My Love Affair with Hot Springs National Park

Love of nature is the essence of what is beautiful in mankind. Let your soul rejoice at even the smallest creature.
~ © Lee Hiller

A few months after my Fifty-second birthday I drove from Oregon to Arkansas and fell in Love with a National Park…My beloved fiance’ Rick London would say I fell in Love with him and drove 2300 miles from Oregon to Hot Springs Arkansas to be with him…   He did after all spin tales of Hot Springs and the beauty of living in a National Park during our many months of courting.  Enticing me with the Hot Springs history of  bathhouses, gangsters and her beautiful Mountains.

As someone who was a just a basic flat sidewalk walker I never imagined I would be hiking 4 miles most everyday on the many park trails.  Hot Springs National Park has carved my mind, spirit and body into a nature loving “Mountain Woman”.   I hope you will enjoy my trail information, photos and adventures as I explore the beauty of Hot Springs National Park, the Gulpha Gorge and the Ouachita Mountains.

It is with great Love that I dedicate this blog to my Love/Finace’ Rick who has never once complained about my love affair with Hot Springs National Park.

I never intended to blog about hiking in Hot Springs National Park and I am working catching up on the many entries including this one that I should have made at the time the events occurred.  First time up I though OMG what was I thinking.  It’s been just over two months and I cannot stay away from the trails.  I decided it would be fun to share trail and photo experiences for those planning to come here for the first time or those hoping to relive a past visit.