April 18, 2010

•            It was this kind of day…

               

                sweet in every way!

  When you live in the Ozarks, you don’t have to travel far to find something interesting or beautiful to see. Yesterday, we headed northeast, deep into the Mark Twain National Forest, to revisit a place we knew and to explore some new destinations.

  

  First stop was Alley Spring Mill. Stately, picturesque and well preserved, this is one of our favorite typical Ozarks sites. Located on the Jacks Fork, in an area that is designated the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the mill, which features a turbine, was built to take advantage of the huge spring which pours forth from the base of a towering bluff.

  

                                  

  This place is breathtakingly beautiful! I watch the crystal clear, cold water rush through the sluice

                   

  and wonder how it is that the flow never stops. The Ozarks are blessed with so many springs, but they are not something we take for granted. 

                                 

  Also on the grounds is this restored one-room school building. It wasn’t open yesterday, but we peeked in the windows and felt that time stood still. My Farmboy attended a one-room school for five years, and he has wonderful memories of those bygone days. 

   

  Looking inside, you could almost hear the voices of children reciting or the teacher instructing. Thousands of these humble structures dotted the Ozarks landscape fifty years ago, but now they are almost all gone. Thank goodness, someone decided the Story’s Creek School was worth saving!

  We stopped in Eminence for a vanilla milkshake at the Dairy Shack, and then wandered on down Highway 19, through Eminence and on toward Alton. A forest service sign caught my eye and caused me to say, “Whoa!” We turned around and went back and sure enough, the sign said Falling Spring. I had long ago heard of another old mill at Falling Spring but had no idea where it was located.

  Off we went down the gravel road, down, down, down into a deep holler, farther and farther off the beaten path. Someone remarked, “The road is sure getting narrow…hope we don’t meet another car.” There was no need to worry…we had it all to ourselves. At the bottom of the long descent, we found ourselves at the edge of another spring, with an altogether different sort of mill perched on its edge.

  

  Falling Spring is aptly named….see how it tumbles out of the hole in the face of the bluff? This little mill was much less ambitious in design than Alley Mill but was functional for a long time, many years ago.

   

  It features an undershot water wheel, and the mechanism is still in place.

                 

  Across the mill pond stands the skeleton of the Thomas Brown cabin. A sign says the Browns came here in 1851, so this structure has weathered a lot of years. It is tiny and typical of the log cabins our ancestors built for their first homes. I hope it stands for another century or two.

  Back up on the highway, we traveled south on our scenic route,

              

  enjoying the dogwoods peeking through the new leaves on the hardwoods, with the deeper, darker green of the towering pines providing a dramatic contrast. We crossed the Eleven Point which, like the Jacks Fork, is another tributary of the Current River. These streams are incredibly popular with floaters when the weather gets just a tad warmer, but it is still a little early for most of the crowds.

  A mile or so past the bridge, another Forest Service sign beckoned us to stop and see Greer Spring. I asked if Farmboy was “springed out,” but he said, no, we could stop. Turns out that Greer Spring is in the bottom of another Ozarks holler (no surprise there!) so off we set on a nice little hike. Switchbacks helped keep it from being too steep,

            

             

            

               

  and I was amazed at the number of wildflowers blooming and ferns growing alongside the trail.

              

  We heard the water long before we saw it, and this was our first view. Down we went, and oh, my goodness, HOW we were rewarded for our efforts!

  This absolutely GORGEOUS spring gushes forth from a cave in the side of the bluff at an incredible rate of 222 million gallons per day!

                  

  We scrambled down to get as close as possible to the outlet where the water poured out of the side of the mountain.

   

          

  Huge, moss-covered boulders are strewn all around, making good climbing places. I felt as if we were in a holy place and just sat and looked, drinking it all in.

               

  Nothing manmade was in sight, just the most natural, simple beauty you can imagine.

             

  What a privilege to get to see this place!

              

  Climbing back out was easy, because I was still thinking about how extraordinarily pretty it was and how we didn’t even know it was there until we hiked down that trail. Thank goodness we turned off the road to see what was there!

  Our highway carried us on to Alton, and then to Thomasville, where we had a delightful catfish supper at River’s Edge,

             

  in an old-fashioned general store on the banks of the Eleven Point’s headwaters. This old town once thrived, but is now home to just a few folks and this little cafe, where they sure know how to cook catfish! I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect ending to our very sweet, very scenic and very satisfying day…except for that piece of homemade strawberry pie I had to pass up…just too much other good stuff. A day full of good stuff!

  • 11:18 pm
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