...and had a blast! 150'sh MINIs, all flavors, including a handful of classic Minis as well. I thought that the organizers did a great job adapting several of the events to the Thursday rain and weekend cold snap (low 30's overnight, daytimes in the 50's). Sunshine most of the time, anyhow. I'd been to northern AR a few times for motorcycle events, but not Eureka Springs. Loved it, reminded me a lot of Sante Fe, NM, with artist shops and galleries. The city streets are INSANE, 1.5 lanes wide and most with very steep transitions. It's great for walking, good exercise and all that, tricky to navigate since the whole town is built *into* the side of a mountain. As others have said, it's difficult to get a view of more than a block or two at any one time. We spent a lot of one day of the event poking around town. The event venue was on the "edge" of town, though, where most of the hotel/motels are located, so coming and going wasn't any concern. Yes, northern AR has *great* motoring possibilities, in general the state highways don't have straight sections of any length, and the county roads even more so, along with lots of elevation changes. We also took in the Turpentine Creek exotic cat rescue / sanctuary, great to see those powerful animals up close (and hungry, they recommend coming at feeding time to hear them vocalize). Also took in the Intrigue Theater performance on Friday night, a magic/mentalist act of the type that might have played in the 1890's, we were indeed amazed. Not a long haul for us from STL, we opted to return home via 2-lanes just to get in some additional great motoring. Including that section of MO19 from Eminence to Salem, still an all-time favorite. Very pleased to have this event so close to us, and well-attended for being fairly "new" on the MINI calendar. Highly recommended!
!!!DITTO!!! Nice to meet you and you wife. We're already looking forward to next year. If you missed it, be sure to sign up for Galen's Elk Run next year (even if you did this time anyway). There will, more than likely, be a lunch stop in Jasper.
We had a hand full from our club head down for this event, always one of our favorites. IMHO, some of the best MINI motoring roads in the country are in this area. I'm guessing the fall colors were near their peak too. As you mention, the event planning and organization is top notch. I'm heading down to my brother's in Springdale for the holidays so I couldn't work out the Ozark double-dip this year. My loss.
Glad you had a good time, we used to ride our Bikes up there from Hot Springs when I lived on Lake Hamilton there. We always had a blast going from hwy.270 to hwy. 71 there are some beautiful twist and turn climbing into the Boston Mountains and the Ozark Mountains. Great view when you get up to the top of the mountain at Dogpatch where there is 300+ foot drop off on one side and rocky cliff faces an the other. Real nice this time of year as the leaves are turning and then there is Little Switzerland in the Boston Mountains that has some Old World style buildings and Great Restaurants. Plan on taking that drive latter next month when I get my Disabled tags transferred to the MINI as I don't want to go with no tag on the back! You should also take in the Cathedral in the Pines and the Christ of The Ozarks! You get a real experience there! On top of the mountain at Dog Patch is probably the worlds only two story Out House! :cornut:
Great to meet you both as well...and thoroughly enjoyed the music! We'd signed up for Galen's run on Saturday, but found that our traveling companion (our "MINI" German shepherd, smallest of our three) handled the Pig Trail curves very well the day before until the last 3 miles, where she experienced some motion sickness and put my new Pooch Styles cargo mat to the test. Eww. Anyway, that helped us make the choice to explore Eureka Springs proper on Saturday vs. another spirited ride in the MINI. She'd recovered enough by Sunday to let us take the two-lanes home, then managed to get her tail slammed in the hatch door along the way. It was "Mama's" lap after that for some consoling, all 70 lbs of her, including on MO19. Which was a shame, as she'd gotten where she could prop herself on the luggage, her head between us, and watch the curves then *lean* as needed, quite an act. She'd have made a very good rug-on-a-motorcycle-tank riding dog, were she a terrier. Memorable...it was.
I do hope you took pictures. See Dave.0 above. I will try for this one next year, need some more AK twisty roads. Don
Drop Gregg a line and see about sending those so he can put them in the ozarkmini album. Kellli C. the zombie killer chick with the pink and purple flames has already gotten her's uploaded. She's posted some nice roadside scene shots.