No Chain: Hot Springs, Arkansas

"oh let the rain fall down
and wash this world away

oh let the sky be grey

cause if its ever gonna get any better

its gotta get worse for a day"

- lyric by Bishop Allen

Wet. The only adjective needed to describe today. Sometimes we were wet by choice, but for the most part not. We started out today’s ride in sprinkles and ended it in a down pour 37 miles later in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It wasn’t a lot of fun and was also pretty scary at times even with the short distance we had to cover. Somewhere around 30 miles per hour on a bike rain stops feeling like rain when it hits you and starts to hurt, especially around the face. We also had to deal with the attack of flat tires again, including 6 tires changes going on within 30 feet of each other on the road thanks to some well placed glass. There’s also the issue of handling on wet pavement, it takes a lot of experience to feel truly comfortable riding in the rain especially along a pretty busy highway when you are relying on 23 cm of rubber to keep you up right and safe. Luckily we made it through the day with no major incidents. We all arrived completely drenched before noon at the First Baptist Church of Hot Springs where we had lunch and dried off, at least for a little bit. This afternoon we packed into the vans and hit the older downtown area where Hot Springs National Park is located, our 4^th national park of the trip. The springs are formed by rainwater that is collected through pores and fractures in rock that conduct it deep into the earth, as the water travels down increasingly warmer rock heats it. We all relaxed for a couple of hours in the thermal baths at the Quapaw House, one of the many bath houses located within the national park which have been in business since the early 1900’s. The naturally occurring pools within the house ranged in temperature from 94 – 104 degrees and were a lot of fun to hang out it in. We just finished another amazing dinner provided by the church, our first barbeque in barbeque country definitely lived up to its billing as the best in town as we all once again ate way too much. The storms are supposed to regain their power overnight, so we will all sleep with one eye on the radar as we’re supposed to travel to Little Rock tomorrow morning. No chain!