Eureka Springs

Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012--Harrison to Eureka Springs

I had noticed last night that there was a doughnut shop on a pad site in front of my hotel.  Well, when I went downstairs for breakfast this morning, there was a tray of assorted doughnuts!!  It was so nice to have something different.  I ate one with strawberry frosting and another with lemon frosting.  I also made myself a waffle.

It didn't take long to reach Eureka Springs, but it took a while to find the Travelodge where I am staying.  I drove by it FOUR times without seeing it, mainly because I thought I recalled it looking brown in the photos at the website.  Instead, it was a a bright blue (as it is on the website)!  As I did all of that driving, I realized I shouldn't have made a reservation.  There are lots of cute motels that look very clean and have signs displayed with vacancies at $39 per night for two.  So I spent too much money on the room I reserved.  Although it was early in the morning, the lady was able to let me check in.

I left my room at the hotel and walked to town.  Eureka Springs has one main road that goes through the center of town, and it is too narrow for parking.  Parking is a premium in the entire town.  They run a shuttle bus system for $5 per day so that people can leave their cars at the motels and ride it.  But as I was driving around town, I watched out for it.  It was obvious to me that they weren't coming around often enough.  So I just walked into town, around town, and back.  It was only difficult at the end when I had to climb a very steep hill to get back to the motel.  It still wasn't a big problem for me, though.

I walked down one side of the main street downtown looking in the shop windows and continued onward through a nice old residential neighborhood with homes from the 1800s.  Then I turned around and returned on the other side of the street.  I found the neighborhoods to be more interesting than the shops.  The shops had the usual choices for tourists like you find in Fredericksberg and other tourist towns.  Even though there are lots of art galleries here, I didn't see a single one with art that would appeal to me; therefore, I never did enter any of the galleries.  By the time I got back to the motel, I had been gone 2 1/2 hours and it was HOT.

I spent much of the afternoon in my room watching the Olympics, reading, and catching up on things on the computer.  Then I went back out again planning to see the Thorncrown Chapel, but it was closed.  I'm sorry to have missed it, but I feel as if I have been there from all the photos I have seen of it.

I finished reading We Disappear: A Novel by Scott Heim.  It was an interesting story.  I gave the book 2 1/2 stars out of 4.

Steps Walked:  12,432

Miles Driven:  95 (2 Days)