adventure – Back in my parents' basement

Hot Springs National Park, AR

Confused because the GPS guided me to a town instead of a National Park, and because I couldn’t find the visitor center even though I drove directly to the address, and because the only Ranger station I could find was closed, I decided to drive straight to the Hot Springs campground. Maybe there I could make sense of my surroundings. Besides, I knew I needed to get there early if I wanted to camp because they didn’t take reservations.

When I got to the campground, it was a sea of RV’s. I don’t normally mind camping among RV’s, even though they usually have generators that wipe out any feeling of being in the wilderness, but this campground was laid out just like a parking lot. And it was very crowded. I found a Ranger and asked him where the visitor center for the park was. He gave me the address – the same one I had been to – and said it was one of the bathhouses on Bathhouse Row. LOL.

Hot Springs National Park is not like any other. It is, in fact, a town, known for its hot springs of course, but more widely known for the bathhouses that were created back in the late 1800s and early 1900s to service the mafia. Ella and I returned to town and went to the visitor center bathhouse to pick up a map of hiking trails. I decided there and then we would find a more primitive place to camp for the night.

I chose nearby Lake Catherine State Park. It was a pretty park and very well-maintained, but I didn’t know it was a power-generating lake. On the far shore, the focal point was a shiny, purring, well-lit power plant. When I didn’t look in that direction, I could pretend I was more or less in nature.

Our campsite was on the edge of the lake, which was very low for a lack of rain. Each site had a dock, but they were all on dry land – it made for interesting exploration. There were crazy-looking, gnarled tree roots sticking up through the sediment and an enormous driftwood root ball that intrigued Ella. The sun was setting, and the moon rose full and bright, reflecting over the water.

In the middle of the lake was a small island loaded with geese that honked enthusiastically and constantly. Flying in and out and lobbying for position with each other, they were a constant source of entertainment for me and Ella. They never stopped honking. In the middle of the night, when one would honk, all of them would honk. It would create a honking frenzy, and they did this every hour or so, all night long. Their zest for honking was comical and amusing, maybe even motivating. Even with the winter chill in the air, the moon shining brightly, and the impromptu goose sing-alongs, I slumbered sweetly.

Now that I had a better handle on what to expect, the following morning we went back to Hot Springs National Park. We started off at the visitor center where I left Ella tied outside in the care of a park volunteer, and I ran in and did a quick self-tour of the bathhouse museum. It was fascinating! There were four different floors for bathing, therapy, and restoration, and a roof garden for socializing. The curated pictures gave a great idea of what it was like back in the day, and it was quite an event, for sure. Each level had a different function. One was more social, one was therapeutic, one was for individual bathing with dressing rooms and a bathtub in each room. These bathhouses were not community pools like the Turkish baths of yore. It was very obviously an upscale, social, yet private activity. Here the rich and famous found healing and conducted business while fraternizing with mobsters. Today, Bathhouse Row has seven or so bathhouses still on display. Some are museums, but the rest are still fully operational.

Along with feeding the bathhouses, the springs bubble up in several steamy fountains around town. A steady flow of people fill jugs and bottles at all times of day and night. The water is 137 degrees, so you can make a cup of tea straight from the spring. I filled up my water jugs and let them cool before drinking.

Hot Springs National Park is pretty cute. Pretty small. Pretty well preserved. But definitely a city. There are several trails that run up the mountain through the park, all within view of the town, hidden poorly by trees. There are a few scenic drives that switch back and forth through the mountain to make the most of the land area. Scenic overlooks of the Ouachita Mountains have distant views of stores, warehouses, and construction sites.

After the scenic drives, Ella and I went on a few hiking trails. To my delight, fog had rolled in and obscured any visible traffic and shrouded the town below from view. Our favorite hike was the Sunset Trail, amazingly thick with moss and lichens that covered large rocks and tall trees. It was an excellent way to end our visit to Hot Springs.

Ozark Mountains, AR

Before heading south, I wanted to visit my son in Kansas, and that would take me on a northern route through Arkansas. Wonderful! I could do some brief exploring in the Ozark Mountains. After reading a few blogs, I chose several waterfalls that I wanted to see and mapped them out using my GPS. It’s around 20 degrees and snow from a recent storm was covering the forest floors and tree branches, but the roads are clear.

The drive through the Ozarks was beautiful and there were very few other people on the road. In fact, the only other vehicles I saw were two snowplows. Odd, I thought, since the roads are clear. As I turned off the main road into the National Forest, the paved road turned to dirt. I had about 20 miles to drive to the first waterfall. It would be slow going.

I was feeling pretty adventurous knowing that I had many miles to travel on this forest road, and as is typical, the more interior I went, the worse the road got. Erosion turned the road into a washboard with divets, potholes, and minor washouts in low-lying areas. The road was wet because of the melting snow.

I started to feel a bit of trepidation but exhilaration at the same time. I was super thankful that I had my Subaru and that I had a rooftop tent and not a trailer or an RV for this excursion. I was really excited about the possibility of being in the sho-nuff wilderness. I had sought out an uncultivated landscape the whole time I was in Hot Springs, and now I was getting a major dose of it.

Snow started to show itself on the road now, not just on the sides of the road. I got out to assess the situation and realized that everywhere it looked wet was really a layer of ice. I started to feel just a little concerned – I had been traveling on a layer of ice this whole time. Even more invigorated, I kept going.

I came across downed trees that a Ranger had cut up a day or so before, sawdust still fresh on the road. I could tell the tire tracks on the road were fresh, and even though I was worried about sliding, and I was on a very narrow road that had a steep uphill on one side and a steep downhill on the other, I felt confident that if a Ranger had gone ahead of me, I was also safe.

This is not my photo. My hands were at 10 and 2, and I didn’t have the nerve to take pictures. Photo: StockFreeImages.com

I felt safe until I came upon some large rocks that had freshly fallen onto the road. They were not covered in snow and the tire tracks did not go around them. My GPS had me turn onto another County Road, and it got even rougher. Now the snow was a couple of inches thick on the road, and there were no tire tracks, so I wasn’t completely assured I would be OK. I couldn’t see what was under the snow, so I didn’t know how stable the road was. It was very narrow with a steep fall on one side and the possibility of rockslides on the other.

Branches and small trees had fallen that I had to maneuver around. I was starting to feel more than apprehension now. My hands were sweating, and I had to take deep breaths to keep the oxygen flowing, reminding myself to breathe. I would find my lips pursed and my eyes dry from not blinking. I was holding my breath again. I would take a deep breath and tell myself, “You’ve got this; you’ve come this far; you’ve got all the equipment you need if something bad happens; you can change a tire; you have lots of warm clothes; you have your satellite communication device; you have plenty of food and water; you have enough gas to keep the car running for warmth if needed; and you have trusty Ella.” While I normally love solo adventuring, having another warm body with you does wonders for bravery.

I had to cross a one-lane bridge over a stream, and the view was beautiful. I wanted to get out and take pictures, but I didn’t dare stop. My phone, whose GPS I knew was working on memory, had no cell service, even with my signal booster. Deer ran across the road in front of me. More rocks and branches had fallen onto the roadway, and I either had to go over them or around them. Either choice could be dangerous.

I am inexperienced and out of my league here. I am not an outdoorsperson, nor an overlander, and I have never been on trips with anyone who is. I’m learning on my own. I’m not really sure what my capabilities are or those of my car. At that moment, I was super glad I had chosen the Crosstrek, which is all-wheel drive and has a higher clearance than other comparable cars. More self-talk. More continuing to breathe. More reassuring myself that I can take care of myself if something bad happens.

It was getting colder, and the sun was bright even though it was lowering in the sky, so the snow was continually melting and freezing. A bank of gray stratus clouds was on the horizon. I started wondering if it weren’t supposed to snow again. Weather in the mountains can be tricky and unpredictable.

After two tremulous hours in the forest with no sign of civilization, I pass a farm, and tire tracks reappear in the road. As soon as I see tire tracks, I start to feel more assured, and my confidence floods back. Even though I see no people, only cattle in the fields, I know I will make it without incident. Pretty suddenly, the road turns from snow back into wet dirt.

The funny thing is, I never saw a single waterfall.

All in all, it was an exhilarating yet terrifying trip through the mountains. I’m super glad I did it! I’m super sorry I didn’t get any pictures! Even when I passed the farm and turned onto a paved road, I had no cell service. Fortunately, I have some good maps, and I navigated my way to the Interstate that leads to my son.

After all that – the very narrow roads, the switchbacks, the ups and downs, and the gorgeous, awe-inspiring, and intimidating views of mountains all around me – I decided it was time for a long stretch of dry, flat land. Kansas here I come!

One of my very best friends planned a girls’ trip to Italy a year ago. It was a delightful trip and I learned from her the joy of planning well, but also the joy of being lost. She carefully crafted a calendar list of things to do, but every other day she planned nothing. Those days we wandered until we found something interesting. Our first escapade was absolutely by accident though.

We rented a car at the airport in Rome, but our first stop was a stay in a villa in Manciano. The attendant at the car rental place was helping us program the address into the car’s GPS. We felt pretty smart asking for his help doing this – cutting out a small piece of the unknown and whatnot. However, the attendant erroneously put Lanciano in the GPS. Maybe it was an accident. We drove for about three hours on a trip that should have only taken an hour or so and were nowhere near where we should have been. To be fair, we weren’t paying attention to the map at all, much less checking it against the GPS directions. We were busy looking out the windows and enjoying the beautiful sights, the green rolling hills, the small villages with closely packed, red-tiled roofs, the patchwork of vineyards and farms. It was a lovely landscape that we never tired of watching roll languidly past us. Until we realized we were close to the time of arrival, and the GPS still had us traveling to the opposite side of the country. We pulled out the map, trying to orient ourselves – a group effort to be sure. And we were starting to get hungry.

We realized the attendant’s mistake way too late, but no worries; the landscape was beautiful, and we were enjoying each other’s company. We could drive a little farther – all part of the adventure! We decide it’s a good time to stop for supper, so we pull off the highway into a little town that was very much off the beaten path. We find a restaurant and are so excited to eat some authentic Italian food. The real stuff. But in Italy, don’t try to eat anything before 6 or 7 o’clock. Literally everything closes down for riposo, the Italian siesta. Our hunger intensified as we drove from little back road to main highway looking for something to eat. Finally, we found a little coastal town with a very sweet restaurant right on the sea. At sunset, no less.

The view from that little Italian town looking out over the deep azure blue of the Mediterranean into the soft oranges and reds of the setting sun washed away all the cares of being lost in a country where we didn’t know the language nor how long it would take us to get to our villa. We were very obviously some of the very few tourists who ventured to this town – people at the restaurant openly stared at us. Occasionally they would raise their glass to us or smile and nod, but none spoke English. Fortunately, we were assigned a waiter who spoke fairly good English, and we ate a delicious Margerita pizza with wine. We felt so fortunate to have stumbled upon this place at just the spectacularly right time. The restaurant was constructed with large wooden beams that framed an open-air patio with small tables. To enter, you walked through a vine covered archway that made it feel like you were walking into another dimension. It perfectly set off the sunset view and perfectly juxtaposed the hustle of us being lost and hungry. It was a sweet, small, magical meal.

Then, on to our destination, which led to our next adventure. We were the typical Americans driving an SUV in Italy where in some towns the streets are so narrow, many times only one vehicle can fit on the road at once. Locals drive minis of one kind or another, and even then, sometimes have a tenuous time maneuvering the crooked, narrow streets. It turns out our villa is in just such a town. It is a mountainous area that is replete with hairpin turns and drivers jockeying for the best position to get where they’re going. We were by far the tallest, widest and biggest vehicle. Maybe it was too many navigators, maybe it was the lack of language skills, maybe it was too many hours spent in a vehicle together, but whatever the reason, we were lost again despite the GPS’ best efforts. My friend was driving and doing an unbelievably skillful job given the challenges. It was dark and the twisting roads in the tiny neighborhood were tight. She had to perform several 3- and 4-point turns to do 180 switchbacks up a hill, navigating past many smaller cars that treated road signs as suggestions. We stopped at a local inn to ask directions, lucky to find an English speaker.

We make it to our villa but don’t have the benefit of seeing it fully because it was so late and dark. We unload the Suburban and lug all our suitcases up three flights of stairs, stopping at each flight. We made it. We feel like the quintessential Americans in Italy. The next day we see the innkeeper who recognizes us, warmly welcomes us and invites us in for a glass of wine.

My favorite story about being lost is visiting the Pantheon in Rome. I was walking the city on my own, taking in all the sights in my own time and in my own way, my favorite way to sightsee. I spent several hours walking through the Roman streets and alleys, enjoying every little shop, every little church, and every little café along the way. There are so many people out walking, visiting, working and sightseeing; the streets are very crowded. The side streets in Rome are narrow and short, intersecting and overlapping other streets, all with similar names. Many times, a street changes names in the middle of a block and they aren’t always clearly marked. Oftentimes, an address is etched into the side of the building, with name and number, but the name of that street has changed over time. So, the maps are not clear. I am laying out my defense here because, even though I was walking with a map in hand, reading it right-side-up and carefully, I was forever and constantly, hopelessly lost. My saving grace was the river. Somehow, no matter where I thought I was going, I always ended up at the river, which snakes to the west of town. I kept trying to go east but somehow ended up back at the Tiber, which was okay because that’s the only way I could orient myself on the map.

I knew I wanted to see the Pantheon, and I had it located on the map; it was pretty much in the center of the city. I was enjoying the city’s architecture, the foliage, the winding alleys and the friendly people all saying, “Ciao Bella!” all along the way, so there wasn’t the typical frustration that accompanies being lost. I did however want to get there while it was still light….

I felt like I was close, but an attraction this big should be marked with street signs pointing the way and cordoned off from the rest of the neighborhood, shouldn’t it? I should surely be seeing something that tells me it’s near. I never did see a sign, and I was amidst apartments that were stacked high with laundry hanging out over the small patio railings. I am in a haven of little Italian shops with cafe tables wedged between the storefronts and the street, with clay shingles, colorful tiles, and flowers in hanging baskets, and of small markets with lively displays of vegetables out front and deliverymen on foot. But as I round a corner, ahead of me is a giant brick wall, out of nowhere it seems, and it looks really out of place, looming large and obstructing my view. This couldn’t be it, could it? It was surrounded by a low wall which people sat on, very casually and unceremoniously eating paninis and talking on their cell phones. If this was it, this scene seemed ignominious almost, like the locals were oblivious to the building’s import. But as I walked around it to the front, it was obvious that through some less trodden, back passageway I had made it to the Pantheon.

In the front of the building, huge columns came into view, as did a large plaza with signs, statues, and all sorts of crowds – hundreds of people standing in clusters. Exactly what you would expect from a historically significant tourist attraction. There were long lines to get inside. It is no longer the temple of the gods erected in 27 BC but had been turned into a cathedral of sorts 600 years later, with crosses and statues of the saints, and now serves as a church. The giant dome with the hole in the center that let in the sunlight, illuminating the frescoes and tile, was a fascinating focal point. I imagined what it was like in a storm with the rain pouring in. It is a fabulously interesting structure with giant pillars outside, and the brick! So thin and stacked so high, created by the world’s foremost architects of the time. Substantial.

I’ll never forget how amazed I was to see it out of nowhere from the rear, large and ominous. Luminous. One of the most magical things about Italy is its blending of ancient history and every day, present living.

Our last experience getting lost was fun. We were all walking together, five women on this girl’s trip, in Sorrento, looking for a particular restaurant that we had been told about. We kept walking and kept walking, realizing we were going in circles and not having much luck with the street signs. Again, hunger dictated that it was time to stop, and fortuitously a gentleman called to us to eat at his ristorante, as they often do. He invited us in and seated us at a table on the stone-paved patio among the baskets of geraniums. We were all feeling light-hearted and ready for a glass of wine. Because we were Americans we attracted a bit of attention. The singer from inside came out to serenade us with the few American songs he knew. He brought tambourines to us and we joined him in singing Bon Jovi and a few other songs in his butchered English. It was great fun. We stayed and sang and drank wine and laughed with all the people around us. We had created a party – and it got better from there.

My friend told the owner it was my birthday and asked if they could do something special for me. They brought us a dessert and the singer sang “Sweet Home Alabama” – which for Alabamians is an anthem and a party song at the same time and calls for immediate dancing with clapping and the loudest of singing. We all jumped up to dance, and so did others at this little restaurant, in this little town. I have no doubt we had more fun at that little restaurant than we would have had at the one we were looking for. That impromptu and spontaneous party was one of my favorite memories of our trip!

Being lost, as my friend often remarks, leaves you open to new possibilities and the unknown. It’s the best place for growth and adventure. It 100% helps that she doesn’t know a stranger. She is friends with everyone she meets and has a way of creating something out of nothing because of her gregarious and friendly demeanor. Being lost, in her eyes, is an opportunity to make new connections and reinforce the notion that we have more in common with each other than we have differences.

She has taught me the profound joy of being lost.

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