patrickrhett

Not a great picture, but we’re here.

We checked in to the Tremont Hotel downtown, dropped off out stuff, and walked down N. Michigan to Millennium Park and back.

The Arch is enormous. I never really understood the scale of the thing until I got there.

And then you ride up to the top in a tiny capsule, sitting way closer to strangers than you ever normally get, but everyone is excited and a little nervous so no one cares. And then you look down.

And out at the city.

I was impressed. And a little glad to get back down to the ground.

Crystal Bridges was so impressive that after the first 15 minutes I forgot who built it.

These hotel room views in Arkansas are not very impressive.

Got in last night at 8:00, checked in to the Aloft Bentonville, had dinner and several stouts at the Mellow Mushroom across the street and went right to bed. Slept in a bit this morning (9:00am), and we’re just getting out of here at 11:00.  Off to Crystal Bridges, and whatever else Bentonville has to offer.

This is in North Little Rock, and will be of interest to almost no one but me. It’s a park, around a lake, and I played here as a child.

After a few hours in Hot Springs we drove to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.

It’s an impressive building.

There are paths throughout the well manicured grounds, and a pedestrian bridge.

View from the library of the river.

View from the bridge of the river and the city.

The library was interesting, but the curation was too busy and advertorial. It will be interesting to see how it matures as his term recedes into history.

After a night in Malvern, we were glad to get to Hot Springs.

Sweat boxes, ice boxes, electrotherapy, enemas and needle showers.

Elaine disapproved of this statue in the Men’s lounge. I can’t imagine why.

Fancy stained glass. Above the offending statue.

There are fountains on the street where you can fill up bottles with water from the springs. It is hot. (~140F)  We saw tourists filling up souvenir bottles and locals pulling up with trunks full of empty milk jugs. Here Elaine is filling up some empty Ozarka bottles we had in the car.

I don’t know if it’s good marketing at work or something more, but the water was really good. I think we might come back here for a weekend and partake of the traditional bath routine.

Spent the night in Malvern, AR, just short of Hot Springs. Turns out if you want a reservation in a resort-ish town on a Saturday night you need to make them more than 3 hours ahead of time. Malvern was covered last night in a strange haze, the kind where if you see it in a horror movie you assume it’s dry ice because nowhere ever really looks like that. It was crazy humid and the cicadas in the woods across the freeway were legion and vocal. The Holiday Inn Express was right off I-30 next to a Wal-Mart, and we had dinner at the Wal-Mart Subway.

The goal today is Hot Springs, then Little Rock and the Clinton Library.