RamblingRoVer

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Eureka Springs

Thorncrown Chapel

Lunch at the Basin Park Hotel

View of the Main Street

"Send in the Clowns"

The Crescent Hotel

Christ of the Ozarks

One of the numerous springs

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Great architecture

Glass in abundance, hence Crystal Bridges

The dining area

A view of one of the many gardens surrounding the buildings

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

We still are surprised and amazed at the diversity of the US and, what there is to explore, see and do. On the last day of June we crossed from Missouri into Arkansas driving further into the Ozark Mountains to the town of Eureka Springs…a veritable hidden gem of a town built into the side of the mountains. Reminiscent of an alpine town, the entire town is on the National Register of historic places. Holding to the alpine theme there are lots of Hotels and B&B's with Swiss/German names. At the top of the mountain the Crescent Hotel overlooks the town; this hotel has lots of history – including an Irish connection – Irish Stonecutters and Stonemasons were brought over to build the hotel in 1886 at a time when “society” was much taken by “taking the water” as a cure for ailments. There are reputedly 63 curative springs in the area with 17 in the little town alone which has a population 3,000 of whom mostly engage in tourism as their means of living. At night there are ghost tours, the most popular being at the Crescent hotel - during its history the hotel was run as a hospital by a Dr. Baker a charlatan with no medical training, yet advertised that he had a cure for many ailments including cancer - he offered to pay $500 to the first five cancer patients. They came and died, he never reported that news. Local legend is that their bodies (and others) are buried in the cellar walls. We met two teenagers who had taken the ghost tour and said that they saw many ghosts their father was more skeptical. Dr. Baker who was reported to have taken over $4 million from gullible patients was eventually charged, convicted of fraud and spent 4 years in Federal prison.

One of the big surprises for us was “Opera in the Ozarks” which has been running for 62years - a training program for aspiring opera singers chosen annually from many different colleges and schools of music - these young singers hope to be the stars of the future. Three different operas are presented; while there we went to "La Boehme" needless to say it was great, there’s a full orchestra and experienced Directors from many opera houses around the US. On our last night we saw "A Little Night Music" by Stephen Sondheim - excellent and funny. The training program runs for only a month each year, so we were lucky once again in our timing.

Having missed out on seeing the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany and Spearfish, South Dakota one of the reasons we went to Eureka Springs was to see the Passion Play there - it is the number one draw for the area! It is a two hour enactment of Christ's final days; the stage is in an open-air amphitheater on the side of a mountain, complete with Pontius Pilate’s Palace, the Temple, streets of Jerusalem, Via Dolorosa, Garden of Gethsemane, Mary Magdalena’s house, the upper-room where the Last Supper was held and Golgotha hill where the crucifixion took place. In all, there are 250 people in the show with camels, donkey’s, horses (for the roman soldiers) and a huge flock of goats which ran in one gate of Jerusalem and out another. It was very well done, a good show.

The highlight however has to be our trip to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art founded in 2005 by Alice Walton daughter of Sam Walton the founder of Wal-Mart. Opened in November 2011 the buildings are in themselves architectural masterpieces set in beautiful landscaped gardens and pools - photos (in another blog to come will give you a much better appreciation of the museum. Some of our favorites were; the sketchbooks of Edward Curtis (1868-1952) who set out in 1907 to capture “a vanishing race” and over the next 20 years created more than 2,200 images of members of some 80 American Indian Tribes and “A girl reading” by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). The Museum presents Colonial, 19^th Century, Modern and Contemporary Art with an excellent (and free) self-guided audio tour. The restaurant is most spectacular in its design and its food mouthwatering…a real treat! We had a real gourmet, yet casual lunch from an outstanding lunch menu. A formal dinner menu is also available; unfortunately on the day we were there dinner was not being served due to a reception being held.

Another very nice surprise located just west of Eureka Springs was Thorncrown Chapel a 48ft tall structure made entirely of wooded beams and glass (425 windows in total) set in the middle of a forest, sitting in the pews one has the feeling of being at one with nature it was a really peaceful place; once again a photo will give you a better idea of the chapel.

Because of the intense heat the 4th July was essentially cancelled in Eureka Springs, an orchestra was advertised to be playing at the town square, but never even turned up. A ban had been imposed on open fires, barbeques and fireworks, in fact anyone lighting a firework could be arrested; but this did not stop the sale of fireworks as we saw lots of roadside stalls selling them on the edge of town so we were quite happy with the decision not to have fireworks. We look at smokers (this is not California folks) throwing their butts on the ground and feel like having them arrested for littering and for posing a potential fire hazard; we are in the lucky position of being able to quickly move out of harm’s way!

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Branson MO

A boat trip on Lake Ozark

A picnic area at a roadside stop

Neil Diamond tribute

The pianist at the Platters tribute

Male Chinese Acrobats

Female Chinese Acrobats

Monday, July 2, 2012

Ozark Mountains

After the hills of Kentucky we are back in the mountains again, more specifically in the Ozarks which run from Illinois into Arkansas. We have learned that there are many mountain ranges in the center of the US. There are lots of valleys and summits…we seem to have driven up and down each one. From St Louis to Osage Beach we drove along Hwy 42 which is not a main Highway through farmland. When we drive off main highways we are always a little nervous that we might end up some dirt road and won't be able to turn around. We also check gas stations while driving the car for ease of getting the RV in and out. Speaking of gas we’re delighted with the drop in gas prices – must be an election coming up? So we’d better get most of our driving done by November.

Osage Beach is on the shores of Lake Ozark, an enormous reservoir created by flooding many valleys and which in an aerial view looks remarkably like a giant Chinese dragon. We took a cruise on the lake, the shores of which have many beautiful large homes and hotels and this was just the Osage Beach area. On arriving in Osage Beach the weather was very hot, so much so that we stayed out of it. Once more the cinema became our cooling down refuge – this time we saw Rock of Ages.

From Osage Beach we moved onto Branson where Gospel and Country blend together. Branson was a most pleasant surprise - think Vegas without the sleaze. Branson is situated in the Ozark Mountains in the extremely hilly in the south west of Missouri almost on the border with Arkansas. There are 171 shows in 62 theatres in Branson with shows both day and night - we went to two shows every day for five days. Many of the shows are by very talented family groups. Our favorites, in no particular order were: The Dutton’s www.theduttons.com three generations preforming together they were magnificent and had performed on Americas got Talent, all could sing and play multiple musical instruments - Benjamin was a great musician, dancer and a hilarious comedian; another family show SIX comprised of six brothers (there are ten) utilizing just the human voice to make music and sing - it is hard to believe human voices can make all of these sounds - it is an excellent show www.thesixshow.com Acrobats from China fascinating - the young Chinese acrobats come over to Branson in March each year and stay until end of December and have been doing so since 1968. We went to a number of tributes icons from our teenage and early twenties years including Johnny Cash, The Platters, Neil Diamond and Hank Williams. Tim Hadlers, who recently played at the Grand Ole Oprey, “Hank Williams Revisited” was by a large margin the best of the tribute shows www.thetimhadler.com we also went to a religious farce - it was OK not awfully funny for us.

As Catholics it’s both interesting and perplexing for us to be in the heart of Bible belt country in that we have become acutely aware of just how different we are from Bible belt Christians. Without even realizing (that they are) people proselytize all the time; one fascinating aspect of their belief is that regardless of how heinous the sin committed they have an absolute belief Jesus will save them. Maybe it’s the “guilt thing” we Catholics live under that has us still attempting to resolve and understand some issues. A question we were reluctant to ask of people who engaged us in conversation is – if heaven is available to all Christians, do they define Catholics as Christians? Singing is really big and they just love their Gospel music - which is as big an industry as Country music - if a singer has a country CD he/she will also have a gospel CD.

We parked our RV at the city RV Park on the banks of the lake and right beside Branson Landing a very nice new development with shopping, hotels, water fountains, sitting areas and lots of restaurants a perfect spot. The RV Park gave us free passes into the RecPlex which had a really great swimming pool which as the weather was very hot Adele used most days. So…our day was show, swim, eat and show. Before arriving in Branson we did not really need to use our air conditioning, we now have it set 82F day and night to keep the RV cool all the time.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Branson, as do over 8 million people every year.