Subtitle: Vacation all I ever wanted
Sub-subtitle: I’m already ready to leave again
Day 1: We headed out for Eureka. Darcy is not a hurried sort of guy. There are certain people out there who like to stop and smell the roses on a drive. I am the opposite. Even when I have plenty of time and there is no reason to hurry, I just can’t poke along and amble. I don’t mind stopping at places. One great thing about a road trip is the oddball places you can find along the way. But when I’m driving, I gotta be moving. That’s just me. Darcy likes to take the scenic route and mosey along. I didn’t mind though. We drove through some areas off the turnpike that I haven’t seen in quite a while, including the taxidermy shop with Yosemite Sam randomly painted on it. We also saw a motel that looked like the sort of place in a horror movie where teenagers stop to get out of the rain and then wind up getting savagely tortured and murdered. And a lot of houses that looked like they could be on Hoarders.
We made it into Eureka and the town was packed. There were a lot of different things and festivals going on at once. We didn’t necessarily have a firm game plan ironed out and I was OK with that. My OCD is normally like, “We have to have a schedule. We have to have a plan.” But we didn’t and we were just fine. We ate lunch at Myrtie Mae’s. It was OK but kinda “eh.” The fried chicken special was decent. It was light-years above KFC but not the best lunch I’ve ever had. We were on a quest to eat possum pie. We had some there and it was OK. It gave us a starting point to measure by. After that, we hit the shops downtown. I found a pretty cool bookstore. Bought some postcards and a book of recipes by old Irish grandmas. Also bought a few food sundries at one of the gourmet places. Some of the shops have cool stuff but it’s so grossly over-priced that you don’t even want to bother with it. We get on the trolley so we can get to the hotel and check in. Some sort of clusterfuck happens and the trolley grinds to a halt. Too many people were jammed up down one of those insanely narrow streets and we had to wait until someone could direct traffic. It was so weird. Once we get to the Crescent, they had all kinds of Halloween stuff going on. People in costumes and ghost tours. I have to say, the ghost tour this time was not as good as the first time. It didn’t last as long and the guide was on his cell phone a lot. It seemed like he was not 100% into it and they kept adding so many other tour times that I think he was getting overwhelmed. The hotel itself was insanely busy on top of weddings taking place. So it was a lot of people crammed into a tight space. The ambiance was still great though. It’s not a place you go to for luxury. It’s a place you go to for the experience.
We ate dinner at the Bavarian Inn. I would highly recommend this place for German food. I had the Bavarian plate and Darcy had the schnitzel. Everything was really good. We had the strudel for dessert and it turned out that we got the last piece of the night. As Darcy commented, “Is it just me or did that strudel get even better once we found out we go the last piece?” I said, “Yes it did. It was then VIP strudel.” Had drinks at the Dr. Baker’s Lounge after that. It wasn’t terrible but I will say as I got further down my Cape Cod, the intensity climbed. It tasted like rail liquor too, which didn’t help.
Other than a lamp coming on by itself, we didn’t encounter any ghosts. Darcy threatened to feed me to a poltergeist if we found one, but we didn’t. We were both a little disappointed that nothing more conclusive than that happened but at the same time, it was nice to rest. I slept harder at the Crescent than I have at any other hotel. (Ironically!)
Day 2: Had breakfast at Mud Street Café. It’s a strange, interesting little place but the food was good. There’s a random painting of the Garden of Eden on one of the walls and a sad, dilapidated couch with a low table for seating in one of the corners. It made me think of the ep of Hotel Hell where the restaurant had couches that weren’t very functional. Also, they were out of pancakes. Neither of us wanted them, which was good, but still: how random and odd. Everything was slow going. At one point, there were like 6 plates at the pass and no wait staff to take them. Darcy totally cracked me up because he goes, “The food is dying at the window!” just like Angry Chef. It’s those little unexpected things that come from him that just kill me sometimes. Even though it was a slow process and there was a line of people winding along the staircase to get in, the breakfast was decent. If you are looking for omelets or grits, this is a good place to go.
We took a few photos around town before we left. It was butt-ass cold so I was happy to get back in the car and turn on the ass warmer, LOL. Stopped at a little roadside market I haven’t been to in a long time. Stocked up on my cache of homemade jams and jellies. Once we got to Bentonville, we went to Crystal Bridges Museum. That was one of Darcy’s contributions to the vacation and it was great. I was not familiar with the place and I’m glad we went. They had a good selection of artwork, especially Colonial portraits. That’s not really Darcy’s thing but I like that era. The nature trails were really cool. The weather for it was pretty cooperative. It was cold but once we got moving, the temperature was a non-issue. It was much better this way than to be roasting to death. Or to have it so unbearably cold that we were at risk for frostbite. Almost immediately, we encountered a girl and her mother that looked about like Honey Boo Boo. I heard something rustling in the leaves, which I think was probably a copperhead. Or a den of the little fuckers. Darcy kept saying, “Oh it’s just squirrels and leaves falling from the trees.” We got to a little area where some rock had been hollowed out and I said, “That’s like copperhead central.” And he goes, “What you have to do is reach your hand in to pet them. They like that. Just scratch them under the chin and they’ll stick their tongues out at you to show how happy they are.” So then we started talking about how snakes like to show their teeth and wag their tails as a sign of affection. LOL. I hate snakes. I stood on a rock atop a ravine and managed not to fall to my death. I was pretty proud of that.
On the way home, we stopped at Sassy’s in Fayetteville. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. This was our last stop for possum pie. I had a burger and waffle fries. They were pretty good. Nothing was swimming in grease or clinging to a wad of lard. Darcy had a BBQ platter and everything was great. There’s a BBQ place in Tulsa we ate at a couple of months ago that was just so-so. I’m not a BBQ connoisseur at all but I at least know when something tastes good. And Sassy’s was good. So we capped it off with our second slice of possum pie on the Possum Pie Odyssey. Wow. Far superior to the first. It was rich without being sicky sweet or overkill gross. We speculated on the layers. Darcy started before I did but I knew once I had the first bite that we’d made a good decision. My eyes rolled back in my head. Always a good sign! I believe he set three criteria: taste, presentation, and faithfulness to the possum pie concept. (Can you tell this man is highly analytical, LOL? It’s a good thing I find it endearing. Well, except for the shit-ass public radio.) Took the scenic route back from Fayetteville to Siloam Springs. Passed through Ozark National Forest, which was really pretty. Deer were everywhere. We had to dodge them around practically every turn. But it was getting close to sunset and the environment was so picturesque. Darcy decided that he liked Arkansas after all. I was pretty proud of him.
