My sister Marie has been here for a little over a week, taking some vacation time from her newspaper job and helping Jay with his recovery.  She took over for Mom, who was here for the entire month of May.  Today I took her to the airport.  Understand, Eureka Springs isn’t in the middle of nowhere—but you can see it from here.  The airport is called Northwest Arkansas Regional, symbol XNA.  It’s a few miles down some hick farm road off of I-540 north of the big town of Springdale.  All told, about 70 miles by road from Eureka Springs.  I don’t know who decided to build an airport out here in the middle of this weed patch, but there it is.  You’d swear, when you take exit 73 there from I-540, that somebody was playing a joke on you.  Ain’t no way anybody would put an airport out here, right?  I was worried that the airplane was going to be a Piper Cub and the airport a grass strip with a tin shed and a single gas pump.  Good thing I got good directions, too, because the signage is nearly non-existent.  I guess the area needed better air service, but you’d think they could have improved the Fayetteville airport.  Probably some county commissioner had excess land that he conned his cronies into having the public pay for.