We had planned to do the Ale Trail whilst in Fayetteville but when we arrived, we realised that all but one of the breweries where outside the downtown area and one of us would have to drive. So our ale trail was limited to one brewery within walking distance, the West Mountain Brewing Company.
After a little more exploring around the Historic Square area, we found a recently opened pinball bar called PinPoint. Lee was looking for a rematch after his last pinball thrashing so we headed in. This was a cool bar. As well as the pinball machines, there was darts (with real darts and not the plastic ones we see a lot in bars here) and pool and the utility holders on the bar (holding straws and stirrers, etc) had USB sockets to charge your phone! What a neat idea!
I obviously won at pinball again, I am the Pinball Queen although I did let Lee win a couple of games on one of the more stranger machines.
We then switched games to darts. Lee was the darts captain in his university darts team (which sounds more like a drinking team than a sports team!) so he thought he was finally going to get some pride back and win. It was looking good for Lee until all of a sudden I managed to find some form I have never ever had in darts and checked out on 59 with 19, 20 and x10! Lee was so shocked by not only had I managed to hit the dart board but I'd actually got all three darts on target, he was more pleased than I was that I had won.
For dinner, we had 2 recommendations from the bars we had visited to go to Hugo's. This basement restaurant was funky and we had the best burgers so far on the trip!
After dinner, we walked towards downtown. Fayetteville is a university town and felt very safe, has lots going on and as you walk around town, there are lots of quirky and fun stuff to look at. The only negative with it being a university town is that we felt old walking around, most of the people we saw must have only been in their early 20's!
We tried out a couple of bars in downtown including one that was on a rooftop looking out onto the town, one that was showing the Razorbacks Baseball game and one with only curtains for doors on the toilet stalls!
Before we headed off the next day to Eureka Springs, we visited the Clintons' first house after they were married, they actually lived in Fayetteville. It was free to enter although there is an option to donate to its upkeep.
The house was filled with memoribilia from around the time of their marriage including Hillary's wedding dress. A lot of the decoration of the house and the furnishing were representative or the same ones from the time, including the bathroom. The bathroom was free to use so you could sit on the same toilet as Bill or Hillary Clinton did (NB: we didn't use the bathroom!).
We mentioned the Razorbacks earlier on in this post. What we hadn't realised until travelling around Arkansas just how big the Razorback Baseball and Football teams are. Everyone from Arkansas seems to supports these university teams, both are based at the university in Fayetteville. We saw so many signs, logos and even a hotels named after these teams. They are on TV in every bar you go into and everyone is talking about them. This is one big difference between the UK and the US, college (or university) sports are just as big in the US, if not bigger, than the professional teams and everyone gets behind them and supports them. We don't have this in the UK.
Looks like you had a more relaxing day here, not too much crammed in. Some great photos, I particularly liked the ballot bin and the pics from the Clinton's house
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