Day 48-July 18, 2015-Eureka Springs, AR
Got up to 92 but a wonderful breeze all day. Not very humid.
We started the day trying to find our little piece of property and think we found it but we’ll check with the office on Monday and make sure. We stopped at the café at the country club and had a nice lunch on their patio overlooking the golf course.
Eureka Springs is only 15 minutes from Holiday Island and has a lot to offer. It’s the only town in American where the entire downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places. There are 63 springs within the city limits, has over 230 streets that wind up and down, around and around hills. There are over 250 painted Victorian lady houses, most now are B&Bs and historic hotels. Lots of restaurants and 400 local artisans selling sculpture, jewelry, pottery, paintings, fountains, etc. in dozens of shops up and down the hilly streets.
We started at Christ of the Ozarks, up Magnetic Mountain around a twisty road with no shoulders to the top where they perform “The Great Passion Play”. There’s also a Bible Museum, Jerusalem Chapel, Sacred Arts Museum, Church in the Grove, Potter’s Theater and my favorite, a 10’ x 10’ section of the original Berlin Wall, sent here as one of only a few pieces to come to the US. I couldn’t believe I actually touched the Berlin Wall, quite an experience.
The Christ of the Ozarks statue is 67’ high, the largest statue of Christ in North America. It was built in 1966, every inch built by hand-not poured, the face is 15’high, it weighs over two million pounds, the arm spread from fingertip to fingertip is 65’. It sits high on the mountain overlooking the Victorian Village of Eureka Springs.
At the foot of the mountain is Magnetic Springs, the only spring we stopped at although we passed by many others. There was a water fountain in a beautiful garden and, up above in a grotto, the actual spring. The water was ice cold and very refreshing but I only soaked my arms in it. On to Thorncrown Chapel, a glass and wood chapel built in the woods. Gorgeous architecture in a beautiful setting. There was no wedding today but it must be beautiful when there is one.
Keel’s Creek Winery was on the way back down the mountain into town so we stopped and sampled a few of the local wines. We found out the owner and one of the servers lives in Holiday Island so we talked to them for quite a while about local things. Drove up to Crescent Hotel, supposedly haunted but we didn’t go in. The historic loop took us on narrow, steep, windy streets all through the village.
Found a car wash that could handle the truck so we tried to get it clean-I think it’ll take a few more washes before it looks clean again. Round and round the mountains again and we found one of the restaurants we heard about, Ermilio’s. Nice little Italian family restaurant with old family pictures on the walls. Some of the pictures looked like the same people I have pictures of from my grandparents’ time and, in talking to the owner, found out his family is from Sicily, they moved to New York for a while and lived in Brewster, NY and Danbury, CT. We reminisced about the snow for a while and we were both glad we now live where there isn’t a lot.
Back to Holiday Island we checked out the Rec Center-2 pools, tennis courts, basketball court, pickleball court, ping pong, fitness center, golf, etc. etc. The bigger pool is solar heated but it’s been so hot they turned off the heat and have to empty some of the water and fill it with cold every day. We didn’t ask about the smaller one, I guess it’s warm too. Drove by the marina-lots of boats on the lake today and then back to the RV, had a nice fire and listened to a whippoorwill in a tree above our heads join in with the cicadas.