The last twenty-four hours have been fabulous. Yesterday evening all the other journalists arrived, and Lookout Point, a bed-and-breakfast located on Hamilton Lake here in Hot Springs, hosted a reception for us. Y’all, there was cheese, wine, locally made craft beer, and even cupcakes from a company called Fat Bottomed Girls–which I will soon be if I don’t stop eating all this food. And get this–on top of the food, they took us on a boat ride around the lake. Talk about the royal treatment. Today some folks from Texas who joined one of our tours asked, “How does one become a travel writer?” I honestly had no idea how to answer. The first thing that came to mind was, God has to like you a lot.

But really, thank you, Lord.

After the reception, we went to dinner at Rolando’s, a Latin restaurant that’s also located in Fort Smith. If you’ve ever eaten there, you know the food is always delicious, and last night was no exception. And not only was the food great, but so was the conversation. (At one point we talked about goat yoga. It’s apparently a thing.) This is what I love about writers–everyone was fun, kind, and curious–good question askers, good listeners.

Before going back to the hotel, I stopped into the Ohio Club for one last beer, and I’m glad I did. There was a guy playing live music, acoustic stuff, and he had a beautiful voice–natural, raw, just gritty enough. Close to him was a couple who had just gotten married. I struck up a conversation with the bride, and they’d come down from Connecticut, just the two of them, to elope. They’d never been here before but got married in a chapel, and the Ohio Club and the singer ended up being their reception. They both seemed so happy. Just before I left, the singer sang “Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison, which happens to be one of my favorite songs. I don’t know, I just felt fortunate to have wandered in at just the right time to experience it all. It was a perfect, mystical moment.

This morning–believe it or not–I was awake and mostly functional at five-thirty. I’m not kidding. I had to meet the group at six-thirty, so I wanted to meditate, shower, and drink a cup of coffee first. So I did it–I got up before the sunrise. (Now give me a t-shirt to mark the occasion, and let’s hope it never happens again.) Anyway, our first stop today was The Pancake Shop, a local favorite. Y’all, it felt like home–their pancakes tasted just like Grandpa’s used to. I even slathered butter and peanut butter on them and topped the whole mess off with two eggs over-medium just like Grandpa taught me. One of my new friends, an oatmeal-with-blueberries eater from Florida, was mortified. He said, “Think of all the calories.” Pouring on more syrup, I said, “This is the south. We don’t know what calories are.”

I ate–every–single–delicious–bite.

After breakfast we went to the top of a lookout tower and started a several-hour tour of the city with a park ranger, Tom. Here’s a picture of several of us with Tom on the elevator ride up the tower.

At the top of the tower, I learned all sorts of things. Hot Springs, it appears, is partly (but not completely) a National Forest. Here’s a picture from the tower, and the National Forest part (I think) is basically the lower half of the photo. If you’re familiar with Hot Springs, the Arlington Hotel is located in the middle of the photo, just to the right. It’s not the tallest building, but the L-shaped one. The shadow of the tower (which looks like a penis) is pointing at the Arlington. To the left of the center of the photo is another tall L-shaped building (which I’ll talk about later), and that’s the Arkansas Career Training Institute.

Although we drove to the top of the lookout mountain, we hiked down. This is something several of us, including myself, were not prepared to do, meaning we were wearing dress shoes and not sneakers. Plus, for whatever reason, my legs were shaking. Like, even when I was standing still, they were vibrating from my heels to my hips. This happens sometimes on a smaller scale when my legs are tired, but I’m not sure what was up today. When it comes to my health and physical body, I’m learning to ask fewer questions and simply go with it.

For the next few hours, we learned about the hot springs, how (over a long period of time) rainfall works its way through the earth, is heated up, and forced back to the surface (by the pressure of other water in the system) where it comes out at a temperature of about 140 degrees. Then we toured the local bathhouses, or what used to be the bathhouses, as many of them have closed and become other things. One of the bathhouses, the Fordyce, is a museum now, but was apparently the most opulent business of its kind during the hey-day of hot-spring bathing. (People used to travel here from all over the country literally by doctor’s orders to heal such things as polio, syphilis, and other ailments that you can’t actually cure with hot water. At that time, a round of “treatments” that lasted three weeks cost eighteen dollars.)

Here’s a picture of one of my favorite parts of the Fordyce, the only area with a floor not covered in tile–the gymnasium. Check out all the old workout equipment. When it was originally purchased, all of it–total–cost $1,500.

After the tour of the bathhouses, we ate lunch at Superior Bathhouse Brewery, an old bathhouse (the Superior) that’s been turned into a craft-beer-making joint. They’ve been open for five years, and it’s the only brewery in the world that uses thermal (hot springs) water to brew beer. How cool is that? Right here in Arkansas. Plus, they serve a pretty mean lunch, probably the healthiest thing I’ve eaten on this tour of the south so far. (My oatmeal-eating friend would be proud.)

Here’s a picture of me and two other journalists with Rose, the owner of Superior Bathhouse Brewery.

When lunch was over, I was given several hours of free time to roam or relax. Wanting to find out more about the second L-shaped building I mentioned earlier, I struck up a conversation with some locals, who told me that although the building was a vocational school, the lobby was open to the public. So off I went, up the hill toward the building, then into the lobby. Y’all, what happened next was perhaps the best part of my trip to Hot Springs so far (well, other than the peanut butter pancakes and craft beer). A man in a wheelchair, Lance, gave me a tour of the building, explaining that it is now a vocational school specifically for people with disabilities, but that it was originally the first Army-Navy Hospital in the nation. At 198,000 square feet, it’s 9 stories tall and used to have 500 rooms for patients.

Here’s a picture from the outside. The highest point used to be a water tower, but it’s no longer in service.

In addition to showing me the lobby (and the recreation area on the sixth floor), Lance showed me a small museum on the second floor–a single room filled with old medical and dental equipment from the 1930s. Y’all, there were surgery tools, dental implants, and rectal thermometers. There was even a human skeleton. I was absolutely riveted.

And creeped out.

Now I’m back in my room at The Waters and have about an hour before dinner. I’m ready for a nap, but I don’t think I’m going to get one. Instead, I’m just using the time to work on the blog so I can sleep tonight. I don’t have anything too profound to conclude with, but I’m so fascinated by the way that life brings people together, how our stories and songs connect and intertwine, if only for these brief moments, if only over lunch or a craft beer. To me, these unexpected meetings with strangers who smile at us and give us the grand tour are nothing short of miraculous, nothing short of mystical.