothermal bathhouses and scheme in the steam with their hard-bitten cronies. Horses raced, money changed hands, and pretty women danced, cavorted, and turned a few tricks. Then the perfect getaway for the corrupt, Vegas before Vegas, Hot Springs was a deliciously crooked place.
Today, it's arguably the oldest National Park in the system (a Reservation was established by Congress in 1832 to protect the springs, long before Yellowstone), and flanked conveniently by a good-sized town. The bathhouses are still resort destinations – nearly two million visit each year and Lake Ouachita regularly summons summer vacationers mainly from Dallas, Little Rock, St. Louis, and Memphis. The town pulses with window-shopping foot traffic along the storefronts on Central Avenue, only two blocks and a stoplight from the National Park entrance. Some of the old bathhouses are restored to their former glory, minus the mobsters of course. Comparatively safe and sedate, but even so, the Hot Springs area is still a powerfully crooked place – as in steep, winding, and sweeping – chock full of great motorcycle roads in every variety. A dazzling array in fact....
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