nowhere, man

Yes, it is summer, the time of humidity, bugs and laziness. In fact, V and I sampled all of the above during a recent trip to just-to-the-left-of-the-middle-of-nowhere, just the other side of Jasper, AR. We’ve been fortunate enough to vacation at one beach or another several of the past summers, but with no large scale trip in the offing in ‘09 we accepted some friends’ generous offer to crash at their rented cabin for a few days. So off to the Ozarks we went.

Wednesday 07.01.09
Our destination – Creek’s End – was about a five hour drive from the Kansas City area. Remote as it was, the directions were necessarily so absurd that I thought I’d written them myself: “look for the first road with a stop sign … go by some big pastures … there will be about 17 mailboxes” and so on. And they weren’t kidding. Once we left paved roads the going was … treacherous. And slow – I figure literally 10% of our travel time was taken by this sort-of-driveway.

At any rate, arrive we did, frazzled nerves and all. No sooner had I encouraged V to take a deep breath because we’d made it without issue than I noticed the result of 5.9 miles of potholes:

Tire: flat on one side.

Though it didn’t happen in the dramatic and potentially catastrophic manner of our 2007 Florida trip, the tire did blow. (The following day a local ["most of them are friendly"] suggested we avoid shale because it can be sharp. Huh.) Oh well, that’s why one carries a spare. Incidentally, I wouldn’t recommend jacking your car up on inclined gravel. Another reason for the oh well type attitude – oh yeah, we’re here!

Lodging.

The cabin was a comfortable and quaint spot beneath a canopy of trees and overlooking … I guess it was the Buffalo River. I never really got accustomed to which way was up out there, let alone what anything was named. It was pretty interesting to observe, “oh hey, the sun is going down over there, that must be west.”

The small sky.

  

Den of Lazing.

The Buffalo River. I guess?

The owner of this place must be an interesting individual, judging from some of the rather hippie-fied decorations and the assortment of randomly lurking statues.

The vociferous and abundant crows made me want to place a bust of Pallas.

After many long and winding roads, the remainder of Wednesday was spend unwinding. Food and drink were ample and we got  the guitars out, playing Kristofferson, Jellyfish and Buddy Miller, among gawd knows what else. It looked a lot like this:

The Hat of Marchman.

Thursday 07.02.09
Another fine point of the travel directions I found perplexing prior to actually getting there was the mention that the nearest town was, “12 miles (30 minutes).” Of course that made perfect sense after one run up to the house. Any “trip to town” had the potential to turn into an all day event. But there were attractions to be experienced. We hit Jasper proper for some tire fixery (“I can tell you right now it’s toast,” said the tire guy), lunch and junk shopping.

Ok, this isn't where we ate. But this was the better signage.

Like I said, junk shopping.

Our ultimate goal for the afternoon, however, was Mystic Caverns. It was pretty nice to escape into the constant 58 degrees from the day’s heat. There were lots of stalagmites, stalactites, Sleestaks and other things. Additionally, we got to see formations that looked like Cthulu and B.O.C.’s Cultosaurus Erectus and check out some bitchen cave reverb as our tour guide sang one phrase (and one phrase only) of “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” I suppose you had to be there.

Do Not Touch.

Track one: "Black Blade"

I hate to break it to our wheezing traveling party, but according to those internetz, the elevation of Harrison, AR, near which the caverns are situated, is but 80 feet higher than what we’re used to. Damn the thin oxygen! Sheesh.

But it was some taxing walking. So what were we to do except retire to the deck for food and beverage? Nothing.

"Empties"

Impressionistic point-of-view, a couple hours later.

Like the wonderfully aged former contents of that Ten High bottle, this trip is already starting to ferment and improve in my brain.

V took it upon herself to build a fire at some point. It was an excellent call.

Thursday 07.03.09
We knew this was our last full day out of town and wanted to make the most of it. I’d say we did. Rising early-ish V and I opted for a hike. I’m no adventurer and our roughly three mile jaunt would make hardcore outdoorsmen scoff, but I still have to say this was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. As previously mentioned, I barely knew we were on a map, let alone which direction the s-, z-, or w-shaped road was taking us. There were designated trails and accompanying literature … and it still didn’t make sense. Anyway, we took off down the road. Finally a passerby (who slowed her car and asked if my wife was “the artist” – huh?) clued us in as to the trail markings. And away we went.

We picked up the red trail first.

The red trail. Don't you see it?

And – we lost the red trail first. It just … sort of ended at the river. So we crossed and forged on. The instructions we read said that if you got lost, go down hill and follow the creek home. That’s basically what we did. I just found it amazingly liberating to be in the middle of the woods, unsure of exactly how far we were from our home base, up to our knees in clear water. I didn’t have the least bit of apprehension (should I have?) or concern for things outside the moment. I was full on Zen. And it was awesome. Some shots from the hike:

Up the road.

36" of snake

I’m not sure what superstition says about a black snake crossing your path. Actually, this snake was blocking the path. I poked it in the head with a long stick to which it responded with a look of, “the fuck is your problem?” We gave him wide berth and moved around.

Camera eye view

We did indeed arrive back at the house. I knew we would.

Later on it was back into Jasper for some dinner (so-so) and a mountain top drive. Yes, we even saw a cow in the road:

Roadcow

On the way back to the cabin we finally found that a shop we’d been passing was open. It turned out that the historic building was the domain of artist David Walker, a very talented and fascinating person. If you’re ever in “downtown” Parthenon, AR (population -3?) be sure to stop in.

David Walker: artist, sculptor, percussionist.

We spent the last night like the previous nights, hanging on the deck with good friends. There was another fire and some more drinks (duh) and at dusk a few of us made the short trek back down to the river to see if we could spy any critters coming out for water. Ultimately we heard some questionable and unidentifiable sounds, the loudest and most obscuring of which seemed to be some pissed off Marlboro smoking bird nearby. And though we were in serious elk territory, had seen a large paw print earlier in the day and witnessed plenty of armadillo and raccoon evidence, that night we saw nothing. Well, no wildlife at any rate. We did see this:

Sigh.

Friday 07.04.09
We spent Independence Day packing and heading home. Yes, of course I stopped for more picture taking:

Fourth of July in mid-America

Sustaining the trip in a fit of cliched tourism, we stopped in that bastion of hillbilly theater Branson, MO for a bit of browsing and lunch in a cafe. And then we got the hell out. Heading west and north listening to k.d. lang and Joni Mitchell (hey, they’re both Canadian – what kind of jingoistic red, white and blue celebration is that?), we descended the remaining 80 feet to home.

For an adjacent-state, on-the-cheap, three-day getaway this was a hell of a trip.

~ by dukewisdom on July 6, 2009.