We give up flipping as futile and between us decide our next destination: Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
First stop, Crystal Waters, a serious rock and mineral emporium near the iconic Flatiron Building, where I finally find Old Crow (not whiskey but a crow carved from onyx) who I introduce to Owl-Fred (along for the ride) from Sundance in Utah. (Add an obsidian Black Angel as a memento.)
Blue Tiger Eye “clears delusions” says a sign in this shop, inspiring an idea for a story: Two friends go on a fantastical road trip and at Crystal Waters, one buys a Blue Tiger Eye bracelet (as I do) and his friend (the delusion) disappears….
Another shop peddles snake oil in the form of “frequency infused jewelry” (call is snake metal) made of “Inox”—eleven metals infused to create a frequency “discovered by Tesla” that erases pain—anyone care to combine it with Moldavite?
Treasures in hand, we roll up to the The Crescent Hotel & Spa (“America’s most haunted”), the kind of austere Victorian architecture within which ghosts feel so very much at home, time for SkyBar.
JR from Dallas, in town for a wedding, recommends Bombadil’s Café so off we go for lion’s mane mushroom pasta and whatever clarity-inducing qualities lion’s mane provides.
“You want some meat on it?” asks the server.
“Does it come with meat?”
“No.”
“Then why would we want any?”
Because in these parts if it doesn’t come with meat the natives won’t trust it and won’t eat it, which explains why all the patrons around us—and some servers too—are chunky, though chunky is an understatement. Hefty is more like it though, let’s face it, obesity is the Stroke Belt standard.
Back at SkyBar for a nightcap Kendal the bartender joins our Flip Trip Muse & Siren Club (Amber of Omaha, Heather and Alyssa of Galena) proving that the Heartland is truly full of heart (if heavily padded).
Kendal defers to Jonathan the SkyBar Sage for delivering a message to us: “You don’t have to be in the Vatican archives to understand the truth.”
Jonathan holds up a book on which he is studiously fixated: The Ancient Secret of the Power of Life. (Good title though I later discover it’s just another red herring.)
I await a ghost at the bar as midnight approaches but, as usual, the ghosts are afraid of us.
For breakfast, the server in Crescent’s large dining room recommends the house specialty: French Toast stuffed with mascarpone, which not only looks and tastes like dessert but comes in only one size: Extra-large. And again explains why obesity occupies every table around me.
Feeling somewhat bloated we roll into stormy weather featuring vision-obscuring torrents of rain…
…beyond which we drop the car at National—no extra charge incurred because they are delighted (given the shortage) to now have one vehicle at their disposal, which they use to drop us at Joplin’s tiny airport, completely empty when we arrive, no check-in staff, no TSA, no one at all because United’s flight to Denver is the only commercial flight of the day. And no bar, no café, nothing but a vending machine that dispenses Hostess Twinkies and CupCakes…
No plane either… until it finally arrives late from Houston, bad weather to blame. We board, off it goes, goodbye Joplin, farewell heartland.
Or maybe not.
Nearing the border with Colorado our pilot announces that tornado warnings have forced the closure of Denver Airport and since we’re over Kansas—Dorothy & Toto Land—this makes all the sense in the world, maybe we’ll land in Oz.
“We’re going to make a few left turns,” says the pilot, “see if it passes. Otherwise, may need to go to Grand Junction.”
Of course I’m open to such disruptions and view these as opportunities for whatever destiny can produce in unexpected places and circumstances.
After half-an-hour of circling the pilot provides an update: We’re headed for Wichita, Kansas. The Heartland apparently doesn’t want to let us go and that’s where we land, but not to get off (it soon transpires), because a refueling truck shows up. United has no gates or personnel in Wichita so disembarking was never an option even though The Ambassador Hotel looked pleasant when I surfed contingencies on my iPhone and grew excited by the prospect of unexpected encounters, especially in the absence of meaningful flipism.
Update: Denver airport has opened, hence we take off into a setting sun, whose final ray is the light at the end of this tunnel.
I have my heart set on a decent bite somewhere, certainly a drink… until The Oxford Hotel’s receptionist breaks the bad news: A COVID curfew remains in place and consquently no food or drink can be served after ten p.m.
That goes for all of Denver.
“There’s a minibar in your rooms,” he says gaily, handing us the only metal keys we’ve pocketed this trip. (Denver’s oldest hotel has been using them since 1891.)
Dinner is a bag of potato chips and a half bottle of cheap plonk.
Memo to self (a reference to Joplin): Billboards are not messages from the universe.
When I awaken early next morning I take a few moments to enjoy this hotel’s charming ambience (especially the gallery above the lobby, an antique wooden desk with drawers, a banker’s lamp and vintage typewriter) before launching to Little Owl Coffee.
Strolling with Van Stein in the historic LoDo neighborhood we inadvertently find ourselves gawking into the large display windows of Rockmount (purveyors of ranch-wear) and venture inside to discover a three-generation-family-owned emporium where Neil Young and Tom Petty bought their Western denim and flannel shirts and Kevin Costner gets kitted up for Yellowstone, for me a Native-American-patterned fleece overshirt.
Breakfast is Snooze inside Union Station re-unionizing with my high school U.S. History teacher who became Colorado’s education commissioner and continues to inspire over a Bloody Mary and Habanero Pork Belly Benny.
And then, flipped out, a train rolls us to the airport for a flight home.