Eastward, Ho! Day 22: Indian Rock House and Arkansas Natural Bridge

 Sunday, June 27

We would end up driving around 80 miles today, first we drove over to Fairfield Bay and the Indian Cave attraction located next to the Little Red Restaurant.

There's a small but varied collection of vintage devices, stuffed animals, books and household items in the visitor center, but I just got a picture of the animals:

One of three totem poles in the Fairfield Bay area dedicated to

the 200th Anniversary of the signing of the Bill of Rights

The original homesteader's cabin, moved here to avoid being flooded

by nearby dam construction.  Believed to have been built in the 1860s.

I believe this is the main site for the petroglyphs.

Though apparently located right above the sign, Martha and I could only spot #5 and #3 of the petroglyphs.  Of my pics, only the one of #5 came out usable:

We went further along the trail, looking at smaller versions of the cave and rock formations.

Then, we managed to lose the trail and ended up walking quite a bit until we found our way back to the Little Red Restaurant!

Next on the itinerary was a drive over to the vicinity of the town of Clinton, AR.  Arkansas' Natural Bridge, I guess would be quite impressive to someone who hasn't seen the rock arches of Utah, but it was OK.

The best part of the visit was the drop of 470 feet or 47 stories in altitude via the steep road used to drive down to the arch's location!  It was originally a logging road and later a wagon road for settlers.  It must have been quite the ride down and up!

The round rock spheres are apparently naturally occurring.

Prim Rocks of Arkansas is what you google is you're curious

An example of the wagons that used the access road we drove on

to cross the area.

Not sure it was worth the $5 per person admission fee but there you go.  Perhaps if they let you on top of the bridge but in today's litigious culture, I can understand why its prohibited.

We then kept driving around the Greer Ferry Lake, through the town of Clinton where we got briefly rained on.  Then a short excursion to the Mill Creek Campground to check out possible sunset pic spots (nogo) and then back to Greers Ferry and the campsite.

Happy to continue to report we returned to camp with the same amount of coolant in the reservoir that we started with, no smoky starts and the temperature gauge nice and steady in the middle of the gauge.

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.

Eastward, Ho! Day 19: Travel Day to Greers Ferry Lake

 Today we displaced from Crystal Springs Cove to Greers Ferry Lake as we continue our slow meander through Arkansas enroute to Tennessee and Kentucky.

This COE campground is not very full at all, and for good reason.  I'd say about 1/2 of the campsites are under water or the access road to them is under water!  Yep, heavy rains last few weeks have raised the water level of the lake by 15 feet according to the fee both attendant!

Martha and I set up camp, then went to the swim area, which was under water, to take a dip.  The water at this lake is quite choppier than Ouashita Lake!

We would return later with the Sammy for pics as we'd not carried my camera on the first outing.

3 of the four site in loop G, that I could ID, are underwater....

Standing at the entrance to site G3, shooting back towards the Sammy

The water is above my knees at this point.

Martha sitting on the picnic bench for site G4, the fire grill next to

her is under water...

Martha trying to blame the GPS for getting us here.....  ;)

Near sunset, I went out on Yagi but failed to find a good spot for sunset pics, not to mention the sunset itself was quite a non-event.  I did find out how zealous the State of Arkansas Department of Transportation is about clearly marking their areas of responsibility:

The Sammy was spewing white smoke on startup yesterday, I'm suspecting a hopefully tiny crack/break in the engine's head gasket.  More to follow on this rather vexing theory.  If it proves out, it's an expensive repair and may prove the Sammy's doom in terms of my ownership.  

I've requested help from the Samurai community that is attending the rally in Kentucky the weekend of 9-10 July, perhaps someone will help nail down this issue and perhaps it'll lead to a fix.  If not, it'll be an expensive lesson for me but what the heck, it's only money right?  : (   I'm keeping my fingers crossed its not the head gasket, as the Sammy started up several times today, ran fine, no smoke at all.  

Of course, now the electric fuel pump is making louder buzzing noises, sporadically, when the engine is at idle.  She ran fine on the 25 mile test drive I did today after we noticed the new noise, so will see how things go the next few days along with monitoring for white smoke.  Sigh.

Eastward, Ho! Day 18: The Gangster Museum and The Hot Springs National Park

 We toured two tourist sites today as the title states.  Both are located close to each other in downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Convenient.

But first, a picture of our campsite, #34:

First up was the Gangster Museum of America.  Not a lot of gangster paraphernalia per se, but lots of photos and information given out by the guy leading the tours.  Still, worth taking the tour and its not too expensive.  It gives you a background of Hot Springs and its relation to all the gangsters that regarded it as "Neutral Ground" and would vacation there.

The fact that gambling, prostitution and other vices were actively but covertly encouraged by the Mayor and his government, helped a lot to draw the gangsters of course!  

Owney Madden, the English Godfather

A gangster who successfully retired and went "legit"

The First Boys of Spring, that's how the baseball players who came to Hot Springs for Spring Training were referred as.  If I recall things correctly, all the players shown below (to include of course Babe Ruth) made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Hot Springs was apparently the location of the first Spring Training site.

The players would train hard, then relax at night in the gambling clubs and other such "amenities" that were frequented by famous gangsters as well.

Bonnie and Clyde, they would end up gunned down

when they left Hot Springs.

Next up was walking by and into several of the bath houses from "back in the day", which are now part of the Hot Springs National Park.  The only National Park located inside a city!

Relaxing or perhaps "sweating out" the alcohol from last night

in the Buckstaff Bath House

Following pics depict the bath and steam facilities in the Fordyce Bath House Visitor Center.  

Centerpiece of the Men's Bath Room

I didn't read the plaque describing the artwork

The ceiling of the Men's Bath Room

Ladies Dressing Room

Hah!  Men's Physical Education Uniform

How times have changed!

Again, Hah!

Beauty Salon

Fordyce Gymnasium

Done with Bathhouse Row, we wandered to the end of Central Avenue and checked out the Arlington Hotel.  The present version is the latest of three versions of this premier hotel in Hot Springs.

By now, it was lunch time and the crowds were out in force along Central Avenue, all crowding to see the sights we'd already seen.   So we hastened to the Sammy and escaped the downtown area as fast as we could.

We had a quick lunch at this small Diner/Bakery called Mueller's.  The food was good and Martha got some baked goods for later.

Had us a close call while driving back to Crystal Springs.  Almost getting hit from behind by this asshole mouth breather in his large pickup truck.  He was apparently in a great hurry for his date with his sister and was weaving through traffic like a maniac.

After we safely got back to camp, I went for a ride on Yagi to "center my Qi" and try to forget about the mouth breather.  Found a nice quiet spot next to a creek and I let my anger slip away:

Returning to camp, Martha and I took a dip in the lake to cool off before dinner.  This is our last night at this campsite, we're displacing sometime tomorrow in the later morning or early afternoon since checkout at the new site is 4PM!