Today we leave the “Land between the Lakes” and head to Mountain View via Buffalo Point, Arkansas.
Every time I get in a car and head west I don’t feel officially into my trip until I cross the Mississippi River at some point. These old bridges are in the process of being replaced one at a time with much larger and wider bridges for the vehicles of the future. They are quite tiny and seem fragile in contrast of the river itself.
Although I don’t have a picture of one of the new suspension bridges they are all very wide and ornate absent the truss structure you see above. Most of these bridges have to let the tall barges go under then without being lifted so the new ones are very tall in comparison of these old ones. I like the contrast of the metal truss with nature. Soon they will be gone. A new contrast will arrive.
We haven’t taken the most direct route to where we are going. Since we were going right by the Mammoth Spring I thought it would be good to stop by and see if it had run out of water yet. Nope.
It’s still producing many millions of gallon an hour where it’s been doing so for as long as history has written. The original story of an Indian kicking open the hole where the water streamed from is a bit hokey but makes for a good story.
The generator has not operated since 1972, only 45 years ago. The technology in the building could probably be refurbished and restarted without much money or effort. There must be a reason why they are not restarting it other than that. 9 million gallons of water energy would be a pretty efficient public use of generating electricity. Not as efficient as nuclear fuel but we know that won’t happen.
When we arrive at the park it was 100ºF but sitting at the base of the falls was around 75ºF with a cool mist spraying you in the face. It was a nice break from the heat because there was absolutely no wind blowing to help cool things off.
In our lifetime together we’ve not had much of a chance to spend time at the Buffalo River. We always claim that we will one day. Yet we come and go after we spend an hour or two there. Buffalo Point is very easy to reach from the highway so somehow we always end up there. There must be a million rocks on the beach there. She found one that looked like a heart and then had a heart imprinted on the top.
We got back in the car and headed on to Mountain View where we spent the night at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. The cost of a room there is under $70/night still. They are very comfortable and accessible rooms. We arrived late and went to sleep pretty soon after getting there.
But before we did we spent about an hour in the “square” listening to random people playing bluegrass music. This is a terrible video but it’ll give you the idea of what it’s like at Mountain View in the evenings.
Tomorrow we will address the poison ivy problem head on. It has not gotten any better.