A Wet Weekend in Arkansas

Trumpeter Swan near Hiram Road in North Central Arkansas

We had a good trip south the weekend before last, following our typical route along US-65 to the Greers Ferry area. Not really stopping for much, the only thing of note along the way were a few forest fires, one of which I got a shot of out of the car window near Leslie. A burn ban was in effect for most of North Central Arkansas. I assume weather had been dryer than usual, though you could never tell by looking at the Little Red River. It was running a good 12 feet higher during our entire visit, according to the USGS stream gauge.

Fire on the moutain near Leslie, AR

The weather and other matters kept us from getting out too much, but we did detour away one day to go have a look at the swans out on Hiram Road. Apparently, they are fixtures at several of the surrounding ponds. I am not quite sure if they are all the same or different groups of them. That little jaunt was to have been the extent of our travels that day, but we found ourselves with more time on our hands than originally planned, so headed off to Batesville for a look around.

Central Avenue Bridge in Batesville

The White River runs through there, which the Little Red joins up with much further downriver. We knew little more than that. I had a couple of historic bridges marked on the map, and a schoolhouse along the way, so we chased those down. We found and photographed the Central Avenue Bridge, built by the Luten Bridge Company, dedicated in 1930 and on the National Register of Historic Places. We were not so lucky with the Dill Schoolhouse, which should have been near Ida, remained elusive.

Sugar Loaf mountain shrouded in clouds

The rest of the time in the area was not particularly suitable to photography. It was cold, gray and rainy the next day. Cards and conversation were the order of the day, along with pizza. Indeed, the few photographs taken that day were with the phone, on a pizza run. With Sugar Loaf shrouded in clouds, better photos would have prevailed with a better camera. Having another 30 minutes to wait on said pizza, I toured over to the utterly vacant Heber Springs Recreation Area and snapped a couple of shots of the lake at dusk.

Stairway in Eureka Springs, Arkansas

The next day we were on the road again to Eureka Springs, for an overnight break in the action. Arriving late in the afternoon, everything was closing within a couple of hours. It was a Monday and the town was mostly dead, and not likely to be alive much more on Tuesday morning. Some shopping around occurred, along with photographing various oddities here and there. Dinner at the Balcony Restaurant, along with our stay at the historic Basin Park Hotel was fantastic. It is quite an interesting piece of architecture, with an interesting history.

Roaring River State Park

As several of the store-clerks indicated the day before, the next morning the streets were just as deserted as the night before. We needed to get back to Kansas City anyway, and the hour or so of shopping I had been through the previous day had been enough. We stopped through Roaring River State Park briefly, for a closer look without the usual traffic around. It was as empty as most of the places we visited too, but afforded a closer look at the grounds, the hatchery and the spring that feeds the river. That was the only other stop on this the short mid-February run to Arkansas, and were home again.

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Further Reading

Captain Perry and the Barefoot Ball

The vision of one man remains front and center after 100 years