Off the grid

[heidi]

I'm writing this at 6pm on Friday. I don't know when it'll post, because right now, I'm off the grid. We're in eureka springs, arkansas and neither my cellphone nor my sidekick work here. My sidekick stopped about 20 minutes before we entered Arkansas from Missouri at around 830 this morning, and it's been more than a little frustrating. I have news to read and ljs to follow and emails to check...

But instead, I've had to make do with novels and magazines; thank heavens for my thinking to pick up the new Vogue at the airport yesterday.

We're in a barn now, for the rehersal dinner, about to dine on amazing bar-b-que brisket, ribs and chicken, and there's also beans and potato salad.

It's been an overwhelming day of life and death I we came in early because anne, the bride whose wedding we're here for, lost her grandmother on thursday, two days before her wedding, and we wanted to make it here in time for the funeral this morning. Tomorrow, we have the wedding and on sunday, I'll be driving back to civilization (st louis) to fly back home on some early morning flight.

I miss my boys. Jon is getting new teeth and I'm missing it, but my sister came to town to help over the weekend and the boys have been so thrilled to have her around.

*saved and finished at 1:35 am on sunday*

We left straight from the wedding to drive back and are now in Rolla, about 100 miles sw from St Louis. The wedding was lovely but the hotel we were staying in was charming, but a bit of a mess. We were in a room with a cupola that opened, a bit, to the outside so in this morning's rainstorm, raindrops kept falling on our heads, and then a leak opened by the window and rainwater got all over the chair and my dop kit. Charming is all well and good, but lack of water pressure combined with faucets you need to jiggle for 7 minutes to get water that's neither scalding nor temperate is challenging.

Eureka Springs is cute, if it doesn't take you a 5.5 hour drive and a 2+ hour flight to get there, but I don't think we'll be going back. If you ever get to the Crescent Hotel there, I recommend the potato croutons but not the apple thingy.

I probably am 600 or so posts behind on lj; not sure I'll be catching up so let me know in comments if I missed anything...

Comments

[goddamnbatman]

Hehe...just popping in to say the Crescent Hotel is haunted with a capital H. Inspiration for The Shining and whatnot. But it has a lovely view.

Sorry about your phone. Welcome to Arkansas, where the mountains are piddly, but are still enough to block your signals. Mine hasn't worked since I moved to Fayetteville (about an hour from Eureka). Woe.

[evildiorama.livejournal.com]

*chokes*

I thought I was seeing things. Eureka Springs, AR is my home town. And now I'm in Oxford, England. It is indeed a small, freaky little world. I'm glad you liked it. It was a great place to live and hey!, Orlando Bloom was just there filming a movie so, you know, breathe deeply the germs of the famous.

[pixiezombie.livejournal.com]

Freaky. I too grew up in Eureka Springs. The Crescent was not the inspiration for The Shining, although it is known locally for being haunted and having had some very unsavory experiments performed there when it was still a hospital. It used to make the Springfield, MO news every Halloween, and my aunt says it is now on the "Haunted Tour" in town. All my friends who worked there in their teens had spooky stories about the stuff that happened or was rumored. Of course, half the houses in that town are reported haunted. Kept it interesting. Used to love all the strange stuff about that town. The place was in the Guinness Book of World Records something like three times. Old Eureka was pretty interesting too. (It's like The Underground, where part of the town was built over the old town post earthquake, but it's not open to the public. I knew teenage boys who said they'd snuck down to it from one of the manholes, although we closed the passage under our store.)

[prettyannamoon.livejournal.com]

Small world. :) I was at the Crescent and Thorncrown ten days earlier.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Really? For a wedding too? Did you get to the spa? It's lovely!

[prettyannamoon.livejournal.com]

Sadly not, we just dropped by on a day trip to Eureka Springs with my grandmother, who lives nearby. Thorncrown would be an amazing place for a wedding - I'm sure it was gorgeous! And the Crescent would be the perfect place to stay. It's lovely, but I agree with the other posters - hotels in that part of the country and of that era just feel haunted. Gorgeous place for a wedding reception though, with all the flowers in bloom.