Oh Arkansas ... what a beautiful place! Full of good people, good flea markets, and poisonous copperheads! Ahhh! It was such a great time visiting my old buddy ole pal Travis and his lady Miss Rachael Kay ... we toured the city of Mountain View and saw so many cool things. This place is labeled as the Folk Music Capital of the World! Crazy! But unexplainably its true!
A man by the name of Jimmy Driftwood was born very close to this lovely place in Timbo, AR. He wrote a song by the name of "The Battle of New Orleans." May of heard it eh? I sure do know that catchy tune! But really, it was a trip to go down to town square about 11 at night and see all the oldies hanging in their "drum" folk circles playing music into the early morning hours. It seemed as if you're over 50 there is a 90% chance you play music and are down in the square hanging with their homies, putting back some ice cream and cokes, and having a great time.
We ate some delicious grilled cat fish at Jo Jo's with some hush puppies on the side. MMMM, man I love food. No matter what it is you have to try it, cause you never know how much you're gonna like it! That's my philosophy! I had my staple country fried steak and it was danky as well. They have this cool all inclusive resort service to go fishing, rent cabins, and feed you till you roll down the road 20 feet to your housing unit. All that fishing can make a grown man hungry, and whadya know, there is some great food right there so you don't even have to sweat too much thinking or moving to get it!
The next day proved to be even more interesting. We met the local owner of Stone County Ironworks. They are a modern day blacksmith shop that makes some amazing stuff all with straight blood and sweat. They had some beautiful works that I wish I could own, but I have to wait a couple years when I am actually making money!
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All this happened just while sitting in the beautiful Turner Coffee Tree having a doppio with two tons of sugar in it ... least I can say is that I was pumped up!! Rachael has got a beautiful place there complete with some beautiful wood furniture made by her family. Purdy cool! Later that night we ventured to the local drive in to watch Despicable Me. Sitting out, no thunderstorms luckily, eating some Tommy's bbq rib pizza that, and watching a couple fire flies cruise by ... oh yeah, and the movie. One thing that was hard to believe, but was inevitably true, is that Stone County is a dry county. No booze! Ahhhh! I know I love a drink now and then but to live somewhere it doesn't exist (except by other measures) I say you're crazy! It's not really that bad but just weird ...
Our last full day was a trip to the Blanchard Springs Cave. One of the biggest living caves in the US it was pretty fun to go see some new caverns that were completely different then the Lewis and Clark caverns we saw just a couple of months ago. It had some big rooms where they sing christmas carols, do some valentines day stuff, and just have a good time in! I know all Trav and I wanted to do was put on some boom boom music and have a dance partay! Whooo whooop! The springs that carved the cave were located on a different level, but they were a rushing spring that was gushing over 7000 gallons of water a minute out of the mountain. That results in some seriously cool rooms that are carved relatively fast in Earth history time (aka only millions and millions of years).
It was so nice to see Travis and Rachael. They gave us a great place to stay, took us to some good eateries, and kept the poisonous snakes at bay. We made it to Rachael's parents house outside the city for some good beef burgers, baked beans, baked potatoes, and bean queso dip. Did I tell you I like food? Cause it's true! On our way to the cars they were pretty serious when they said that we should be aware of the copperheads that lurk in the yard late at night. Yikes! Dangerous ... very dangerous!
We're off on our final legs to Austin. The weather is keeping us from getting very far. Better safe than sorry. It will be nice to get into a place for real. We got many new adventures to go on in the future and we are still on one, but it's gonna be so great to see our new place! But not yet!
We've gone over 5600 miles. Whew. Car has held up, feel like I shouldn't drive it for weeks once we get there. Thankfully we've got some bikes waiting for us. Even though SOME people think not so fondly of them ... of all the nerve ... :)
Good to see that my boy is a live and kickin in Ar Kansas....thanks for checking in on him...miss you guys here. The weather has been awesome, no rain.
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