Hot Springs National Park is the most bizarre NP I have been to. Best I can tell it consists of a row of old buildings, a hill, a loop road zig-zagging up that hill, and a trail that crosses that road about 20 times. The coolest thing is that it contains Bathhouse Row- a street with an assortment of beautifully architectured historic bathhouse buildings in styles ranging from Mediterranean to Mission to Renaissance to Modern. The NP visitor center occupies one of these bathhouses restored to its former glory- steam rooms, bath rooms, billiard rooms, lounging rooms/decks, gym rooms, massage rooms, etc. Extremely interesting but like I said pretty weird for a national park. I guess I should be happy there's a national park devoted to healing and leisure with all the ones we have devoted to death and war.
I also went quartz crystal collecting at Mt. Ida, the self-proclaimed (but probably justified) "Quartz Crystal Capitol of the World." An immense quantity of quartz veins cut the local sandstones and shales. I collected for about 3 hours at an operating mine- long enough in the awful heat and humidity. I didn't find anything fantastic but came away with a bucket-full of interesting crystals. I've been in some impressive weather on the drive back west. I was surrounded by a lightning storm for several hours.
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