Argh. I’ve spent the last um, two hours trying to find out how to embed a flickr slide show in this wordpress blog.
No dice. So, I’ll post a picture here and and you can go look at the others
here:
It wasn’t an easy trip, since J and I don’t travel well together, not horribly, just not well. We are both opinionated about how to do things and when we get tense, which we were because of an hour of Beanwhinging to return home; he snaps and I seethe. And then if you add in an impetuous 5 year old, really narrow steep streets (no streets in Eureka meet at right angles, none)and one of the diversity festivals..well I considered running down the street naked with an eggbeater playing motorboat.
I believe I discomfited J’s mom when I sent us on our way to check out Christ of the Ozarks. It’s probably more than a bit weird for a very liberal person from California. I just grew up with it and developed two minds about this monstrosity. Obviously I think it’s rather horrid and pretty funny. However–some folks believe or are moved by this so we need to behave respectfully. It’s one thing to discuss just how strange this place is amongst ourselves, quite another to interrupt a guy praying.
The guy who made it was a sculptor of Mount Rushmore, so why does it look like Gumby?
I do have an excellent Christ of the Ozarks mug . And a magnet for the fridge. After trying to get into a “new Holy Land Tour,” which was closed (and I don’t think they still have they scale model of Jerusalem I used to enjoy pretending to be Godzilla in during some, well let’s say capricious and lighthearted youthful extravagances . Later, we made our way to the OTHER Eureka Springs. My favorite one. It’s a gorgeous, strange, exciting, and terrifically fun place. Eureka Springs has, as far as I know, the only domestic partners registry in Arkansas, as well as a Poetry festival and a number of excellent music and art festivals. It’s often called the “haven for the state’s eccentrics,” and I really wanted to move there in 87 but moved to San Francisco instead. A good choice but I’ll always wonder about living there.
When I lived in SF I endured endless ribbing about being from Arkansas. Some of it, especially from folks that didn’t know me well, got pretty harsh (the old outhouse, no shoes jokes, ha HA ha) and it always bugged me. These folks always thought I was *the only* exception in the entire state of Arkansas. Like every other person was a gap toothed yokel that left school in 8th grade. Fayetteville and Eureka Springs pretty much put the lie to that and our schools blow doors on those in SF. It’s an attitude that got old–California as the center of the universe and it still irritates me that folks on either coast consider everything in between as flyover space(as J knows when he tries to tease me that way).
I think there are havens for weirdos (or eccentrics, or alternative lifestyles or however you want to name it) in every state. I like that mine comes with a lot of space, good schools and a huge serving of creativity.
Oh yeah, and a giant Christ sculpture that needs an airplane light on its head and looks like a milk carton with arms.
