It's quite a drive from St. Louis to Little Rock. While we were in no particular rush to get there, we didn't dawdle. It took us the better part of the day to make the trip. We went through Little Rock because, by the time we reached Little Rock, it was too late to visit the libary on Saturday and the Sunday hours are 1-5 pm. So, if we wanted to see the library, we'd have to find things to do in Little Rock for half the day on Sunday. We opted not to wait. So, we went through on the way to Hot Springs.
The traffic in Hot Springs on Saturday afternoon was horrendous. We did not know what to expect, but a traffic-snarl in the midst of a hundred-twenty-thousand-acre strip center wasn't it. We wandered the streets for awhile in awe at the massive amounts of low-end retail and heavy traffic. It was not something I'd drive cross-country to visit. (As it turned out, we were in the wrong place...more later.)
We attempted to drive into the downtown area, but the traffic was almost at a standstill, so we veered off and decided to have an early dinner. We had seen a sign for Coy's Steak House and my wife had read something about it being a first class place, so we went looking for it. We got there early, probably about 5:30. Parking is all valet (interesting, though...in a land of geezer retirement, the valets were geezers). We went inside and were quickly seated (despite not having reservations, which they say are advisable) in a little booth set in an alcove. I ordered ribeye, medium rare, and my wife ordered steak Oscar, medium. My steak was medium-well and had a distinct flavor of liver; my wife tasted it and agreed my taste buds were not playing tricks. Her steak was rare. All in all, it was a miserable disappointment. I would have sent mine back, but didn't want to deal with the delay.
After dinner, we headed south to find a place to stay in, or near, Arkadelphia. We had phoned several places in Hot Springs but everything was full. My wife pulled out the AAA book and made a couple of calls and we got reservations at a Best Western. It wasn't a bad place, but didn't compare to the Holiday Inn Express where we stayed in Fenton, MO the previous two nights. We decided we'd head back into Hot Springs early the next day to avoid the godawful traffic tie-ups.
The next morning, we did just that. We got up at a reasonable hour, loaded up the car, and made the 30 mile drive north back into Hot Springs. The parts of Hot Springs we had seen the day before were not, as you might imagine, what draws people to the town. The draw is the old downtown area, with its hot baths, nice architecture, and interesting shops. Here are a few photos I shot while wandering around. 
After a brief wander through town, we decided to take a duck boat tour. Duck boats are military craft that traverse land on four wheels and take to water, as well. I didn't get any photos of the beasts. The duck boat tour was rather lame. We went from downtown Hot Springs about five miles south to a parking lot of a restaurant on Lake Hamilton. The parking lot had a boat launch where the duck boat gently crept into the water. We did a slow-speed tour around some fancy homes and boat docks, then back on dry land and downtown again. It was about an hour listening to the geezer driver telling duck jokes.
We then wandered a bit more and decided to head south toward Arkadelphia again, but we opted to have an early lunch, so we stopped at a little place on Lake Hamilton called Doe's, where we had a nice lunch of specially jazzed-up tamales I(apparently a big deal around Hot Springs) while sitting outside on the water, watching as pontoon boats pulled in, tied up to the dock, and their passengers came ashore for lunch.
Somewhere along the way my wife bought a marzipan pig, pictured here, which she said was not very tasty. On the road, I stopped to take a picture of a 1961 Rambler that was for sale.
We got back on Interstate 30 and headed west, not knowing whether we would drive all the way back to Dallas or not. We did. And so here we are on Labor Day. We'll pretend we're still on vacation today. Despite a dreary, wet day, we'll act like we're having a grand old time in our 5-days of retirement.
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