Finding Eureka Springs... Accident or Fate?

Our Eureka Springs journey began with us, Blake and Melissa, searching for a new area to buy property in for our retirement. We had owned land that we loved in Ruidoso, New Mexico, but we sold it in 2007 after finding out that water supplies in New Mexico were very low. This meant there was no guarantee we would hit water when the well was drilled and we may have had to pay to drill again until they hit water.

So Blake did a lot of research, making sure that water would not be a problem this time, then we planned a road trip to checkout possible locations in September 2009. We drove through Oklahoma to check out the Lake Eufala area, got out of the car, looked at each other and we both said "this is not it". Our next stop was near Rogers, AR where Blake wanted to checkout a neighborhood that was building "green" energy efficient homes near Beaver Lake. We were winging it on places to stay, so I got on the phone to find a place that we could stay at with our 2 great pyrenees, Baron and Jenna.
I found a place a little past Rogers in Eureka Springs West, off of Hwy 187. It was dark when we made it to our cabin, which ended up being a camper, so we crashed for the night. When we woke up and drove around, we were happily suprised with the area. After checking out the green neighborhood near Rogers, we headed back to Eureka Springs West to drive around Beaver Lake. We decided to stay another night, at a different cabin resort, so we could see more of the area and visit downtown Eureka Springs.

Well, we loved the town, Beaver Lake and the White River so we stayed for a few more nights. We even hired a fishing guide that took us to fish for rainbow trout on the White River. We had a great time and we both caught our limit in just a couple of hours.  We didn't want to leave, but our original plan

was to go to Mountain Home, AR since it was listed in a magazine as the #1 spot to retire for outdoor living. We decided to take the 2 hour drive East to Mountain Home on our next to last day. Even though it was further away from a major highway, we needed to go see the town just in case it was better than Eureka Springs. In our opinion, Mountain Home did not have the charm, activities, convenience or beauty that Eureka Springs had so we headed back to Eureka Springs to checkout more.

We both decided our accidental stop in Eureka Springs ended up being exactly what we were looking for.