Eureka Springs, AR
September 29-October 4th



Out of the blue we decided to finally, at long last visit a place we've been wanting to visit for 2 years. Eureka Springs. We've heard a lot about Eureka Springs and so decided that now was the time for us to visit there. We stayed at Wanderlust RV Park. http://www.wanderlustrv.com

This campground is very clean and well run. It is central to everything you'll want to see in this area. They have 90 sites. 57 are pull throughs and 41 have 50 amps. Cabins are also available. Clean bathrooms, laundry and pool. However, they are located on a ridge in Carroll County, AR. which is known for being windy. They do not recommend leaving your awning up while you are away due to the wind. Another downside is that the sites are extremely close together. If you plan on sitting outside much you can expect to be sitting next to your neighbor's sewer.

After arriving and setting up camp we drove into Eureka Springs. This town is very unique. While there are tons of shops and restaurants it is all presented in an eclectic way that draws your eye and makes you want to explore more. Below is the Flat Iron Building at the intersection of Main St & Spring St.

The history here is amazing. The town was founded because of all of the springs in the area. In the Victorian era many people came to this town for the healing waters of the springs. Below is a collage of all the springs we visited.

While we were there most of the springs were dry. I'm not sure if this is normal or if it was because of lack of rain but it was still interesting to see all of the springs and read about the history. You can visit all of the springs by walking Spring Street. It's about a mile and a half if I'm not mistaken. This will also give you some great views of downtown and shopping opportunities.

After touring the springs we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant called Devito's. It was a small Italian restaurant. http://www.eureka-springs-usa.com/devito/ The food was good and affordable.

After lunch we did a driving tour of the town. We took the historic loop which starts at the city limits and loops all the way through town up to the Crescent Hotel and back. There are some of the most majestic houses you will see on this drive. Below is a college of some of my favorites.

The next day we went to The Crescent Hotel. It is the highest location in Eureka Springs and is notably America's Most Haunted Hotel. The hotel was built in 1886 to house the visitors coming to sample the healing spring waters and has had many ghostly sightings. There are nightly ghost tours available or you are welcome to tour the hotel on your own. You can purchase a Walking Tour Booklet for about $3. We did this. The booklet mostly covers the history of the hotel but there is a section dedicated to spirits of the hotel. Below are some pictures we took of the hotel.

Hotel Sign

Spooky Hallway

Sculpture of Michael a young man who died in room 218 while the hotel was being built.

They say room 218 is haunted by Michael.

Outside view

After our visit to the hotel we had reservations for lunch on the Eureka Springs & North Arkansas Railway. 

What a treat! For $24 you get to choose between beef stroganoff, chicken salad with fresh fruit or a hot deli sandwich for lunch.  Entrees are served with rolls, drink and a special dessert. Plus you get to ride in a real dining car from a by-gone era. They also offer dinner rides.

From the balcony of the hotel the day before we saw a very large statue of a man across the mountain and were curious about it so we asked the desk clerk and she told us it was The Christ of the Ozarks. We found the statue at The Great Passion Play, which was just a minute down the road from our campground. The Great Passion Play is a live outdoor drama of the last week in the life of Christ. there is also a Holy Land Tour, museums and of course the Christ.

The Christ of the Ozarks is a 67 foot tall statue of Jesus with His arms outspread. It is quite amazing to see! It is a free attraction and is lit at night.

After seeing and being amazed by the Christ statue we went to War Eagle Caverns on Beaver Lake.

It's about a 30 minute drive from Eureka Springs to the cavern. You'll see some beautiful countryside on the way. It's $15 for adults to tour the cave. They offer other specialty tours as well. You can also visit the maze or go gem panning here. The cave has lots of bats! The ceiling is very low in places so you'll be able to see the bats up close. As a matter of fact your tour guide will caution you to be careful of knocking them off the ceiling. These bats are very small. About the size of a mouse and could be injured if they are knocked off. Seeing the bats was the most interesting thing for me as I've never seen them up close and personal.

Bat

David in the cave

This was pretty cool. I'm standing inside the cave and looking out this "window".

The next day it was time to head back home. We really did love Eureka Springs and we encourage all to visit if you can. Here's Hercules in his sweater enjoying the cooler temps. 

To see even more pictures of our trip click here: 

 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1494274130868904.1073741830.1454162668213384&type=3

Discover New York~ 2 Week Trip~Part 4 

July 29th-August 2nd

Allegheny State Park

The morning of July 29th dawned and we were up bright and early and ready for the last leg of our 2 week adventure. Juuuust kidding! We slept in till like 9 am, had a leisurely breakfast and drove out of the campground around 10 am. We are not early risers and only do it on days when we absolutely must. Traveling from Watkins Glen to Allegheny State Park is about a 4-5 hour drive so we were not in a rush.

We arrived around 3 pm and spent the next hour trying to find a suitable campsite. This is a state park  in a hilly region and they do not have very many sites to accommodate larger RV’s. The site they had us booked in fit the RV ok except for the mud on both sides of the site. We looked at every available site and not one was better than the one we had been assigned so we took that one but we had to put rocks under our awning legs so they wouldn’t sink in the mud. Very disappointing. Plus this campground only offered electricity. No sewer and no water. Anyway, we settled in as best as we could.

After settling in we drove down to the lake and explored the surrounding area. We were booked at Cain Hollow Campground in the Quaker area of Allegheny State Park. There are 2 lakes where you can swim, fish or canoe/kayak. There are hiking trails, an amphitheater and playground along with many more amenities. On this evening we sat and enjoyed looking at the lake.

We had fun sitting by the lake but the mosquitos soon drove us back to the car. Believe me when I tell you that the mosquitos in New York state are relentless! You must have repellent of some kind with you at all times. We took this picture on the way back to the camp site.

The next day we went on a hike called Bear Caves. We really had no idea what to expect except that we would probably see some caves that bear had been known to occupy. It was a short hike, only about a half a mile if I’m not mistaken. You’ll know it when you get there. Huge rocks have been pushed up over time creating these huge walls and platforms. Some have formed into small “caves”. They say there are 3 that you can go in and explore. We found 2 of them and David went into both. 

This first one you just walk right in. But the second one we found was on top of one of these high “platforms” and David had to climb down into a tiny space to get into it. He said it opened up once you got inside. No thank you very much!

Walking around all of these “walls” and “platforms” I found this boxed off area. I named it Dena’s Den. It is completely closed off except for the narrow entrance. Almost like a house without a roof. When the zombie apocalypse happens this will be my home. ;)

Looking down into Dena’s Den from above.

Later we went to a place called Thunder Rocks. Legend has it that the Seneca Indian’s god’s held a competition to see which one could throw huge boulders the furthest up the mountain. The tribe living in the area at the time heard the thunderous sounds all night as the competition was waged. The next morning they set out to see what had made all the thundering noise the night before and they found these huge boulders all up and down the side of this mountain and so called the place Thundering Rocks.

This place is very interesting. You can climb all over most of the rocks so kids get a big kick out of coming here. Even kids who don’t realize they’re not kids anymore.

If you open your mind and let your imagination run you can see shapes of animals in the boulders. To me this looks like the face of a huge turtle.

On the drive back to the campground we took this picture of a tree. It looks like the tree is on fire with the sun shining through the branches.

Back at the RV Hercules had to have a bath cause daddy spilled coffee on him. Herc merely endures baths. Poor guy!

The next day we went to the opposite side of the state park called the Red House Area. There we visited The Fire Tower which is a restored fire tower from 1926. It sits on one of the highest peaks in the Red House Area. 

You can climb up to the top and the views are spectacular!

After leaving the tower we did an almost 4 mile hike. Even though the hike was nearly 4 miles it’s a flat, well marked hike so is really just a very enjoyable walk in the woods. 

After the hike we did a biking trail around Red House Lake. This is a 5 mile paved bike trail around the lake with amazing views. 

There is a covered bridge to ride over. It reminded me of the covered bridge on Little House on the Prairie. 

Hercules, as always, enjoyed the ride as well.

After returning to the Quaker area and having dinner we stopped by the lake one more time to say goodbye as we would be starting our 2 day trip home early the next morning. And this time it would actually be an early morning rising at 6am to leave by 7am and driving all day for 2 days to get back home. But for now we enjoyed the quiet serenity of a full moon over Quaker Lake.

Discover New York ~ 2 Week Trip ~ Part 3

July 25th-28th

Malone/Watkins Glen

We left Buffalo and headed out for Malone, NY. This was about a half a day’s drive. It took us around 6 hours. The roads in New York are not well maintained and  people do not exceed the speed limit so it felt like a longer drive than it actually was.

We arrived at High Falls campground around 3 pm. We had booked at this campground because there is a 120 foot waterfall on site. There are 127 camp sites with full hookup. There’s a pool, playground, picnic area and events pavilion. In spite of the waterfall, pictured below, we were not impressed with this campground overall. First off it is mostly a seasonal camping campground. Which means that most of the campers live there year round and it feels kind of like a trailer park. They do have the overnight campers in a different section than the seasonal campers which is good. The campsites do not offer much in the way of privacy and there was loud music playing till around 10-11 pm on Friday night at one of the pavilions. It was posted in their literature that this would probably be the case. We went to the waterfall which was pretty impressive util you turned away from the falls and saw the trash and old falling down building on the bank. The walk to and from the falls was enjoyable though.

Time out for a little hilarious story. Being that we were in a town so close to the Canadian border, and just south of Montreal, which is French speaking Canada, more than half of the tv stations were in French and there were very few station to choose from. So we spent the evening watching Transformers in French with English subtitles. This got David very curious about the French language so he downloaded a translation app. He spent the whole next morning making and sending snapchats in French to our daughter telling her we missed her. Oh, how I wish I had video of this because it was quite hilarious! He would try his hardest to say her name in a French accent “Saavaanough. Je t’aime. Tu me manque.” Trust me it was hilarious!

At this point you may be wondering why we decided to go to Malone, NY. It’s just this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, literally 15 minutes from the Canadian border. Not much there except one thing and that leads us to confession time. I am a Little House on the Prairie fan and one of my bucket list goals is to visit each LHOTH site. I’ve already been to the original LHOTP site in Kansas and so we found ourselves in Malone to visit Almanzo Wilder’s boyhood home & farm. This is the place that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about in Farmer Boy. 

We arrived at the farm right before they opened for the day and were able to be in the first tour.

Our tour guide was a teacher who lives in Arizona but comes here every summer to conduct these tours and let me tell you he knows his Wilder history! 

He gave us a full tour of the barns and house. We were encouraged to ask questions and touch items that he invited us to touch. 

Me in front of the barns

Me pumping water out of the well

Front & side views of the house.

The next morning we packed up and left, we were on our way the Finger Lakes region of New York. We arrived at Watkins Glen State park. I very highly recommend this state park. The beauty of it is so hard to describe and the pictures that follow, as beautiful as they are do not do it justice.

This state park campground was a little bit of a challenge. They do not offer water, electricity or sewer. You are dry docked and must depend on your batteries and tanks while you are staying there. They do have water stations set up between every few campsites to refill tanks and they have a dump station. You may run your generator twice a day for a couple of hours in the morning and then again in the afternoon. You’ll need to do this to recharge your batteries.

The great thing about his park and most especially the section we stayed in; the Oneida Village, is that we were within walking distance of the gorge. And the gorge is why you want to visit this area. Have you seen Lord of the Rings? Picture the elven city of Rivendell and that will give you an idea of what this place is like. There are several trails you can walk in the gorge but if you can only choose one choose the Gorge Trail. It is 1.5 miles one way and offers 19 waterfalls. Below I’ve posted several different pictures from the trail.

This is a picture of a waterfall from inside a cave. Awesome!

MANY MANY stairs to climb

Underneath Rainbow Falls at Sunset

We also visited Lake Seneca which was beautiful. We drove down to the lake just before sunset and got some amazing pictures.

David & I on Lake Seneca

Pano of Lake Seneca

We had had an amazing experience at Watkins Glen and in the morning we planned on heading out to our final destination on our 2 week trip. I think Hercules may be getting homesick. :)