“My dear sir,
it haunted me for the rest of my life.”
~Peter O'Toole
*Haunted Eureka Springs*
is actually a ghost tour. One of the reasons that I selected this tour among so
many is that it included a shuttle (an old bus actually that is named Shaggy),
and because they responded to my inquiry prior to the trip. My mother is 75 and
as much as she has a go-get-um attitude, she’s *supposed to* walk with a cane
due to her past knee surgeries. At the time, I had no idea how mountainous
Eureka Springs is. When I asked about walking, they said that there wasn’t much
walking on the tour.
That’s a bit relative. And, it’s fair and honest but I just
didn’t ask the right questions. I should have asked how many steps or flights
of steps were involved.
Mom wasn’t able to board and deboard the tour as
well as she would have liked. I’m glad she recognized her limits because much
of the time I was over-functioning and attempting to help her.
We learned a great deal about the history of Eureka
Springs. We heard several ghost stories as well.
The highlights for me were learning about Carrie A. Nation, a
radical conservative who attacked establishments that served alcohol with her
hatchet. Nation moved to Eureka Springs near the end of her life and founded a
home known as Hatchet Hall.
Other highlights included learning about Eureka
Springs’ underground tunnels.
Originally, the town and its main street with
shops were underground. The building where Haunted Eureka Springs resides (and
where the tour begins and ends) has an access panel to these old tunnels. For
the most part, much of the tunnels are now sealed off.
Finally, throughout the tour we were encouraged to
use pendulums to scry for answers and connect with the spiritual world. This
was done in a completely tourist kind of way. We selected pendulums out of a lovely
wooden box and we were told how to hold them. Presumably, there was no
cleansing of the pendulum from the last tourists who held them nor was there
any time to focus on asking questions so I did not think anything of my
pendulum simply hanging midair. The aspect that made these pendulums different
is that the crystals were taken from the chandelier in the lobby of the defunct
Victoria Inn in Eureka Springs: a hotel that was haunted. At the end of the tour we were allowed to
keep or select a different pendulum as a souvenir. I opted to select another
while Mom kept the pendulum that she had used. Just yesterday, I placed mine in
a shadow box. Even with a card of authenticity, I do not believe that it is
haunted but having watched enough horror movies, I’m not taking any chances.
And, apparently, keeping haunted items behind glass is something that people do
:p I’m being silly but if something does happen to me, it’s my own cynical heart
that is to blame. 
Wyatt, our ghost guide, was great! He was incredibly patient with us. He
repeated his stories when my mother wasn’t able to deboard the bus, and he
never hurried us along.  |
| Spooky entrance to the registration area and challenging for Mom |
This sounds like tremendous fun! Your mother seems like such a lovely person, I do hope she had as much fun as you. :) You two look adorable in that photo!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jade. I saw her tonight and she was telling me what she has been sharing with others about the trip so I believe she did have a good time.
DeleteIts sounds lovely you and your Mom share the same interests and you go on holiday together. It looks like it was a fun holiday. Great photo of the two of you.
ReplyDeleteIf we were a Venn Diagram, our interests would meet in the middle. She's really into ghost hunting; I prefer haunted places and do not really want to try to capture anything on film or audio. She's also really into Big Foot/ Sasquatch. While we were there, one of the local movie theaters was playing "The Legend of Boggy Creek" (1972) about their local Big Foot. She would have loved to go but we found out too late.
DeleteI'm glad the guide was helpful! The pendant is lovely! I wonder if the underground tunnels ever flooded. Reminds me of out local "cat tunnels". Apparently the local cats use the storm water drains in dry weather as a tunnel system under the town!
ReplyDeleteThey actually discussed how the underground tunnels were always wet and that folks would complain about the mud that people would track into shops. That was one of the many reasons the shops moved above ground.
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