Land Cruising in Little Drifter: Spending time in Arkansas

September 13, 2020

We pulled into the Ozark Mountains and Shirley, Arkansas pretty early on Sunday. We pulled into the park, Golden Pond, about 12:00 and the owners were still at church. They pulled in shortly and we got all settled.

After our busy time in Branson we decided to lay low on Monday and stayed home. We walked around the park and it is a pretty nice place. The pool is above ground, and the owner has rigged up a wood burning heater. We are in Arkansas, remember? They have a very soothing waterfall area with a nice love seat. This is all beside the chicken pen and goat / dog pen. We walked over to the pond and they even have a duck house with several ducks around. The owners are wonderful and the staff is as well. They have a restaurant here on the premises that they have closed due to covid, but will reopen on Saturday, after we leave on Friday. Just our luck.

We took off to do some hiking Tuesday and Wednesday and found some beautiful sites. The first trail we took is called Indian Rock Cave Nature Trail. It has a cave that Indians really lived in and there are actually two bodies buried in the cave. As we walked the trail there are several other caves as well and some walk throughs that are kinda creepy, but cool. Dennis would not get off the path with me because while we were hiking in Nebraska he got some poison something. I don't think it was poison ivy, but something similar and it liked to drove him out of his mind. It went away pretty quick, but it even had him getting up at night to put stuff on it. Poor guy. So he is not wondering with me anymore through the brush, but waits patiently for me to. This cave and trail is in a place called Fairfield Bay. It is a retirement community that is enormous. They actually have eight restaurants right here in their community. There are some other trails in town as well, but the lady that gave us all the information at the museum said the falls weren't flowing right now and so we chose to pick some other trails.

After that cave we got hungry and went in search of food.

So Wednesday, we checked out several trails. The first was on Corps of Engineers land, Josh Park Memoriall Trail, and they also have a campground there. It was closed, but it looked pretty cool. No hook ups, but level sites and far apart too. The trail was very wide and very well traveled. We ran into several people out there. As a matter of fact a couple of guys has somehow gotten into a discussion about fraudulent voters ballots. How do you get into that type of discussion while hiking? This trail was pretty much for anybody. Very easy, not like yesterday at the Indian Rock Cave one. It was pretty rugged. We could even have brought our bicylcles, or really even our truck, it was so wide and easy. Very beautiful but young looking forest. Very few large trees.

Next we picked the Mossy Bluf Trail near the Little Red River at the Greers Ferry Dam. This trail was also a Corps of Engineer trail, but pretty rough terrain and some of it is on a fairly narrow ledge. I wondered how many people fell from those ledges. But it is a site to see! There are beautiful rock formations and the bluff is sometimes covered in moss. The smells here were amazing as well. The clean water and fresh air! We finally got completely away from all the smoke from the many fire out west. We never ran into another soul here. The trail splits at one point and a portion goes up closer to the bluff and the other lower on the trail. We went lower, and noticed after we headed back that the upper could be used as an enormous short cut. But we were in for the whole shebang anyway. The end of the trail has an overlook to the dam and I think there was maybe a million steps to get to it. But we got our obligatory photo from the overlook. We even went down to the dam after the trail to see the water and it is crystal clear. You could see the many fish swimming around. Dennis mentioned that our friend Greg Lynd would be in hog heaven fishing here!

This is only about two feet tall, but looks like something out of a hobbit movie.

See why it is called Mossy Bluff

Obligatory photo and barbed wire growing through trees here.

Our next trail is in JFK Park which also has a trout hatchery. We were unable to see the one in Branson, so we went to check this out. It is a heck of an operation, but they have some very large trout that are there just for show. I think that is kinda cruel. The other tanks are so full of fish they are on top of each other, again, pretty cruel. So I guess they are doing good things keeping the species going, but get some bigger tanks or scale this operation down a little.

So on to our next trail - we were saving the best for last. This one is Collins Creek Trail and is located at the JFK Park with the hatchery and just across the river from Mossy Bluff Trail. We were looking for the water fall this time. I do love me some waterfalls. We did not have to wait long. Almost first thing you come to the falls and the trail follows the creek all the way to the Little Red River. By the way, the water is not red in this river, it is clear and amazing. The creek water was the same. We found a little girls pair of shoes and pants at the edge of the falls. These trails are covered with some type of grey gravel that was poking me through my shoes and someone had a barefoot child on the trail. It ended up being a family from Iowa and Texas. We ran into them on the trail and the girl was maybe 7 years old. There were a lot of trees over the creek and I even used one as a bridge, they are that big. We found one spot that looked like a huge cave and rock formation but it was only about two feet tall. I could really just see this thing being way bigger and in some movie.

He had to touch the water to see how cold it was. It was very cold.

At the end of the trail where the Collins Creek meets the Little Red River we found a wake of buzzards. (yes it is called a wake - I looked it up - Google doesn't lie)

So many on both sides of the creek.

Not one was eating anything, they were just resting I guess.

We got really close and they weren't scared either.