Bikes, Blues & BBQ in Eureka Springs, Then Some Family Time

So it turns out that even though I moved to my idea of the middle of nowhere, I still ended up very close by my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Ed. Having a giant family has its advantages. We made plans to visit them at their house in Holiday Island, Arkansas for dinner on Sunday, and we ahead and booked a room in Eureka Springs Saturday night. What a surprising place that was!

As you can see, Eureka Springs is right next door to Holiday Island so it worked out really well.

I heard the name with "spring" in the title and my mind immediately went to the awesome time that I went to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Well Eureka Springs has a similar "magical spring water" boom town history but I'd say the similarities stop there. It was immediately evident that despite being in "The South" that this little town was super liberal leaning. There was an article in the local paper where an alderman equated the local power company cutting down trees for power lines to "murder". Ok.

This weekend just happened to be Bikes, Blues & BBQ, which involves a lot of Harley's roaring around.

We got into the bbq spirit immediately.

I think that a defining factor of Eureka Springs is that it's really mountainous and so there isn't a lot of space for the thriving tourist industry. That made for some very interesting entertainment district layouts. There were giant flights of stairs that would take you from one level of restaurants and shops to the next. At one point there was even a cool little walking bridge. While being cramped made the place cool it also made the parking horrible. Can't have it all I suppose.

There were bikers everywhere.

I assume these signs were for them.

All of the twists and turns and funky little alleys gave the place a really cool explorative quality.

There were a couple of biker bars that were completely packed and looked pretty intense. We picked a spot across the street and had a quiet drink and watched the mayhem unfold.

I was bummed that we missed a movie with such an awesome poster.

This is still Arkansas, so of course there is a 65 foot tall Jesus statue. And there is some sort of a live action passion play show with camels and whatnot. I drove over to check it out but it was closed for the night. Tomorrow! What I did get to see was a pretty gaudy light-up Mary and Joseph thing.

What has two thumbs and has a magic baby? This guy!