A nighttime view of a street in Hot Springs, Arkansas, from our visit there last year.
Back in early 2024, Laura and I went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for our church’s annual marriage retreat. While we were there, we took a little time to look around and see what we could see.
Last year, we visited Mammoth Cave National Park two different times. As you might imagine, our main goal there was to see some of the caves, and we went on two different cave tours. But we also took a little time to see some of the other sights of the area above ground.
As we were driving through the park area, Laura and I came across the Mammoth Cave Baptist Church. I always enjoy seeing old church buildings, and this one was quite interesting, tucked away between the trees and the woods. Very different from something like the Metropolitan Cathedral in Panama, this one was just a simple wooden building, relatively small and unassuming. Of course, the church is not the building, but rather the church is the people. So you should definitely not judge a church by is building, but rather by its love for God. But it is still interesting to see all the different types of church buildings that have been built over the years.
When you think of Mammoth Cave National Park, you probably think about walking through a dark cave deep in the earth, and it is true that the cave tours are the main attractions at Mammoth Cave. However, there are above-ground hiking trails to be discovered there, too. On our first visit, we decided to go for a hike before our Historic Cave Tour.
After checking out our options, we decided on the Mammoth Cave Railroad Bike and Hike Trail, partly because it starts out very near the Visitor Center, which was where we parked for our cave tour. However, we knew that we would not hike the entire trail, as it is over 9 miles long, and then we would have to hike the same 9 miles back to the Visitor Center. But we thought that we could walk for a while, keeping a watch on the time, and then turn around and go back. There was even a cemetery on the map that we thought we might see. So we each grabbed a bottle of water, as it was already getting hot out, and we set out on the trail.
Continuing with our Mammoth Cave National Park tour where the previous post left off…
About halfway through the tour, we came to a large area with benches. There, we sat to rest for a few moments while the ranger guide told about some of the history of the cave. This was also the portion of the tour where all of the lights were turned off to demonstrate total darkness. I did not bother taking a photo of that, however. And the glow-in-the-dark shirt of the guy in front of me kind of ruined the darkness a little. After that, we moved on to the dripstones portion of the tour, and these photos will move on to that as well.
As you may recall, we visited Mammoth Cave National Park as part of the Summer of Fun 2024. We enjoyed it so much that we went back for a second visit.
Because Mammoth Cave is so large, deserving its “mammoth” name, there are several different tours available. So for our second visit, we decided to take a different tour from the Historic Tour of our first visit. The Domes and Dripstones tour sounded interesting, partly because we did not see many dripstones in the first tour, and those are common in many caves around the world. Plus, the length and difficulty level were about the same as the Historic Tour, so we knew that we could do it. We made sure to have a reservation before we went, just to be sure that we got to go on the tour that we wanted.
We visited Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky and went on a cave tour. We were traveling through Kentucky on our way home from Indiana with the Riedels, and stopping at a National Park seemed like a great idea to everyone. Here are a few scenes from our tour.
Did you really visit a National Park if you did not take a park sign photo to prove that you were there? Yes you did, but I took a photo anyway.1
Beginning in the late 1800s, bathhouses were constructed in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to take advantage of the natural hot springs and their healing properties. Some of those bathhouses survive today along what is known as Bathhouse Row. We got to see them during our February 2024 visit to Hot Springs.
The bathhouses are pictured here from north to south, as we walked from The Arlington Hotel.
Superior Bathhouse was built in 1916 and is the smallest of the bathhouses. Its red brick facade and green window trim make it eye-catching, even on a rainy day1.
During our visit to Hot Springs, Arkansas in early February 2024, we went for a hike on some of the trails of Hot Springs National Park. Our hike was actually a bit unplanned. We knew we wanted to try to find some trails, but we came upon them in an unexpected way.
Once we had checked in and put our stuff in our hotel room at the Arlington Hotel, we were going to go look around the hotel and then walk down the street. Laura looked down to the far end of the hallway where our room was, which was on the 7th floor, and said, “That looks like the pool!” So we walked to the end of the hall, and sure enough, there was a walkway to the pool, which was built into the side of the mountain behind the hotel. Once we got out there, I said, “Those look like trails!” So we walked on past the pool, and we suddenly found ourselves on the trails of Hot Springs National Park, as the park land is just behind the Arlington Hotel.
We spent a weekend in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in February 2024. We were there for a church marriage retreat, and we did spend some time exploring Hot Springs National Park. It was a fun weekend full of interesting things!
During our weekend, we stayed at the historic Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, right at the edge of the National Park area. The Arlington was an interesting place to stay, and we enjoyed our time there. Here are a few photos from our visit.
