Haunted Mirror

I went to Eureka Springs with my family yesterday. That was fun, and the place is lovely. I'd love to go with people who shop, and also some sort of expendable cash.

But the real highlight of this trip for me is going to be Pea Ridge, a Civil War historic national park, a totally unexpected sort of thing.

I find the Civil War depressing--reading a book about the overarching politics and basic history was enough for me to feel informed on the issue. Delving into the atrocities and such is not appealing to me. This trip was more than an expedition into forest trails and coming across a great abrupt bluff with spars of rock spearing up below. I read the meatier information blurbs avidly, listened to Mr. Docent when he went into the more fascinating branches carefully.

Someone, I think at a Conestoga panel, mentioned that if you want to learn about war, read up on specific battles. They mentioned a few they thought were noteworthy, but I don't write epic fantasy (*much*) and didn't think more of it.

Until watching the video of the battle here (which in a few ways, including scale is a significant one) then driving and looking out over the actual area and putting a picture together in my mind that was so compelling and new of what it looked like to fight a war.

Generalizations are the bane of Truth, you know it?
And specifics are awesome.

 I´d give you some really cool pictures, but I´m afraid of crashing the internet connection again.

I´d give you some really neat words about it, but I´m still processing. Surrounded by Spanish, shrinking from eyes on me all the time, taking pictures with the sun glaring off the screen.

Instead I leave you with:

I *heart* Plasma on a building.

A high school where girls can´t wear make-up or dyed hair but all the gay boys walk around with glitter on their eyelids as the principal is also homosexual.

Dozens of jars of maraschino cherries at the super, a half-dozen kinds of costume wings, and three scoops of Panamanian gelato.