All posts by Sue Ann

Eureka Springs Day Three

it was nice and warm when we got up this morning. Not cold like yesterday morning.

Allan cooked us a nice breakfast of eggs and pancakes. There’s something about camp food that just makes it taste so good!

Minis in the Ozarks kicks off today so we went to the convention center to do registration and join a bunch of our mini friends for the kick off drive down the pig trail.

So much fun and the scenery on that drive is just breathtaking!  We stopped at the little store that sells the cool stickers and tee shirts, then we went to eat at a country store cafe in Oark. I don’t remember the name but we ate there on last years drive also. Today we sat with a couple of nice people from the Chicago area and enjoyed visiting with them and trading mini trip stories.

Allan had a bacon cheeseburger with bbq sauce. I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. We each had buttermilk pie and ice cream for dessert.

We were finished before most of the group so we said goodbye to our friends and headed back.

As with most all of these mini drives, it’s all fun and games until someone throws an error code. This time it was Buster. Damn!  The display showed us a sad engine picture and then he went into reduced power mode. He was NOT a happy camper going through the twisters with ordinary vehicles on his bumper. Poor fellow.

Wr stopped at O’Reilly’s in Huntsville, AR to have the codes read. We had lost first cylinder.  Rough ride.

Eventually we crept back to the convention center and talked to a nice man from Mini Of Little Rock. He told us it’s okay to drive in limp mode unless error specifically says otherwise. So we will have Buster taken care of when we get back home. No more group drives for us this trip though.

Back to the camp ground Allan built us a nice fire because temperatures are dropping. It is supposed to be in the 30s tomorrow morning around get-up time.

Eureka Springs Day Two

Brrr!  It was cold when we got up this morning. I got in the hot shower at the KOA bath house and didn’t want to get out. But I finally did.

First order of the day: get Allan a proper manicure. I wanted his first time to be a nice experience so took him to the Lush Spa at the Super 8. It was very nice and the lady did a good job.

Next:  downtown for a day of fun in the nice sunny weather. It was a perfect day for such.

We had lunch at Nibbles. I had Italian sausage quiche with salad and Allan had asparagus and Swiss quiche with soup. We shared the most exquisite slice of 5 layer carrot cake .

Of course we stopped in to Hats, Hides, and Herilooms to see Holly and check out the new fall hats. Allan finally got the hemp Stetson he has been wanting for months. I seriously eyed a hand painted handbag with dragonflies on it but didn’t want to spend all of our money the very first day.

Next to Crystal Waters for browsing. Couldn’t leave without a couple of spheres and a few stones.

On to T-Rex for the latest candle.  This one honors Chris Cornell. I asked if there would be a Tom Petty and he said yes but they will wait a while before releasing it because some people were upset with how quickly Chris was honored with his candle. The quicker the better in my opinion but to each his own.

A trip to downtown Eureka Springs wouldn’t be complete without visiting the hardest working bunnies at East by West. Adorable as always.  Since they wouldn’t let me leave with a bunny, I settled for a box of incense.

Back to the campground. Allan took a nap and I took a hike.

When the sun went down Allan built a nice fire. We warmed our dinner on the open flames. I had a can of tamales lol. Allan had a can of chili. And a good time was had by all.

Eureka Springs day one

So, Allan, Buster and I are doing MITO again this year and will be tent camping.

We were a little later than we wanted getting out of town because we had to go back twice; once for our plastic money and next for Allan’s jackets ?

A few hours into our trip north both of our phones warned that we had used 90% of our data for the month  and we were only one day into a new data cycle.  How could this be?  A couple phone calls later, Verizon credited us with 8 GB to hold us over since it had been an apparent glitch of some kind and we very very thankful for this kindness.

Other than the data scare, had a great drive up. Beautiful clear blue skies, no bad traffic, a little more wind than we would have liked seeing as how Buster had his hat on. Buster’s hat is his big storage container that mounts to the roof rails. We load that up with bulky squishy stuff like the tent, sleeping bags, and pillows.

We have gone on several camping trips over the last year and thought we had gotten pretty good at it. Til it came time to set up the tent.

“Sweetie where are the tent stakes and poles?”

”They’re not in the tent bag?”

”No.”

Uh oh.

Whirlwind trip to the closest Walmart for a new tent.

We really lucked out because we found one that was not only under $100 but also it was supposed to go up in 60 seconds. Challenge on!

Back to the KOA we go with our new tent. Suffice it to say it did not go up in 60 seconds but it did go up pretty quickly. The stakes that came with it were way too flimsy to go into the rock hard  ground of Arkansas but the nice man at the country store loaned us some really good stakes and with those we were able to secure our tent to the ground.

With our housing insecurities resolved it was now time to deal with hunger . Off we go to the Rowdy Beaver Restaurant . Food and service were good.

Back to camp we went. With full bellies we drifted off to sleep.