Eureka Springs Eternal

Last week, I was delighted to spend a few days with some old friends high atop an Ozark mountain in northwestern Arkansas, just a mile or so north of Eureka Springs, land of $1.29 gas and egregious misuse of the letter K. We almost just left the pump running all over the concrete, it was so cheap.



We spent all five days in an astonishingly well-equipped ginormous cabin, sipping wine and throwing logs on the fire and watching Valley of the Dolls. Here's some craziness from that. Luckily, it doubles as documentary footage from my college years! It's an endlessly quotable movie but what surprised me is that the one we probably quoted the most was "I'm not the butler, Neely." That comes in handy, trust me. When your mother asks "could you pass me the butter?" just yell I'M NOT THE BUTLER, NEELY. Hours and hours of mirth will ensue.

We went on a long hike down from the cabin to some crazy dam where something strange seems to have happened to my hairdo.



ANYWAY. One day we went down the mountain into town and went in and out of about five million pottery shops and stained glass suncatcher shops and hand-carved pencil shops or WHATEVER and it kind of wore me out because I don't really care about any of that stuff. I have enough pottery, thank you, not to mention pencils. There were six of us and I was just a tiny bit dreading the dinner decision - it was our only night out of the cabin and I didn't think we'd luck into anything good, if only because we all have different likes and dislikes. So, indecisive until almost the very end, we asked our cocktail waitress (yes, there were afternoon cocktails at a fancy hotel) and she said - without hesitation - "Local Flavor." And it was great. The slightly plain-sounding menu might not give that impression but really, everything was just perfect. So if you're ever in Eureka Springs to take the cure, stop by and have dinner there. You can thank me later. Oh and ask for Rick, who was a complete bitch in the best way.

I hope I get invited back next year. I tried really hard to not be as bossy as usual and I think I only slipped up once. But maybe no one noticed. Someone did notice that I drank all the vanilla vodka, though....