Eureka Springs, Arkansas

So yeah, it has been a quick two years. A couple of months ago, Milli realized that we haven't been on a trip just the two of us, for....two years! So we decided a trip was in order. It just so happened that my spring break was the week before our anniversary, and since our first honeymoon burned down, we felt we deserved a second try.

Milli found out about a nice place nestled in the Ozark "mountains", called Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Now, if you can somehow manage to reconcile the fact that the natives here pass off these glorified rolling hills as mountains, if you look around, you might find that the Ozarks are indeed beautiful. I guess you could say it felt a bit more like home than Kansas City.

So we hopped in the car for our uneventful trip to Arkansas, and when we arrived, we checked into a cozy little cottage for two. It's name was "A Taos Sunset". If it looks small in the picture, don't be decieved.... it's smaller. But it was perfect for us.



We stayed for a day, and had a great time. On Saturday night, we had decided to enjoy a little bit of southern cookin' (Milli wouldn't let me eat at Pizza Hut), and we ventured to "Grandma's Cornbread and Cobbler". When we walked in, we immediately saw the only two employees in the place hunkered over the cash register, trying to figure the thing out. Maybe Grandma just found out about cash registers? We stood in front of them for a long moment before finally being noticed by the older employee. She explained to us that they couldn't make it work, but she would take our order and when they got the "dern" thing working we would get our bill. Of course, I had to order the cornbread and beans, which ended up tasting like it had been cooked by some outlaw in the wilderness about 150 years ago. Good thing I got that hotdog, because I would have been miserable without it, what with Pizza Hut only just across the street and all.

Nearing the end of our meal, our nice old waitress brings up our bill (they got that dern thing working finally), and apparently we owed them 24 dollars for some nasty beans and cornbread, a hot dog, and a salad. By my count, we owed them about twelve. So, after the meal, I asked her to itemize that bill, and they realized their folly. So she went to work on this calculator (the cash register couldn't add, but neither could she). She comes out with a new wrong number, and after a few tries, I volunteered to walk her through all of the calculus. We finally got the right number (it was twelve something)!

Here comes the best part. I then mentioned to her that we wanted two orders of cobbler (which actually turned out to be quite good), and asked if she could add that onto our bill. So she whipped out her trusty calculator again, and quickly added up the new numbers , and she said, "OK, that brings your total to $8.50." Are you laughing yet? I almost payed her right then and there, but I ended up doing the right thing and re-working the bill with her to a nice round number of $15. As I prepared to pay her with my debit card, she told me that their debit machine wasn't working, either. I ended up paying the lady everything I had in cash, which was $10 even. So we caught a break on that nasty cornbread. Is that what southern cornbread is supposed to taste like, anyway? They should just stick to cobbler I think.

And that was just the beginning of our evening! After we left the grandma's place, we went to an ole' fashioned Ozark Hoe-Down, complete with some seriously cheesy comedy and impressive musicians. I mean, we're talking keyboard, guitars, steel guitar, banjo, harmonicas.... it was my kind of show. Of particular note was the coolest version of the "Dueling Banjos" I have ever heard and an awesome keyboard version of Lionel Richie's "Stuck On You". It turned out to be a great program, and I highly recommend it to anyone that finds themself wandering the Arkansas wilderness.

I must stop, this post is getting ridiculously long. We had a great time in the Ozarks. Milli is a great road tripper when she doesn't have the scoots. I wouldn't have any other navigator before her. The only bad thing about our trip was that we forgot to take our "dern" camera! So sorry about the lack of real pictures, but you've seen us before, and we still look the same, so stop complaining.

If you are still reading this, I applaud you for your stick-to-it-edness! Good night, all.