When Josh and Chase asked us what there is to do in Eureka Springs I said that it’s touristy and outdoorsy – there’s a cute downtown with shops, and there’s also hiking trails, ziplines, and caves (they were excited about the caves). And I said our friends have an amazing property on 22 acres with a pond and caves.

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous if two young men would find any of that interesting, but they did! They both said they liked it a lot better than they thought they would. Ha, I felt that way the first time I visited the area too – I was surprised by how beautiful it was and how much there was to do.

So here’s what we got up to!

Saturday

After dropping our bags off and seeing the house, we got in the truck and parked it near a trolley stop so we could ride the trolley downtown and not deal with parking. It was Courtney’s first time ever riding public transit, and she was excited to try it!

It was sooooo hot out – in the 90s and humid – and the trolley comes every 25-35 minutes and of course, we had a 35 minute wait. We were all joking about it. “Does the trolley even exist?!” Then we cheered when it (finally) showed up.

We ate lunch at Amigos Mexican Restaurant then walked around the downtown area. There was an Oktoberfest going on that we talked about checking out, but it was so small we didn’t really find it (they did have a good band we saw and heard though!).

But we did remember to visit the Working Bunnies again! If you buy something, the bunny gives you your change, and the product.

It’s so cute. Josh said it was his favorite part of the trip.

We walked around a bit, went into the candy shop and toy shop, checked out the inside of the Basin Park Hotel, and hiked up into the rocky area above Basin Spring Park. I hadn’t even noticed you could go up there – Chase pointed it out and I’m glad he did! I enjoyed seeing the rocks up close, and the view.

Me, Chase, Josh, Courtney, David, and Steven

Steven said walking around downtown was his favorite part of the trip.

View of the Basin Park Hotel

After checking out a few more shops we went to the trolley depot and got a ride back to the truck. Since we were close to Christ of the Ozarks we went to see it. Steven may or may not have left the group because I was embarrassing him too much. Ha, Courtney and I are a bit obnoxious together.

We went back to the house and cooled down for a bit, then took a buggy ride down to their lake to feed the fish.

Then we hung out at the house. That’s my favorite part of the trip – just hanging out and connecting. I had a few small alcoholic drinks and enjoyed some delish food – chips and homemade salsa and pumpkin fluff. Steven, David, and Chase smoked cigars on the enclosed sunroom (Chase’s favorite part of the trip) while Courtney, Josh, and I hung out inside. I really enjoyed our (sometimes, okay, mostly, silly) conversation.

We had delicious homemade pizzas pretty late – close to 10:00 (we had lunch around 3:00). All the boys voted that as their fave meal on the plane ride home. After pizza we stayed up until midnight chatting. This is what happened last time we were there – we had such a fun time we stayed up until 2:00 or 3:00 chatting most nights. I thought we were doing much better calling it quits at midnight but Steven told me if he is flying three+ hours he needs a bit more sleep. We’ll remember that for next time!

Anyway, lots of inside jokes were born that night, which I love.

Sunday

On Sunday I ran and saw a beautiful sunrise, then walked with Courtney. More on that in another post (I know, another post? yes, another post). I only got 5 hours of sleep but felt fine enough.

We had a slow morning, chilling, eating breakfast, and watching golf. Then we headed to Onyx Cave. When I looked up caves to go to, I picked this one because there are two cave cats – Onyx and Flo. And we met them both!

The cave had a self-guided tour – you listened on the headset and it told you when to walk forward and which way to look. It was pretty good! Then when you got to the end, you could take the headset off and walk back.

I enjoyed it! And enjoyed the cool temps.

I bought something funny in the gift shop. More on that below, muah ha ha.

We stopped at the Aviation Cadet Museum to see the planes out on the grounds, then went to the petting zoo near Christ of the Ozarks. They didn’t have any food out for us to buy to feed the animals since they were already eating, but we did get to see them.

Then we went back to the house and cooled down. We eventually went outside to try Courtney and David’s disc golf basket. David is really in to playing and Josh likes it too. Steven and I had never tried it. It was fun to try!

We did another buggy ride to see Courtney and David’s caves.

Chase actually went in (the entrance is so small!) and took a photo to show us what’s inside. Then I took this album cover photo of Steven, Josh, and Chase:

We took a similar photo for their sophomore album at the airport.

We were supposed to come up with songs on the plane ride home but forgot. Oops!

When we got back to the house we had the burgers we came all the way for!

While we were getting our burgers we heard Courtney scream from her bathroom. Muah ha ha. She had told us a story about how scared she was when she found a frog in there one time, and since I’m am an ass I bought a little frog figurine at the cave gift shop and put it there. Everyone was in on it except Chase! He’s the only innocent party.

We named him Spot and I said he keeps all the real frogs out of the house.

After burgers we shot the sh*t for a couple hours then left to go to the airport, which I wrote about here.

We had a wonderful time there (and getting there and back). Everyone got along so well. It felt like a weekend with long-time friends even though two of the friends were newer to us. I feel lucky to continually be meeting amazing, fun, open-minded people. And I just love asking Josh a million flying questions. Hopefully that’s not too annoying because I don’t see me stopping any time soon.

I really needed this weekend. I needed to get away and just focus on being with lovely people. And that’s what I l did (okay, I did vent a bit about work and the shutdown theater).

Courtney and David are such wonderful hosts. I love staying in their beautiful home, and feel so taken care of and loved there. I hope we get to go back again soon!