How to hide/show nav bar on hover

I've built a nav bar that I want to be minimized unless the user's mouse hovers over the bar, and then I want it to expand to show the nav content and hide once again when moving away. I tried to accomplish this using hot spots for hide/show on hover, but it's not really functioning as I would like. I still think it's possible, but need some guidance on how to accomplish this. Right now, once the mouse moves past the hover, the nav bar is expanded permanently unless you mouse over the bar again. The behavior feels inconsistent likely because it is not set up correctly. Any advice to fix?

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