MISSOURI TRIP – JULY
10-13, 2007
LouCindia,
Drey, Gabriel, Granddad and Grandma
Tuesday, July 10
We
left the house about 12:00 noon and went to Murray to have a quick lunch at
Burger King..
From Murray we took KY Hwy 121 to Wycliffe, KY where we passed by the
Wycliffe Mounds Sate Historic site, on our way to the bridge over the Ohio
River at Cairo, IL. We saw the bridge
over the Mississippi River there, but we wanted to cross the Mississippi River
on the new bridge at Cape Girardeau, MO.
It is a suspension bridge and is very impressive – there was a park at
the base of the bridge on the Missouri side, and we stopped there to take
pictures of the bridge (and a Mockingbird flying from a post there, and a
squirrel in a tree!). From there we took
I-55 south to U.S. Hwy. 60 and took that highway to our destination for the
day, Van Buren, Missouri. Hwy 60 was
pleasantly 4-laned all the way to Van Buren so we made better time than we had
thought we would. Hwy 60 goes across
southern Missouri like Hwy. 64 goes across southern Tennessee.
In
Van Buren, we crossed the Current River and saw our motel, The Landing, on the
left.
We
got to our room – 209 – and got ourselves “situated” and then set out in search
of supper. WE found a restaurant across
the river, right on the court square, called the Float Stream Restaurant. The food was pretty good and reasonably
priced. Of course we had to go down to
the water and play (right in front of the motel) – skipping rocks, throwing
rocks, and just generally having fun. Drey wanted to swim, and found the water to be COLD!
After
our romp at the river, we were all tired and got ready for bed when we heard
someone shooting fireworks – and the kids had spotted a bat (actually 2) flying
around the lights catching bugs, so we wound up outside watching the fireworks
which were being set off across the river and on the other side of the
bridge. We met our neighbors who were
from KY and had a pleasant conversation with them.
Wednesday, July 11
Everyone
slept well and we were up about 8:00. We
went to breakfast at the same restaurant where we had eaten supper, and then
came back to the motel room to get ready for our float trip down the Current
River. That process – all changing,
sun-screening, stowing of valuables, etc. – took some time. It was a little after 11:00 when we finally
got the float rented, then we had to wait for them to set up the float and then
pick us up and take us to our starting point which was the Log Yard. They basically unloaded the raft and paddles
and left us there – no final instructions, safety talk or anything.
We
got into the raft, life jackets on the kids and ours at our feet, and pushed
off from the bank. It was IMMEDIATELY
clear that paddling was only going to be necessary if we needed to steer – it
is not called the Current River for nothing. There was a canoe that came up behind us with
a father and son from southern IL. We
talked for a long way down the river. As
we began to see that much of the river was shallow enough to stand in, the kids
asked if they could swim as we floated.
It turned out that this worked well, so Drey
spent about half her time in the water. Gabe would have stayed in it the whole time, but we kept having to pull him out because he would be
shivering. The river was really
beautiful, alternating from shallow rocky bottom to deep river channel with
some rocky cliffs and many gravel bars with trees everywhere – broad-leafed
sycamores and wispy willows overhanging swift green channel or rippling
gravelly shallows. With kids in and out
of the raft, we had water in it and so we stopped at a point where there was a
sand bar with a concrete ramp, and we turned the raft over and dumped the
water. Just a little further down river
we came to the Nation Park Watercress recreation area. We pulled in there and took a much-needed
restroom break. (We later learned that
this was a river access area located in the Big Spring part of the National
Park area. But at the time we didn’t
know about Big Spring.)
We
saw springs bubbling in the water in one area as we came around a bend. The bubbles would start up from the bottom
and follow a slanted path to the surface as the current moved them swiftly
downriver. Fascinating
to watch. We saw small “caves” in
the rocks in some places and many beautiful rock walls. There also were some very beautiful houses on
the hills overlooking the river. It is
hard to imagine how many people are here on weekends: our neighbors at the motel said that the
driver who took them to their starting point on the river said that on weekends
he could easily take 2300 people to the river!
And he is just ONE driver for ONE outfitter and there are several
outfitters! We were VERY glad we
came in the middle of the week! We were still “dodging” people all the way down
(a group of “tubes” passed us while we were dumping the water from the
float.) Toward the end of the run, Drey and Gabe “captured” a loose
yellow tube. They floated in it till the owners came by and asked for it – the
owners also thanked them for rescuing it.
When
we got under the bridge, we left the raft with the outfitters and headed up to
the motel. We changed to dry clothes and
hung wet things on the banister, then we went to lunch
at the Float Stream again.
After
lunch we went looking for Big Spring – another site in Ozark National Scenic Riverways. It is the
largest spring in Missouri and one of the largest in the world with a flow of
about 278 million gallons per day! It is
really a beautiful area, though its “lake” does not cover as large an area as
Mammoth Spring in AR. It comes to the
surface out of a rock wall – having traveled about 45 miles underground to get
there – and the area where it comes out is very beautiful. The water from the spring flows into the
Current River. In driving around the
area, we came to the landing area that we had seen on our river trip earlier in
the day – where we had taken our restroom break.
After
Big Spring, we returned to the motel. LouCindia and Tommy stayed in the room and Gabe and Drey wanted to
swim. So I took my camera and notebook
and went down to the river with them. We
all got inner tubes – they floated with theirs and I sat on mine because the
best shady spot on the beach was also the only sandy spot on the beach (most of
the beach – as with most of the bed of the entire Current River – is composed
of river gravel. Gabe
and Drey floated and swam until almost sunset. We went back to the room and they got baths
then we went to the grocery store and got “snacky
things” for supper. Everybody slept
well!
Thursday, July 12
We
got up at 6:30 because we wanted to be at the Round Spring Cave at 9:00. We wanted to take the lantern tour of the
cave, and they only do 2 per day and each is limited to the first 15 people to
sign up. We wanted the first tour so we
would have the rest of the day to get to Mammoth Springs, AR. We drove to Winona and ate breakfast at the
Apple Barrel Restaurant. It took us a
little longer to get packed and away, so we got to the cave about 9:15. The ranger took the number of people and said
he would be selling the tickets in 15 minutes.
So we got the tickets and then drove down to the starting point of the
tour. The ranger who led our tour was a
woman, and she had her daughter, Bailey, with her. Bailey and her mother handed out electric
lanterns to each person, and one person in each group
got an LED light. We climbed the steps
to the cave entrance and went through the gate – which was a low bar to
demonstrate how low we’d have to bend over later in the cave tour: if you couldn’t get through the gate, you
couldn’t go on the tour.
Since
it was a lantern tour, it was hard to get every picture we wanted, but we got
some good ones, including some of the cave salamanders, grotto salamanders, the
fossils of ancient sea creatures and the actual prints from ancient short-faced
bears which went extinct 10,000 years ago (in fact, the fossilized bones of one
were excavated from the cave and are on display at the University of IL.) There were a couple of bats but they flew
away before we could get pictures of them.
The rock formations were beautiful and the trail was good, even though
it was steep in some places and low in others.
The ranger said that other than some repairs or improvements, the trail
was pretty much the same one that had been put in originally about 75 years
ago.
She
said the bears had come to the part of the cave where we found their prints
because it was dry there (unlike other areas which are still very active); they
found it by following the scent trail they left with scent from their paws
(because where they were would have been pitch black then).
The
tour was 2 hours long and we were ready to be done by the end of it. We then went on down the road and had lunch
in Summersville., and then continued on toward Mammoth
Springs, reaching there about 4:30 this afternoon. Tommy and I had been here
before, but it was a first for the children.
This spring averages a flow of about 9 million gallons an hour! It is a beautiful expanse of water which is
the beginning of the Spring River.
We
got our room (130) at the River View Lodge – it overlooks the river with balconies
on the back. Also, the railroad is
between the motel and the river – and it is a busy rail line. We saw a first for me earlier: a coal train with two engines up front and
one pushing it in back!
We
ate supper across the river at the River Bend Restaurant – Tommy and I had
eaten there before and had been looking forward to coming here again. After we ate, we went out on their deck and
watched a ground hog below us who came up, seeming to ask if we were going to
feed it. We also saw a mother mallard
with two small babies on the river.
Earlier we had seen muskrats at the springs – eating plants and taking
some to build their nests. We also saw SEVERAL
geese and a lot of ducks and pigeons at Mammoth Spring.
On
the way from the cave to Mammoth Spring, we went through Akers and crossed the
Current River on the Akers Ferry – Gabe’s first ferry
ride. It was interesting to see how they
operated it: we had to ring a bell to
call the operators as they didn’t have a “ferry house” located next to the river
– it was back up the hill. Drey got to do the honors for that call.
Friday, July 13
We
got up late – about 8:30 – and packed and went to breakfast at eh River Bend
Restaurant again. This time the kids
wanted to eat on the deck, so we did. It
was very pleasant outside and the sun stayed behind the clouds for the most
part.
After
breakfast, we went to “Dam 3” where the fish hatchery is located and saw an
awesome array of trout! We even got to
feed some – that was fun! We watched one
man load trout into a truck to deliver somewhere and that was really
interesting – they got the trout into a long rectangular raceway and then used
a screen pulled through the water to force them into a hole with a suction pump
on it which pumped them up a tube and then out the tube into the truck. There was a LOT of water running! They said they ran 70,000 gallons of water a
day through the “silos;” trout have to have strong current and that was
DEFINITELY what they had there.
In
addition to the fish, we also saw a couple of snakes in the water (not in the
silos but in a separate area which seemed to allow them to release fish into
the river – we didn’t ask what that area was for). We also were VERY surprised to see a small
alligator in one of the raceways – there was no water in it, just a little
dripping, but not filling it up. When we
asked, the man said that it had been confiscated from someone and had been kept
by the fish and wildlife people in another town till they got tired of fooling
with it. These people normally kept it
in another area in the building, but let it outside some on sunny days. They take it around for demonstrations at
schools.
We
also got to see the incubators where they put the fish eggs to hatch them, but
there were no eggs today. It was all
very, very interesting. They also had a
skin from a boa constrictor hanging in the office: the boa belongs to one of the employees and
she brought the skin in for demonstration purposes – it was probably about 6
feet long!
After
the hatchery, we left Mammoth Spring headed east for Kennett, Missouri. We stopped in Paragould, AR to look in the
library and see what we could find on the Carmacks
and Claxtons and see if anything would help us find
Nancy Claxton Carmack’s grave. We had no luck in Paragould, but had not
expected much there. We went on to
Kennett and went to the library there.
Tommy found cemetery listings and Drey looked
through the C’s on the deed indexes that were available on microfilm (which
were not much). I found some information
in a family folder, but it was mainly information we already had. Lou’cindia and Gabe (and Drey at one point) went
upstairs where there was a “Hall of Fame” display including some pictures of
Sheryl Crow who is from Kennett.
We
knew we wanted one particular cemetery, but we could not find any
directions. So we asked the ladies in
the library who gave us directions. When
we got to the cemetery, it was REALLY large – we all spread out (some of us had
chalk because these were mostly very old stones) and we looked for Carmack and Pickens.
We only found one stone that we knew was related and that was for J. R. Carmack who was the son of Nancy Claxton Carmack. We found a
piece of another stone with several names, but it was broken and only a few
names were visible. We thought this
might have been a stone that listed children of someone and it COULD
have been children of Nancy (but that is VERY far-fetched! With too little info to go on)
After
the cemetery we headed home – a little less than three hours away. We crossed the Mississippi River on the
Dyersburg bridge and passed the hospital were Chris was born and pointed out
the location of the house where we lived in Martin. All in all, a very rewarding trip.