Wednesday, October 14, 2015. More of Eureka Springs...

Eureka Springs, Arkansas, KOA

We decided to stay a second night at the KOA near Eureka Springs and visit some of the attractions during the day. The campground is built on hills (can we say Ozarks?) and achieves flat camping sites by using terracing. Our site was small, but our camper van is too. The terracing makes you feel that your site is more isolated, plus we had our own little deck with table and grill.

We decided to head in towards town and visit some sites we had decided on.

The first was Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. They rescue and then take care of mostly large cats (tigers, lions, ligers, bobcats, ocelots, cougars, for example) and a few other wild creatures (bear and some others). They are gradually, as they receive the funding, building large enclosures that are natural habitat for the cats. What was amazing is that most of their rescued cats actually came from Arkansas or the surrounding area! I couldn't believe how many private individuals have large wild animals.

We took a guided tour of the facility, too, and met a very nice young intern that told us tales about the animals, the facility, and the rescues. As you might expect, she told us that any people purchase, say, a tiger cub and it's so cute, etc. But about a couple of years later the owners realize that this is turning into a LARGE, wild animal! So they try to find somewhere like the Wildlife Refuge. But she also told us tales about rescues of twenty or more creatures from the same place, living in terrible conditions. It's upsetting.

Next on our agenda was a visit to Quigley's Castle. We really enjoyed visiting this simple site. I suggest you click on the previous link and read the story about the house rather than retelling all of it. I loved the part about Elise and the kids tearing down the old house while the husband was at work! But it is also quite a love story because her husband, Albert, obviously understood his wife and helped her with her artistic ventures over the years.

Elise designed her own house and the main feature is the fact that she planted trees and other plants INSIDE and planned everything around that. The house is actually extremely comfortably designed and I'd love to live there. The windows on the glass side are all like french doors and you walk across a little brige to open them.

Chris' mom designed and built her own home, also. She also loved nature and gardening, so we decided that she would have loved what Elise did with her home.

In the garden, both Elise and Albert built stone structures out of stones, cement, and other found objects. This includes benches, tables, birdbaths, and many more.

The whole place would go well in Lucas, Kansas, we decided. It fits the description of outsider art under whatever name you want to call it (found art, folk art, etc.)

We then returned to the Historic Downtown of Eureka Springs. We caught the trolley from a parking lot and that was nice. We basically walked around, but especially enjoyed visiting a magic shop (and talking to the clerk who would like to become a magician), Gourmet Eureka (a cool little shop with lots of goodies, both food and gadget. The proprietor let us taste lots of neat things and we reciprocated by buying many of them!), and a gem and art shop that had some great pieces.

Back to the campground to eat a supper of goodies we bought from Gourmet Eureka and a salad with our new balsalmic vinegar!