June 17th - 20th Eureka Springs & Hawksbill Crag

Eureka Springs was like a small European city, small, tight streets, old buildings, and a lot of historic architecture.

The view of a distant thunderstorm in progress from our camp spot in Eureka Springs.

Thor would like to hike with us...he is ready to roll!

Our quest today (Friday) was to get to the trail head to see Hawksbill Crag (a.k.a. Whitaker Point).

Getting to Hawksbill Crag was a Jeep adventure on many small rock/dirt roads, but to our amazement we saw Elk feasting with cows on a farm, a large adult black bear (not too far from where the trail head was to get to Hawksbill Crag...Yikes), and a coyote (I don't think it was Wile E. Coyote).

I didn't think Arkansas had the wild life and scenery of Colorado...but it was darn close...just shorter mountains...but nice vistas! We called this Mini-Hawksbill Crag.

This video clip is the view from the hike:

On Saturday we decided to see the 12th Annual Native American Pow-Wow & the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge.

Part of the grand entrance and beginning of the tribal dance contest.

On the tour, it was surprising to hear the stories of how the big cats appeared at the sanctuary. A large tiger was being raised in gentleman's house (even had his own bedroom), the man became ill, and could not care for the tiger any longer. The tiger was loaded onto his truck and the tiger was driven to the National Forest (about 60 miles from his house) and set free. After about a week the tiger turned up at the man's house...and was quite aggressive. Imagine that...