Living Large In Our Little House

Downtown Eureak Springs

Last week I wrote about get­ting out and doing things in the vicin­ity of The Little House. I think it’s impor­tant to be able to get away, even if it just for overnight to not only get to know the area you call home, but also to renew and refresh the spirit.

This past week­end, we were able to do just that.

One of the great things about my job is that I some­times get to go places on assign­ment and this past week­end, Dale and I made the trek to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a quaint lit­tle town about 1.5 hours from The Little House.

We left the Fearsome Four with our trusted pet nanny for a night and left The Little House early on Saturday morning.

As I’ve writ­ten before, my par­ents used to take us on vaca­tion to the Ozarks a lot and Eureka Springs was one of my mother’s favorite des­ti­na­tions. She loved going to see the Great Passion Play and the 5-story tall Christ of the Ozarks statue.

The last time Dale and I vis­ited Eureka Springs, it was some 15 or so years ago. We brought Mom, and rented a 2-bedroom duplex on Beaver Lake, just out­side of Eureka Springs. The trip made every­one happy. Beaver Lake pro­vided Dale the fish­ing he wanted to do and Mom and I the shopping.

We even took Mom to the pas­sion play and the saw the statue – what a per­fect vacation.

This trip was both nos­tal­gic, as of course, that last trip with Mom was on my mind. I could also still remem­ber a cou­ple of the places I had stayed on trips with my mom and dad as a child so many years ago. The trip was also like vis­it­ing a new place as well. There have been a lot of changes to Eureka Springs since the last time we were there.

This time, Dale and I stayed at the Inn of the Ozarks, a Best Western prop­erty just out­side of town. While wait­ing for our room to be read­ied for us, we decided to drive over to Beaver Lake Dam. It’s a beau­ti­ful lake, but not quite as big as our Bull Shoals.

We thought it funny that at two look­out points, there were signs warn­ing us that we were under sur­veil­lance from a “remote loca­tion.” The signs gave us fod­der for jokes all day long. Who would be doing the remote sur­veil­lance and using what kind of tech­nol­ogy. Every time we saw one of those signs at the park, we expected Jack Bauer to jump out scream­ing, "We're run­ning out of time!"

As expected, Eureka Springs was crowded this past week­end and there was a lot of traf­fic. It also has some pretty nar­row streets and lim­ited park­ing down­town, so when we headed out to browse the shops on Saturday after­noon, we bought a 2-day trol­ley pass, which picked us up and dropped us off right at the hotel. It was fun just to be able to ride and see the sights with­out one of us wor­ry­ing about driving.

The down­town area is alive with a mix of antique, arts and crafts, sou­venir shops, art gal­leries and restau­rants and bars. “There’s really too much to see in just one day,” Dale said, after we huffed up one of the steep hills that reminded me of trekking in San Francisco.

Of course, that got the "We're run­ning out of time!" joke going again.

There was a lot to see, and a lot I wanted to buy, and before we knew it, din­ner­time had arrived and we found our­selves at Devito’s.

I also wrote last week about miss­ing some of the great eth­nic food we found in our native Kansas City. Dale and I usu­ally had Italian fare from one of those good restau­rants on our anniver­sary and I think we’ve been starv­ing for some good, authen­tic Italian since July when we missed our tra­di­tional Italian cel­e­bra­tion dinner.

We aren’t miss­ing good Italian food any longer. Devito’s was superb. While the restau­rant has won awards for its fresh trout dishes, Dale ordered the home­made fet­tuc­cini alfredo and I had the sam­pler plat­ter with spaghetti, ravi­oli, a meat­ball and a piece of their home­made Italian sausage (the first time we’ve had a piece of home­made Italian sausage since leav­ing KC), so we could have a taste of every­thing. It did not dis­ap­point. One of the best things about find­ing this restau­rant is learn­ing there is also a Devito’s near Harrison, AR., which is much closer to The Little House.

We ended the evening wish­ing we had been able to stay for the down­town ghost tour, I love writ­ing about ghosts. The last arti­cle I wrote was an Associated Press story about a stake­out for Jessie James’ ghost at his boy­hood home in Kearney, Missouri.

Unfortunately, the trol­ley sys­tem in Eureka Springs only runs until 8 p.m. and we had no other way to get back to the hotel.

I think maybe the in-room Jacuzzi was what I needed when I got back to the Inn of the Ozarks, though, as I fell asleep in the tub!

On Sunday morn­ing, we tried the Mud Street Café, a base­ment restau­rant in the “unique under­ground Eureka Springs.” The restau­rant is located in under­ground in a build­ing com­plete with lime­stone walls. It gave us the feel of what it might have felt like to enter an under­ground speakeasy in the 1920s. The tables are set with a hodge­podge of antiques and thrift store finds – and as Dale pointed out – I don’t think any two chairs matched, but it worked. I was thrilled to be sat at a table that had one of the exact same chairs as my mother’s din­ing room set, so I felt right at home.

You would have thought we would have been still full from din­ner the night before, but Dale had no prob­lem with his Mexican omelet, com­plete with jalapeno pep­pers and I chowed the fresh spinach and mush­room omelet. One of the great things about this restau­rant is that I didn’t have to wait for some­one to bring me cof­fee (and it would have been a wait, given how busy they were). There’s a self-serve cof­fee bar, which was wonderful.

We did run out of time!

Too soon after mak­ing a sec­ond round of some of the shops we have vis­ited on Saturday, it was time to come home.

I know I’ve had a pro­duc­tive trip when I come back with some story ideas, and want­ing for more .

Of course, at The Little House, we also know the only remote sur­veil­lance we're under is from 8  dog­gie eyes from the Fearsome Four.