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I'm back
14 years ago
Back from vacay. Not to sound insensitive to people who lost their homes in the recent floods/tornadoes but all of the rain recently in Arkansas has caused the state to bloom like crazy and make everything greener than I've ever seen it! Such lovely weather while we were there..
Eureka Springs was beautiful. It's built into the side of a mountain so all of the roads are on different levels - to get to a different street you have to go up or down a flight of steep rocky steps which kills your legs/calves but the result is so worth it. And they have some really good places to eat so it's good you get so much exercise. n.n
The ghost tour was fun, kind of cliche at times, but overall pretty interesting... the Crescent Hotel is beautiful and I wish we could've stayed there instead. ;.; We stayed at the Basin Park Hotel and the location is very convenient to most of the pertinent shops and things. It's supposedly haunted as well and while I did have uneasy feelings from time to time I didn't witness or experience anything. I did hear boards creaking but it could have been the people in the room next door as the hotel is so old.
The tour at the Crescent Hotel takes you around to different areas of the hotel where various tragedies happened, including a little girl falling to her death down a flight of stairs and cancer patients being sacrificed in the morgue by a man who claimed he was a doctor but didn't actually have a medical license. I got some pictures down in the morgue but didn't see anything and honestly didn't have any weird feeling down there either. I did get an odd feeling as I went into the men's restroom down the hallway from the morgue where people have reported seeing figures in the stalls. I figured my odd feeling was due to being in a men's rest room but Kody later confessed that he got the same feeling. I snapped three pictures of the mirror and in the first two, I see the bust of a man wearing a brimmed hat (very faintly) and in the third one I see nothing. I will upload the pictures later...
On Tuesday we packed our bags and checked out. We drove to the Promised Land Zoo just over the Arkansas/Missouri line which is a drive through zoo. We bought a 5 lb bag of feed and fed buffalo, all sorts of deer, emus, zebra and more! Very very fun :D
After that we headed down to Fayetteville and checked in to the hotel there. My mom has a friend living in town so she spent the night with her friend while Kody and I had the room to ourselves, and my mom also let us borrow the car. We spent a few hours driving around Fayetteville - it's a cute little college town with a fair amount of things to do. Nothing too spectacular though.
We woke up early Wednesday and headed on over to the university to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama speak. It was a panel discussion so overall he only got maybe 20-30 minutes of speaking time but he spoke primarily of practicing compassion towards our enemies and the poisons of anger/hatred/resentment towards others. It was a little difficult to understand him at times due to language barriers and the fact that his mic was not working all that well, but you could get the gist of what he was saying.
Also speaking were Sister Helen Prejean, author of the novel Dead Man Walking which were based on her real life experiences, and Dr Vincent Harding, who was heavily involved in the civil rights movements back in the 60's I believe... overall a very interesting panel.
We headed home after that because Kody had to work yesterday.. I would have liked to stay in Arkansas another couple of days as it seems we had so little time to do anything... but it was a fun vacation and I'd really like to give Eureka Springs another visit. :D
Eureka Springs was beautiful. It's built into the side of a mountain so all of the roads are on different levels - to get to a different street you have to go up or down a flight of steep rocky steps which kills your legs/calves but the result is so worth it. And they have some really good places to eat so it's good you get so much exercise. n.n
The ghost tour was fun, kind of cliche at times, but overall pretty interesting... the Crescent Hotel is beautiful and I wish we could've stayed there instead. ;.; We stayed at the Basin Park Hotel and the location is very convenient to most of the pertinent shops and things. It's supposedly haunted as well and while I did have uneasy feelings from time to time I didn't witness or experience anything. I did hear boards creaking but it could have been the people in the room next door as the hotel is so old.
The tour at the Crescent Hotel takes you around to different areas of the hotel where various tragedies happened, including a little girl falling to her death down a flight of stairs and cancer patients being sacrificed in the morgue by a man who claimed he was a doctor but didn't actually have a medical license. I got some pictures down in the morgue but didn't see anything and honestly didn't have any weird feeling down there either. I did get an odd feeling as I went into the men's restroom down the hallway from the morgue where people have reported seeing figures in the stalls. I figured my odd feeling was due to being in a men's rest room but Kody later confessed that he got the same feeling. I snapped three pictures of the mirror and in the first two, I see the bust of a man wearing a brimmed hat (very faintly) and in the third one I see nothing. I will upload the pictures later...
On Tuesday we packed our bags and checked out. We drove to the Promised Land Zoo just over the Arkansas/Missouri line which is a drive through zoo. We bought a 5 lb bag of feed and fed buffalo, all sorts of deer, emus, zebra and more! Very very fun :D
After that we headed down to Fayetteville and checked in to the hotel there. My mom has a friend living in town so she spent the night with her friend while Kody and I had the room to ourselves, and my mom also let us borrow the car. We spent a few hours driving around Fayetteville - it's a cute little college town with a fair amount of things to do. Nothing too spectacular though.
We woke up early Wednesday and headed on over to the university to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama speak. It was a panel discussion so overall he only got maybe 20-30 minutes of speaking time but he spoke primarily of practicing compassion towards our enemies and the poisons of anger/hatred/resentment towards others. It was a little difficult to understand him at times due to language barriers and the fact that his mic was not working all that well, but you could get the gist of what he was saying.
Also speaking were Sister Helen Prejean, author of the novel Dead Man Walking which were based on her real life experiences, and Dr Vincent Harding, who was heavily involved in the civil rights movements back in the 60's I believe... overall a very interesting panel.
We headed home after that because Kody had to work yesterday.. I would have liked to stay in Arkansas another couple of days as it seems we had so little time to do anything... but it was a fun vacation and I'd really like to give Eureka Springs another visit. :D
But yes I agree with him and would've loved to hear him discuss such a topic. Welcome back by the way and glad you had fun