Mading family National Park Trip

We arrived in Hot Springs, AK yesterday. We took small highways through the countryside to get here. It is green, lush, and humid here. Interestingly, the national park is part of the town. We ate dinner the first night on an oudoor patio at a restaurant situated right next to a park downtown. Maddie and Ben got to run around with other kids. The town was bustling, we later found out that there was a big horse racing derby in town. There were ladies in dresses with funky hats. It was fun to people watch. Today, we went to the Hot Springs National Park visitor center and got a tour of one of the famous bath houses. We didn’t last long on the tour, Maddie and Ben did not find the history to be entertaining. There are a total of 47 hot springs in the area and the water comes out at about143 degrees. It is believed to have healing powers. It is crazy to see people pull up their car and fill up many jugs with the water coming out of the fountains. We ventured off on a hike up to the observatory tower. We were hoping to see an armadillo but we did get to see a few lizards. Maddie was chased by a giant beetle of some sort which turned out to be pretty traumatic! They are very welcoming of dogs here, Hank is now a certified “Bark Ranger”- no joke. We were all hot and sweaty after this adventure so we opted to go bowling in a nice air conditioned space. Tomorrow, we will head to Mississippi!