Honk if you love seahorses!

Who knew that Eureka Springs, Arkansas could be such an interesting place to vacation? Our Dad vacation this year was close to home but filled with quite a few surprises.

We found Humpty-Dumpty…

I'm guessing this is the before picture. :)

Sasquatch….

a giant hamster wheel….

….and Jesus.

Yes, Jesus. :)

Since Eureka Springs was such a cool place, and because I wasn’t expecting to have that much fun, I figured I’d share a few highlights from the trip.

One of the coolest things we saw was the historic part of Eureka Springs. The history of this little mountain town is fascinating. People started settling there in the 1880s because of rumors about the magical healing powers of the water in Eureka Springs. This town is home to over 62 springs, about 10 of which you can actually access and drink water from. There are tons of documented stories in the town hall about the water curing blindness, polio, and many other diseases. Of course, nothing tastes as good as spring water, so we made sure to find some places where we could sample this magical water. Of course, it didn't occur to me until after we'd already left that maybe I should have splashed some of that spring water on my eyes and see if it really did cure blindness. :)

I thought Jenn was going to drown herself in the spring. lol

Another fascinating fact about the town is how it was constructed. Since Eureka Springs was built in the valley of several mountains, in its early days the town experienced a lot of mud and water running off the mountains and flooding the streets. So it was decided that they would raise the levels of the streets by building two retaining walls above the current streets and filling them with limestone and rock to make new roads. They then built new buildings on top of the existing ones. It’s hard to explain and even harder to visualize, but when the retaining walls were built, they left a big gap between the old storefronts and where the road was. This created a series of underground passageways that connected every single building in town. A person could go from the courthouse to the auditorium to the butcher shop to the jeweler without anyone above ground ever knowing. These passageways were used by many famous outlaws and gang members, including Al Capone and the Younger gang. Today, most of the passageways have been cemented off due to safety concerns and to discourage people from using them, but on a tour Dad and I were able to see some of the passageways and trap doors.

We also visited the Christ of the Ozarks statue (that would be where the Jesus picture came from) and the famous section of the Berlin Wall. Eureka’s Christ of the Ozarks statue stands about 70 feet high, making it the 2^nd tallest statue of its kind in the world. The section of the Berlin Wall was incredible to see. A brave artist from East Germany did most of the painting at night, risking his life to share God’s message of hope and love with the many Germans imprisoned by the wall. Touching the wall, I couldn't help but wonder how many people had lost their lives trying to climb over the same structure that I was standing next to.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

And that giant hamster wheel up there? That was actually a joke. It’s really a 13^th century building tool used in the construction of medieval castles. Turns out some adventurous and generous people are building a medieval castle in Lead Hill, Arkansas using only 13^th century tools. This was also another must-see attraction. While the castle won’t be completely finished until 2030, it is still open for people to go and get a glimpse of what medieval life looked like.

This was one of the first vacations we’ve gone on where I didn’t have everything planned out to a T. As much as I hate to admit this, it was nice just to wait until we got to our destination to dump all the travel brochures on the table and decide what we wanted to do. We visited Cosmic Caverns, Thorncrown Chapel, went to the Pine Mountain Jamboree, the War Eagle Mill, Natural Bridge and Pivot Rock, the haunted Crescent Hotel, and spent a day boating on Bull Shoals Lake.  All things that I would recommend doing/seeing should you venture to Arkansas anytime soon.

And despite all that sightseeing, we were never too tired to have some good ole Herren family fun. We played cards every night, had some interesting nighttime encounters on the way to the bathhouse, may have stalked some boys from Texas, taught an Australian family how to make s’mores, and ate way too much food. And one night, we were picking up sticks along the side of the road for a campfire, and lil’ StephyJ came up with the brilliant idea below.

Like I said, never a dull moment on our vacations. :) No one honked, though. Maybe the signs should have said "Honk if you love razorbacks!" haha I'm hoping we'll have better luck this week in Florida. And some more great sunsets! 

from Jess, with love<3

always