Eastward, Ho! Days 20 & 21: Wandering Fairfield Bay and Heber Springs

 Friday, June 25

Not much to report for today, mostly resting from yesterday's traveling.  We did drive the Sammy over to the community of Fairfield Bay to explore.  Martha knew of this through neighborhood friends Dale and Anita B. who'd explored the area in terms of possibly buying a house there.

What was supposed to be a sedate drive to check out the houses in this community turned out to be a seemingly endless set of rollercoaster-quality hilly roads, twisting and turning, dipping and climbing, closely bordered by thick forest on both sides at times, and blind curves.

The Sammy did great, except of course on the steeper hills when I had to downshift to third to keep any forward momentum!  The downhill portions were a bit "exciting" at times, not sure why they picked such a hilly location to build on but there you go.  In fact, Martha got a bit of motion sickness from all the twists and turns!

All that driving, and no pics.  I think we're returning to the area on Sunday to explore an Indian Cave, so perhaps pics then.

Saturday, June 26

We drove to the nearby town of Heber Springs, well, sort of near anyways.  It's basically on the other end of the lake formed by the Greers Ferry Dam.  Speaking of which, that was our first destination this morning.  This dam's claim to fame is apparently that it was one of the last public appearances by President John F. Kennedy; when he showed up to dedicated the newly completed dam.  He would end up being assassinated a few weeks later.

Greers Ferry Dam

The dam feeds water to the Little Red River apparently; at least accordingly to the man who was standing near me at the overlook.

Photo of Kennedy with the Dam's overlook platform in the background

One of the purposes of the drive to Heber Springs had been to obtain a bottle of K-Seal Head Gasket Sealer product.  They had it in stock at the O'Reilly's Auto Parts store in town, and I decided to put it in right there and then after a big cloud of steam (from coolant leaking into combustion chamber I think from a small crack) emerged from the Sammy's tailpipe!

We then went for about a 30 minute drive in the countryside, to enable the sealer to flow through the whole cooling system for the engine.  Then, we headed back into town and parked at the Country Market for some shopping by Martha:

We then parked by the town's Seven Springs Park.  The natural hot springs were the basis of the the town being created where it is apparently.  We had lunch at one of the park's picnic benches (Martha packed a picnic) and we listened to this man sing religious songs (we are in the Bible Belt after all) from a nearby stage:

We found what remains of the springs, they've apparently been capped for whatever reason.  There's spigots on the side of each containment unit from which you can draw water from said spring however.

Some more wandering about Heber Springs found us at Sandy Beach but it was closed due to flooding.  All we could do is pose the Sammy by an opening in the trees along the entrance to the place:

We got back to the campsite with no issues and with the engine heat gauge acting about normal, perhaps running just a bit higher than usual.  I'm wondering it that'll be the new normal.  

We then went to the nearby swim area and cooled off for a bit.  The water was very choppy on the lake.  I used spot G3, which is a presently submerged by flood waters camping site to wade in.  This is me, standing on a submerged picnic bench for the site:

Here's Martha, working on her tan:

The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging about the campsite, not doing much of anything but reading and some cooking by Martha.  She's bought a small air fryer and its working out well for cooking items.

Around 7PM we headed out once again in the Sammy to try and find a spot for a sunset shot.  We tried several roads on both sides of the below bridge, no luck.  We ended up in the "Narrows" COE campsite where I found a spot to take at least a shot of the bridge between Higden and Greers Ferry.

I'm happy to report that we returned to the camp from this drive, with the same amount of coolant in the reservoir that we left with!  It's too early to tell for sure, but things are looking good perhaps in terms of stopping the regular loss of coolant and hopefully the absence of coolant steam from the tailpipe on startup!  Will report back in a week, hopefully, to report all continues well in this regard.