Laura Ingalls, Bubba Jesus, and Eureka Springs

We arose to a blanket of fog the next morning  that was so thick and soupy that we predicted that it wouldn’t burn off until very late in the morning. Although we had very much wanted to go to Mackinac Island, we decided that the conditions and the time frame weren’t going to let us have a good visit. We had been there before, so we decided to skip the island and put in a day’s driving toward our Arkansas destination. We made it to Kalamazoo,MI, driving back roads we hadn’t been on before just to see some different scenery. After spending the night in Kalamazoo, we headed out the next morning and made it through Indiana and Illinois and called it a day just across the Missouri border in Sikeston.

Ready to enter the Wilder compound

After a restful night, we drove on U.S. Route 60 across the southern portion of Missouri, a part of the state that we hadn’t seen before. Our plan was to check out Branson, MO, but we didn’t have much information about the area. We tried to find a tourist information center in Van Buren, but were unsuccessful in locating it after exiting. We headed on down Route 60 until we spotted a tourist information center sign in Mansfield, MO. We exited and drove into the town, but were beginning to believe that they were also lying to us when we spotted a sign that led us to the center. We drove by the center and spotted a sign in the window that got us wondering if the staff had left for lunch. The town square featured a park that we could have a picnic lunch, and as we parked and were mulling our options, a car pulled up and a lady asked us if we needed tourist information. Turns out she was the volunteer tourist center attendant that day. We chatted for a while and received local information on what to sight see in the area, but received no brochures or maps about the Branson area we were inquiring about. It turns out though, that Mansfield was the adult home of Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote Little House on the Prairie, while she resided just outside Mansfield, and we were encourage to visit her home and museum. We had a lunch in the park, and drove to the Wilder home. It wasn’t the prairie home that we envisioned from the movie series which were actually based from her experiences when her family lived in De Smet, SD, and we decided not to go into the museum or tour the home.

Laura Wilder home and museum

Country Mountain Inn picnic area

We left Mansfield and headed toward Springfield on our way to Branson. We still didn’t have any information on the area and attractions, so when we spotted a Branson information center, we pulled in. What a disappointment. The center was a front for us to purchase hotel rooms and tickets to shows, all of which we knew nothing about. 

An outbuilding at our motel

We left with a map, a show list (all of which we could get at half price, but no idea what the costs were, and the personal cell number of the agent to call when we decided on what hotel we would stay in (so they get their cut). As we drove to the Branson exits, we looked the map over and realized that this was nothing but likely overprice venues with acts by performers we didn’t know, expensive hotels, and not a whole lot more. By the time we reached the first exit we had made up our

Hmmmm! Grilled pork chops!

minds that this wasn’t our cup to tea and that Jacqueline was not going to get any commission from us. Instead, we drove another 30 miles into Arkansas. Captain Larry wanted to drive some of the mapped scenic routes, but we got turned around and found ourselves heading for Eureka Springs.

Ready for a fire?

We had inquired about information about Eureka Springs, but were only given a brochure about the Passion Play that plays there. Thinking that we were going to encounter a bunch of religious zealots and nothing more, we pressed on thinking we would just spend the night and then press on. How wrong we were. Eureka Springs has it all. The community (pop. just over 2,000) is a big biker mecca and we were arriving on a Bikers, BBQ, and Blues weekend. We drove through the town and the motel offerings were enormous. We settled on Country Mountain Inn because it had a picnic area adjacent to the motel where we could barbecue our pork chops on our little propane grill. Jane became enchanted with our setup and wanted to stay another night instead of driving scenic routes the next day as we had planned. So we paid for a second night. We got up the next morning and inquired about where we could we do some walking (which we had been really lax on doing). We were told that the park around Leatherwood Lake to the west of Eureka

Hiking along the lake trail

Springs had a lot of “walking trails.” We drove out to the park, parked the van, and found a trail to walk. But it wasn’t a “walking trail,” but a true hiking trail. We followed the trail until we were detoured onto

We stumble upon a fawn deer

another trail that ran along the shore of Lake Leatherwood. We followed this trail and came upon a fawn deer that was crouched next to the trail.

The fawn doesn't isn't sure of us.

We obviously had startled the animal and it had laid down to avoid detection. We took a couple of pictures, and then as we started to move on, the fawn darted from its resting place to probably meet up with mama. We

Leatherwood Lake

found large and small deer tracks as we moved along the trail. We returned to the van, took a couple of pictures of Leatherwood Lake and headed out.

We decided to drive up to a scenic route that went around Beaver Lake, a reservoir lake that was created by damming the White River to control flooding.The route was truly beautiful with breathtaking views of Beaver Lake and the dam and power plant. We stopped at an overview that provided some wonderful shots of the lake, dam, and

The Beaver Lake Dam

Viewing the Beaver Lake exhibits

downstream river. The Corps also had an outdoor exhibit that detailed history and development of the dam. Construction began in 1960 and was completed in 1966 at a total cost of $6.2 million. Unbelievable in this day of delays and cost overruns. For information on the dam and recreation area it created follow this link: http://www.swl.usace.army.mil/Missions/Recreation/Lakes/BeaverLake/DamandLakeInformation.aspx

We continued our loop and came back out to the road that would take us back to our hotel.

Christ of the Ozarks

We stopped at a local restaurant for a fried fish lunch which turned out to be a really great meal. One of the big attractions of Eureka Springs is the Passion Play that is performed at the Great Passion Play Theme Park and something Jane wanted to see. The park is capable of hosting large groups of visitors and has been recreated to represent a visit Jerusalem and other holy sites. As we parked the van and entered the gift shop (naturally) for information, we saw a golf cart with two camels in tow followed by another cart towing some donkeys.

Bubba Jesus

We did a quick tour of the gift shop and received directions to the huge Christ of the Ozarks statue that Captain Larry termed "Bubba Jesus," and is one of the park’s main attractions. We parked the van and walked into a garden to get some pictures of the statue. We left the park and headed back to our motel where we spent the remainder of the afternoon reading, Facebooking, and relaxing.