Day 4 - September 29, 2013 - Architecture & Ar - Garfield, AR
Garfield, AR
We woke up with just enough time to grab breakfast at the hotel, take a quick shower and check out. Breakfast was more of the same. Standard hotel breakfast fare. They did have a quiche though which was a bit above & beyond the normal. We noticed there was a ton of hotels in Eureka Springs for being such a little town (~2500 people.) there had to have been more than a dozen hotels. While we were checking out we inquired about what the big draw is, we were informed there is a "Great Passion Play" about the last 3 days of Christ's life. (Yep, we must be in the Bible Belt). No plays on Sunday though. So we were off to find the Thorncrown Chapel. We had a bit of trouble finding it, but along the way we found a nice look out vista and took a drive through Historic Downtown Eureka Springs. We eventually found it, apparently smart phone navigations are known to give bad directions. So there it was this breath taking glass chapel in the middle of the woods. Love. I can imagine how serene it would be if you had it all to yourself and could just sit there in silent reflection. But, we got there just as Sunday's services were letting out. So needless to say we did not have it all to ourselves. Though we did take some time to admire the architecture. Then we headed back west to the city of Bentonville (home to Walmart) to visit the Crystal Bridges museum. Admission was free (thanks to Walmart) except to the special exhibit, which cost of a whopping $10 total for the both of us. We got into the museum around 1pm, and was informed there was a "Collections" tour at 2:30pm if we wanted to go. So we took some time to visit the special exhibit "Angels & Tomboys" & the George Washington exhibit. Then we joined the tour which took us to 6 different piece of art, where we heard a bit of history on each piece and the tour guide's interpretation of the work. After the tour we were quite hungry so we grab a quick lunch from the cafe. We took our food outside to eat since it was such a beautiful day. Then we went for a little home on the surrounding trails. While on the trails I spotted a picture frame in the woods. We had a bit of fun taking pictures in the picture frame. The. We went back inside to finish our tour around the museum. It's a nice museum that was just built in 2011 and focuses on American art. After the museum closed we spent some more time hiking along the trails. Then it was time to hit the road. We stopped and had dinner at Amore Cafe in Eureka Springs. It had good food and good service. Shane had fettuccine alfredo and I had spaghetti and meat balls. The food was maybe a bit pricey but I guess that should be expected in a touristy area. Around 11:30pm we arrived at our destination for the night, Bull Shoals State Park. Thank goodness the had plenty of camping available, since neither one of us really wanted a repeat of the night before. While we were driving around to find our campsite for the night we saw plenty of wildlife. One armadillo, at least a dozen whitetail deer, and one kitty cat. We quickly setup camp and settled in for the night.