EUREKA SPRINGS

Yesterday, I went to Eureka Springs.  I have not been to Eureka Springs since I was a teenager.  I know, that was a long, long time ago!  The weather was beautiful and was a great day to be outside, so, Mr. W, DWW, Barb, and I went to check out the town.

For those of you who have been there, you know the streets of the town are very narrow.  The streets are also very uphill and downhill. So, the whole time I'm walking down the street, I'm thinking about having to walk up the street. That can put a damper on your tour of a town!

There are many shops, cafes, candy stores, and other specialty stores along the way. I did find that the prices in most of the shops were somewhat on the ridiculous side of high.  That's my opinion.  If you shop in the stores that are on the ends of the streets instead of in the middle of the streets, you will find some of the same merchandise at a more reasonable price. 

I got there close to lunch time.  After a little strolling through a few of the shops, we decided to eat at the Basin Park Hotel restaurant.  It actually was more like a café/bar but most of the tables were up on the 2nd floor and outside on a deck that went around 3 sides of the building.  When the weather is nice, I love to eat outdoors at restaurants. I had one of the best Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches that I have ever had. Mr. W's hamburger looked pretty darn good too!

Me and Mr. W at our table

The hotel sign from our table

 

The street below from our table

We wanted to take the tour of the tunnel system.  It is only offered at 4:00 each day.  Since we had time to kill, we decided to check out a few shops and then drive to where the passion play takes place.  There is a huge statue of Jesus there.  This statue is called Christ of the Ozarks because it overlooks the hills.  Remember me saying that I had not been to Eureka Springs since I was a teenager? Well, my youth choir from church made the trip and we sang in front of the statue before the play began.

Eureka Springs has a scenic loop, so after we left the passion play area, we decided to drive the scenic loop.  There were a few photo ops along the loop.

At 4:00, we met our tour guide at the park in town to begin our tour.  How many of you knew there was a tunnel system in Eureka Springs? That's what I thought. According to local history, two major streets in downtown Eureka Springs underwent considerable re-engineering in the year 1890. Main Street was the first official "street" in town, built in a low level gulch, alongside a small spring-fed creek. It suffered from frequent runoff problems and quickly earned the nickname "Mud" Street, hence the need for improvements. The second street in town requiring attention was Spring Street, as it was also becoming a main thoroughfare for carriage traffic.

One of the easiest ways to catch a glimpse of the Eureka Underground is to peer through the metal grate in the sidewalk in front of The Vintage Soda fountain shop on Main Street. If you have a flashlight or a camera with flash, you should be able to see some of the old windows from the original level of the storefront.  We actually looked through the grate and then walked down to enter into the tunnel system below.

There are actually 2 sets of tunnels.  One is the creek routing tunnel that is the lowest set of tunnels and it routes the creek through the town. The sidewalk tunnels were formed by the people of Eureka Springs wanting to raise the city.  The creek routing tunnel that runs beneath the buildings on the East side of Main Street is actually older than the sidewalk tunnels created in 1890. It was hand built of native stone and in many cases "dry stacked" without any mortar. Over the years, the concrete storm drain system for Main Street was developed and tied into the old creek routing tunnel. It continues to feed into the underground creek to this day. The sidewalk tunnels were created when the street levels of Main and Spring Streets were raised. These tunnels exist beneath the sidewalks. Most have been walled off at property lines, creating individual caverns that are only accessible via the adjacent building basements.  You can walk along Spring Street or Main Street and see glass blocks embedded in the sidewalk, purportedly placed to shed light on the hidden tunnels below.  Our tour guide was raised in Eureka Springs and she and other children of the town use to play in the tunnels.  They could see to run and play in the tunnels because of the light shed from those glass blocks.  The tour was interesting and I would recommend it.

On our way back to Branson, we noticed a beautiful sunset about to take place.  We pulled into Mill Creek Public Recreation Area to try and capture the sunset in pictures.  Not only did we find a place to take pictures but we also found a great campground.  It is a Corp of Engineers park and all of the sites are paved and almost all of them are on the water and have amazing views.  One of the campers there said that they close the park down at the end of October and reopen in March.  If you are in the area, this would be a great place to stay.  Water and electricity only.

Here are a few more pics. Enjoy!