For years, prior to our move to Louisiana, we spent the week between Christmas and New Years on California's Central Coast. The winter months bring mild temperatures, light winds, and fresh crab to the coast. California's Central Coast, however, is a now a bit distant for a few days of rest. From our door in Farmerville, Louisiana, it's 1,899.65 miles to the Kon Tiki Inn on Pismo Beach; a slightly better option is the San Simeon Pines Resort in Cambria, but--at 1,958.88 miles--it still seems hardly doable.

So this year we turned our sights, and our tires, to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hot Springs is nestled within the Ouachita Mountains just a few hours up the Ouachita River from our home. The city--incorporated in 1851 but popularized for its mineral spas in the early twentieth century--is built atop numerous, well, hot springs. It's an old, and in any sense an antiquated, city; though it's redeemed by its natural beauty, its depression-era art deco structures, and the hospitality of its residents.

And, naturally, there's a baseball connection.

More than a century ago, when Major League Baseball was confined to the colder climes east and north of St. Louis, teams first sent their players south for Spring Training. But before Florida--and long before Arizona--baseball pioneers assembled in Hot Springs for physical conditioning and, perhaps chiefly, to "dry out."

Babe Ruth was among those early players who enjoyed the environs of the Valley of the Vapors. In fact, it was at Whittington Park in Hot Springs that the Babe, with one "Ruthian" swing of the bat, convinced management to move his considerable gifts from the pitching rotation to become a daily position player.

On St. Patrick's Day, 1918, Ruth--yet a pitcher with the Red Sox, but starting at first base against the Brooklyn Dodgers (then known as the "Robins")--hit his second home run of the game. The ball cleared the right field fence and landed across the street in the Arkansas Alligator Farm. Even the Robins stood up and cheered. It's estimated that the ball traveled 573 feet.

Baseball historian Bill Jenkinson recalls that day of Ruth's debut in the field and his two massive home runs as "the day that changed baseball forever."

I was taking a mineral bath at the historic Buckstaff Bathhouse, circa 1912, reclined in a massive tub old enough and big enough to accommodate Babe Ruth's considerable girth. And mine. I was relatively alone in the massive room of weary concrete, marble, and brass. It appeared that nothing had changed but the light bulbs since Ruth.

The mineral waters, flowing from the earth at 147,° relaxed and refreshed my body and soul; the attendant was a kindly man, an angel of sorts, an employee of nearly forty years. And for less than the cost of a California haircut.

I had the oddest sense while immersed in the churning, healing waters of the bathhouse. Surrounded by the old world elegance of another era, the aged but timeless facility felt like an ante room where one might be led after death in preparation for a better world; where the attendants welcome the weary, rinse away their impurities, refresh their spirit. It was, of course, an imaginative thought. But the thought itself remains transformative, restorative. A metaphor, perhaps, of the hope of a new world, a better world.

It was as fine as a trip to the coast.