THE MEDICAL TOUR - HOT SPRINGS, MISSOURI

Saturday March 29, 1997 – Hot Springs, Missouri

I had a bit of a disturbed night as the catfish wrestled with the pecan nuts but then went back to sleep and slept like a log until very late - about 8.45! So we had a late start and missed out on the promised "continental breakfast" of weak coffee and doughnuts. Rab had been taken by an advert for Slaneys who allegedly specialized in breakfast, so we went along to the local branch. We decided to have the breakfast bar selection, which was good with an excellent choice including grits. So we has a great meal which went down well, especially since the catfish had moved on.

Our plan was to drive up the Mississippi Valley and we found a secondary road which we thought could give us good views of the river. Well, that was a disappointment. We didn't get a glimpse of the water until we crossed one of the tributaries, although that was quite a sight with a couple of houses up to their eaves in floodwater. Apart from that the drive was very boring - flat land with the residue of cotton stalks and nothing else except abandoned shacks, pitiful looking houses surrounded by junk and in every little dorp a pawn shop and flea market with the biggest selection of old rusty junk imaginable.

It certainly gave the impression of a very poor part of the world. We also saw a number of armadillos which had been run over, but that was about it. We finally stopped for lunch at a mall in a little place called Pine Bluff. Nothing special about the tucker but the walk about did us a bit of good. We had crossed the Mississippi into Missouri shortly before we got to Pine Bluff and after we left the town we headed up towards the Ozarks.

The road headed through more hilly, wooded country and we started seeing dogwoods and azaleas plus other blooming trees, including one which was very pretty with blossom all along the bare branches. In the early stages looked to me as if they were the same color as jacarandas, the later ones were quite pink. Locals told us they were called redbuds and that they were just coming in to bloom.

We turned off the Interstate into the Hot Springs National Park and decided to spend the night in the town of Hot Springs. Rab picked out a hotel that sounded pretty good from the AAA book, which gave it three diamonds - a pretty good rating which we had found satisfactory until then.  I suppose the mistake we made was in ignoring the fact that it was described as an "historic" hotel. One of the travel writers we read warned against staying in any establishment with this description - and he was right.

The first room we were checked into was very small and had no cold water or a plug in the hand basin. There was no air-conditioning either but there was an overhead fan with only two speeds - flat out on a wonky spindle which made the whole fitting rattle like a Dakota warming up or stopped. We also discovered that the bedrooms had no phones - in this day and age - and in America!!

We toyed with the idea of moving out but had had a long day and decided that moving rooms would be enough of a schlep. So I rattled down to the foyer in the old lift and spoke to the manager – seemingly a Greek gentleman who had not been in the USA for very long. He offered us the ‘more superior’ room next door to the room we were in at the same rate and handed over the key. We went to the room to check it out and found that there was hot and cold water and a plug, that the fan turned at a more reasonable speed – but that there wereno less than five light bulbs missing or dead! We still had the key from the first room so I nipped in there and nicked all but one of the light bulbs from there.

It was quite a warm evening so we strolled downtown to look for a bite to eat (Rab didn’t fancy eating in the hotel because we had encountered a woman in the lift who seemed to be part of the establishment and she had plasters on three fingers and one thumb – and dirty plasters at that!). the town has been a resort for many years and was hugely popular in the 20s when it had its heyday. It seems that a lot of people from that era might still be around because by 8.30 there was not much movement and most of the eateries had closed.  We found of all things a Chinese restaurant, staffed by a couple who spoke very little English and which had a somewhat limited menu. But the food was very tasty and met our needs. I needed something fairly light after the catfish, the big breakfast and all the snacks we had been munching all day.