North and South

Today Mia had the chance to meet people from Wisconsin, meet hippies and ride on her mom's belly instead of in her mom's belly. The three of us went to Eureka Springs to meet up with our friend Tanya and her family. They're from Wisconsin and spent a little vacation time in a cabin there.

A lot happened before we even made it to Eureka Springs. First, we saw a guy on a bicycle sitting on the shoulder of the highway in the middle of nowhere. No, he wasn't a cyclist in spandex taking a break on a bike designed for long road races. This was a guy with a mullet and jean shorts sitting on a BMX. It was bizarre. And just as we are trying to figure out what the heck that guy was all about, we come across this:

Yes, that is a white minivan with attachments that make it look like the shuttle. Unlike the guy on the bike, we actually made a u-turn to document this weirdness. And in case you wonder where you'd park something that amazing, we took a picture of that, too:

I don't know if you can read it, but that sign on the garage says "Not NASA." Thank god we clarified. It's hard to tell the difference between the world's greatest space agency and a trailer in the middle of the Arkansas woods.

Then we passed a Mercedes graveyard. There were a dozen rusted old Mercedes covered in leaves behind a row of trees. We didn't make a u-turn for that one either because we were worried if we turned around every time we saw something weird, we'd never get to Eureka Springs.

We finally got to town and gave our little front carrier a try for the first time.

As usual, Mia was a total sport. The only thing she didn't like was when her hat fell too low, covering her eyes. It was kind of hard maneuvering in the bathroom when she needed a diaper change, though. I'm sure that will get better with practice. We had lunch, met up with our pal Tanya and walked through the old downtown. It was really fun! Mia survived the whole day, including two creepy encounters.

1. A very, very high hippie lady freaked out about how cute Mia is. She gave a long monologue about how important it is for people to blend together, like colors of the rainbow. She looked at Leigh and me and pointed out what features of Mia's came from each of us. I think we were the first interracial couple to go into her shop. Or maybe we were the first interracial couple to go into her shop when she was that high.

2. Some lady touched Mia's toes. I wrote a column about it here.

Here we are just before we left.

We visited and had dinner with Tanya and her family at their cabin. It was so great to see our pal from Wisconsin! We were really happy Mia got to meet her.