An early spring get-away to Hot Springs, AR with good friends Becky and Clarence seemed like a cure for the winter doldrums – after all, Hot Springs is >200 miles south of here so it had to be warmer, right? Wrong! Fortunately we didn’t leave until Friday morning because we heard Hwy. 65 was closed on Thursday evening due to ice and snow. We left under gray skies that seemed to get grayer the closer we got to Arkansas and the ground became whiter the further south we went – over 12″ of snow in some parts of northern Arkansas which to them was a blizzard! About an hour away from our destination we got a phone call from the hotel where we had reservations – seems their roof had collapsed from heavy snow and ice so they were sending us to another place. A quick drive-by of that motel let us know we needed to find something else but with all the last-minute cancellations, we scored a place right across from the racetracks and by the end of the weekend had decided the first hotel did us a huge favor by cancelling on us.
We got to the tracks just in time to settle into our seats Friday afternoon and begin the process of losing $ on the horses. It took a few races before I got the gist of the whole thing – things like daily doubles, exactas, trifectas, boxing, win, place, show – any and all of which were almost guaranteed to leave me with less cash than when I started. We had a few rare moments of wins and at one time took a short break to play about 3 minutes of slot machines in the casino which upped our winnings for the day to a whopping $30 – just about enough for a bite of Mexican food and a shared margarita.
Saturday morning the weather was at least sunny, although still cold, but we drove around the area and toured one of the old bath houses from the heydays of the early 20th centure when people flocked to Hot Springs for recreational and medicinal purposes. Then we headed back to the races where our luck turned south leaving us at a -$1 for our 2 days of horse betting! Not bad for cheap fun. Interestingly enough, an older friend of Becky’s had given her $60 with instructions to place $2 to win on each of the first 3 horses in each of the 10 races on Friday – whatever winnings there were from Friday she was to take and do the same thing again on Saturday as much as she could. At the end of 2 days, she had $120 to return to her friend so he doubled his money without even looking at any of the horses or listening to the anouncer’s picks or studying the morning lines. I may have to adopt that theory next time.
Today we did a little hiking in downtown Hot Springs and even climbed the 21 flights of steps to the top of the visitor tower for a 360 degree look at the town. Of course since we were leaving the weather was warming up and by time we got home it was shorts and long-sleeved t-shirt weather – perfect for taking the dog for a long walk and working in the yard. It was nice to stay outside until 7:30 thanks to springing forward last night.
A fun weekend where we ate too much (fabulous chateaubriand at Coy’s last night), drank too much (introduced Becky and Clarence to Menage a Trois red and the 4 of us went through a few bottles of it – wonder what the hotel maids thought!), caught up on sleep, relaxed and most of all, had fun with good friends which is one of the main pleasures of life.
