Halloween
II - the Second day
Lots of pictures! Users of dial up, beware
You know how it is when you first wake up after a long evening and your
brain isn't quite turned on yet?. I mean, your brain is active,
for the most part, but it just sorta sits there and spins it's wheels,
it doesn't send any messages to your body, except maybe to open your
eyes, but it just lets the rest of your body lay there as if you are
still asleep. That was my second day's morning. Saturday,
November 1st, Halloween II, the night after.
Ok, so I had enough Bushmills to fill my quota for the year. That
means maybe 2 drinks for me, in case you were wondering what sort of
lush I am. And those drinks were mixed with Pepsi, dammit!
And I'm a very good lush, by the way.
So.. Sherry may have been the first person to get up out of bed, but I
would bet my little toe on my right foot that I was the first to wake
up. I remember listening to the quiet. The birds chirping
in their country proud way. I heard the sunshine start to rise as
it scratched it's way across the windows and scrabbled for a foothold
on the walls and ceilings. It was a glorious morning, in one of
those "Waking up in your grandma's house on a country morning when all
is right with the world" sort of ways. No sounds, cept nature.
Not even the flush of a toilet.. a sign of civilized activity in any
apartment building. Not a tv sound, not a computer sound, not an
icemaker sound, no sounds at all except the simple sounds of the
sunrise.
And for those of you that know how light I sleep, this also means that
I didn't hear anyone snoring, either. And from what I've known in
the past, there are a lot of snorers in that house. That means
one of 3 things. Either I'm losing my hearing (possible), the
house is that soundproofed (also possible), or there is something in
that area that is conducive to helping snorers not snore (this gets my
vote). Sherry tells me that she's a big snorer. I know
Linda can be. So can Robin, Bobby, and even the dog. But
not a snore did I hear. Not a single one. The only noise in
the night was when the dog was trying to dig his way through a chair
seat as he was making his bed. He's a weird lil dog, but he's a good lil dog.
Sherry got up, made coffee, so I got up and drank coffee. She
said that she made it to strong, which meant that it was just about
right with me. Out on the back patio, which was still wet with
rain (it is the mountains..lots of rain), was a chipmunk. Bobby
and Linda had told me they had one or two, and here was the
proof. Here's his picture:
The rest of the house was getting up slowly, and I decided to take a
walk in the cemetery, which butts up against the back yard. I'm
just gonna dump the pictures here and put a little comentary under each
if it deserves it. By the way, there is a Halloween Tour each
year at Eureka. This cemetery is part of that tour.
Covenant Gardens. A nice place to visit. Heck, I might want
to be buried here.. that's how nice it is. Maybe just to be mean,
I'll bury my mom up here. Anyway, on with the show:
It just seems like a nice quiet place to stop and take a breather, doesn't it?
These folks actually have a bench here.. Pretty thoughtful This one's near the valley, so he's above ground
"Leelon Clark's handcarved stone." My favorite, a Spanish American war vet!
"Budded on Earth, To bloom in Heaven"
Child's grave. She lived 3 days. Mother is buried next to her
Linda had decided that today we were going to be tourists. I know
that Sherry wanted to go on the Halloween tour, but there were too many
steps and in Eureka, it's impossible to not take steps. Just that
simple. So we started out to go Downtown. To Linda's
credit, we took a route that she didn't believe existed. I found
on a map a short cut from her house to downtown. We took the road
and it twisted and turned through one of the few real residential
areas. This means normal houses that were not built along the
style of early 20th century. We came to a look out with a
beautiful valley view and a senic view of the Crescent Hotel. It
was at a look out where either a wedding was being performed or
something like that. There was a lookout over the valley, and two
folks were being video taped saying vows or something, but it was very
serious stuff. Pictures, Please:
That's the Crescent, way over there at the top. The happy couple. There were eagles flying around up here, too.
From there, we twisted and turned down into downtown. Linda wanted to
take the History Trolley tour, so we located a station, found out where
we bought tickets, how much they were, and that there was about 2 hours
before the next tour. Since we had time to kill, we took the road
up the way to the Crescent Hotel. Linda didn't want to overtax
herself so she stayed in the car while we did a small tour of the
hotel's lobby. We didn't wander to far because we didn't feel
right about leaving Linda in the car. Tain't right to leave a
companion behind, right Samwise? Here's what we did shoot in the
lobby:
After the Crescent, we went around to the back of the hotel.
Linda got out, and the rest of us took the ramp from the bell tower of
the Church there. This is a Ripley's believe it or not Church,
for many reasons. One of which is it's the only church in the
world where you enter from the bell tower. I took a bunch of
shots there.
We didn't want to go downtown and knock around waiting for the tour..
too crowded on this sunny Saturday, so we decided to see what the
outlying areas held. Besides, I think Linda had in mind to take
Sherry
to a RockShop that was in a little shopping center about 6 miles away
from her house. I'd been to this center a time or two before, but
the
last time I was there for any time was in 1987, I think. The
entire
place was different then, and Linda, Bobby and I had visited when this
particular little outdoor mall was just being finished. And of
course.. I took pictures.
We headed back to the Visitor's center on 62 to get to the Tour.
I think it was about 7.50 a person, and it was pretty much worth
it. The guide was entertaining, even if he did let his personal
Creationist theories creep in to his discertation. Oh
well.. each to his own as long as it doesn't spill into my soup, I
always say. I, of course have my own thoughts on the subject, and
I'll keep them in my own soup bowl, thank you very much. Unless
you catch me in a talkative mood.. ask Sherry, she'll tell you.
Then I do tend to ramble on and bore the hell out of you more than
likely. I had my trusty camera on the tour with me, and took some
pretty ordinary pictures... 15 of 'em more or less:
Tour ended, and just in time for me to snap a couple of pictures of
some old cars as the folks were starting them up and driving them out
of the Visitor Center's parking lot:
We headed home just as the day was starting to end, and I wanna tell
you, it ends quick up there! Dark came very fast, but before the
sun left, I took one more picture from Linda's front yard to show you
what the colors were like. I don't know why I have that power
pole as the center of attraction. I suspect it knew a picture was
being taken and it jumped into the frame before I snapped the shot.
If you are wondering why there isn't more color, I suspect it's all the
pine trees up there. The tour guide told us that the whole place
had been deforested and that Eureka Springs itself had burned down 4
times before they got it right. So most of these trees are fairly
young, not even 100 years old yet. And pine trees are hardy lil
suckers and greedy of their environment. It'll be some time
before the other trees win out and take over the country turning it
into a gold, red, purple colored land again.
No more pictures till the next morning. We were dead tired, and
slept like rocks. We only played a game of scrabble, which I lost
(again), and only drank a little bit of Bushmills. Next morning,
we had decided to eat breakfast and head out on the road again, heading
for Tulsa and Broken Arrow. I won't bore you with a lot of
details, but I will say that if you want a very pretty drive, don't
turn on 45, keep going west on 12 till you get lost in Rogers and
somehow magically connect with 540. It's a beautiful drive and
takes you over some wonderful scenery, the least of which is at Beaver
Shores. And if you're lucky, you'll find Devils Gap. We
did.. and it's 250 yards before the WarEagle Cavern Turn off (which is
what I, navigator that I am, was looking for).
The Happy Travelers in the Morning. Well... Sherry maybe. Me? I just dunno. When did I get so old?
Headin for Tulsa Time
Welp, that's the show for that trip. I'll be back, and I'm sure
I'll have more harrowing tales of my trips on the road. Ya'll
take care now!
CjB
