Today we went to one of the bath houses. We learned that of the two, one of them had private bathtubs and you didn't have to wear any clothes and the second one you wore bathing suits and it was men and women together, as far as I know.
So we went to the naked one, Buckstaff Bath House. $40 per person. For the price it included a soak in a private tub, a soak in a sitz bath, some time in this little steam contrapment, and then hot towels laid all over you for about 15 minutes.
I had to wait about 30-40 minutes for my turn. You go to a locker where you take off all of your clothes and belongings and strip down. Then one of the attendants comes in and you stand with your back to her. She has a bed sheet she wraps it under your armpits really tight and then Criss crosses the sides in the back and brings the corners over each one of your shoulders. It was actually kind of a cool idea.
When it's your turn for a tub, they fill it up about halfway full and the tubs are those old fashioned ceramic looking tubs on legs. There is an external motor thing that is attached to the tub that is super turbocharged and it really gets the water going more so than any hot tub I've ever been in.
One surprising downside is there's absolutely nothing to hold on to to crawl into the tub. I was shocked that there wasn't any type of hand railing at all. You stand on a little box and then sling your leg over into the water and hope you don't slip. The attendant told me they are not allowed to help you in or out of the tub. In this day and age of OSHA regulations, it actually is very shocking that there was nothing to provide for any safety.
I managed to get into the tub and sit down and the turbo thing was going. If you weren't careful and if you turned the wrong way even a little bit, the force of the water would go right up your butt or any other orifice that happened to be in the vicinity. My husband told me later that he felt very cleaned inside and out.
So you're soaking in this mineralized water for about 20 or 30 minutes. I saw the little sitz baths and I decided I wasn't going to go for that. Again, I honestly don't know how you would even do it but you would step up on a little step and then you'd have to squat super, super deep with your knees to put your butt in this little tub. I saw that and I honestly didn't think I would be able to do that and then especially not manage to get out of that tub.
So I skipped the sitz bath, and I went directly into this thing that looked a little bit like an iron lung. They put a towel down on the bench for me to sit on and they had these metal slat type things that came around my neck. I steamed in there for a little while. I don't know why my attendant didn't close the door completely because I could only feel the steam around pretty much my shoulders down. Anyway I got bored and told her I was done with that.
She kept giving me ice water which was nice. And then eventually I went and laid down on this bed and she brought the super hot towels that have been soaked in the springs water. She put one over my legs one down my back, and then one on my upper body. Then she brought a cold towel and put it around my head.
The whole thing was pretty surreal.
Inside the bath area, it looks like you could film a 1920s mental institution horror movie there.
We mostly did this to experience it as a re-creation of people back in the day who would travel here to take the waters. In that respect it was a very good experience.
In no way would it be comparable to the modern-day spas that are luxurious with music, ambiance, really nice smells, etc.
A couple of things that you,
fallon and @seguin would not have been able to handle, first of all you walk in your bare feet everywhere. That surprised me because I personally caught athlete's foot in a spa many years ago and never forgot it. I would think flip flops would be required, but apparently not.
My husband said on the men's side he actually did smell cleaners, but I saw no such thing on the women's side. I expected that I would see people scouring out the tubs in between people, and it's possible they did and I would certainly hope so, but I did not personally see it.
For that sitz bath, I am glad I passed on that because can you imagine sitting your butt down in a little basin and then not having it scoured clean with bleach, at the very least, in between people?
I don't think we're going to spend another night here, I think we're going to head down to Natchitoches, but if we did stay I would not mind going to the other hot springs place in town or even the hotel that has different hot spring spa treatments.
@seguin Tonight we went to the German restaurant you recommended. We both got a schnitzel dish, and they were both excellent. I wish we had known how big the schnitzels are because we could have easily shared one of those meals.
Tomorrow we're going to go to Garvan Gardens. We like botanical garden, and it has the most amazing chapel, I have seen it before probably on Instagram and it's one of those must see places.
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