Hot Springs Nat Park, AR

So I was wrong, we had one more National Park to go to! (But this was for sure the last one). Hot Springs NP is an urban park right in the middle of the town Hot Springs, Arkansas. To us it seemed more like a National Historic Landmark than a National Park, but out of the 390+ sites in the National Park System (Nat Forests, Nat Preserves, National Wildlide Sanctuary, National Monuments, etc) it is technically one of the 56 Nat Parks (that we are on a mission to see before Alea graduates... we only have 7 more summers to reach that goal!!!) Hot Springs NP is the first public land that Congress ever set aside way back in 1832 and designated as a protected site (long before Teddy Roosevelt)! The whole idea that special places should belong to everyone and not privately owned, began with these hot springs! Land stakers were trying to claim each hot spring, fighting over them, and charging for the water so the govt stepped in. Now all 47 hot springs are protected and completely free to the public, and trust me they take advantage; truckloads line up at the "Jug Fountains" to fill 5 gallon jugs and other plastic or glass containers of all kinds. It's what they use instead of buying bottled water. It tastes great and full of healthy minerals, as natural as it comes! It's so different than all the other hot springs that we are used to; it doesn't smell like rotten eggs, stain your clothes, etc. because there's very little sulfur or iron in the water. The water is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and 100% safe to drink; it doesn't have to be treated in any way....how cool is that!?! It's actually not cool at all; it comes out at 143 degrees!! ;} The locals are soo fortunate to have access to unlimited free "bottled water", not only saving money but also saving the landed fills from all that packaging and plastic waste!!! So we of course had to buy the commemorative glass jug and filled er up! The mineral content (milligrams per liter) is:
Calcium 45
Silica 42
Magnesium 5
Bicarbonate 165
Sodium 4
Potassium 2
Sulfate 8
Oxygen 3
It's even healthier than bottled water (especially if you store it in glass or stainless steel so it won't leech the plastic chemicals) and it doesn't have the chlorine that city water has from the tap. On average 700,000 gallons of spring water are collected each day!