Out and About the town!

June 11 – Good Morning!  After breakfast I put a load of laundry in and we left for town.  No walk this morning.  We wanted to get to the Farmer’s Market. 

First stop was Ford.  The service manager came out and he couldn’t get them off either.  He went in and read the service manual and said they are supposed to work exactly like the front ones.  He ended up popping out the push part on one side and put it back in and it pushed in and the headrest came out.  He did the same thing on the other one.  He thinks the tab wasn’t properly lined up on either one so it wouldn’t release.  Yeah, now we can get back to that project!

Bill at the Iron spring

The Farmer’s Market is supposed to be around 7 Springs Park and when we arrived there was just the same guy as the rainy Saturday when we stopped last time.  Although we didn’t stop at his stand for anything, we parked and ventured into the park.  This is where the springs were that the town is names for.  Originally the town was call Seven Springs, but later was changed to Heber Springs.  The spring heads are in clusters of 3, 1, 2 and 1.  They are basically capped off and each spring has a faucet and

Under pavilion 1

anyone can get water from them.  They are all named and have pavilions built over them.  The “springs” were hoped to become a big attraction for the area like Hot Springs but the water contains a lot of sulfur and smelled like rotten eggs and really didn’t catch on.  There was a man filling a cooler with water and I asked him what he was going to do with it and he said “drink it”.  I commented on the smell and he said you leave it sit for 2 days and the sulfur smell and taste disappear and the water is really good for you will all of the minerals in it.  Then another guy came over and he’s a caretaker of sorts for the park and said people draw out hundreds of gallons of water a day there.  The city maintains the park but doesn’t own, they have a 99 year lease. 

Hope they didn't have a
reservation for this one!

We attempted to find to more of the parks on the lake but Sandy Cove appeared to be blocked off due to flooding but we did get to Heber Springs Park.  It has some beautiful sites right on the water but also had a lot of flooding and quite a few spots were inaccessible.  Water was covering picnic tables and we saw one guy launching his boat from a campsite that was flooded but perfect for a boat launch.

We located the restaurant where we are to meet the other volunteers and contact people for breakfast on Saturday and then went to Wal-mart.  They didn’t have some of the things I needed so when I came out I asked Bill if he wanted to grab a bite of lunch and drive out to Ozark Country Store.  Bill NEVER turns down the chance to eat out!  Good thing I brought my insulated bag with ice!  We grabbed lunch at Burger King and then out to the last stop.  They had everything I wanted and Bill wanted to go there anyway for more chocolate peanut butter.  She had local peaches and I bought all the culls to make a peach crisp.

Our favorite sign

As soon as we unloaded I peeled and prepped the peaches.  They would get fruit flies in a hurry and I hate that!  Then I put a crisp in the oven for us and a smaller one I think for the neighbors.  We want them to feed Molly a couple of times next week so maybe I should butter them up a bit!

Time for me to have an iced coffee, well, I made us each one, and rested a bit before logging our expenses for the day and journalling a while.  We work tonight so I am going to post early.

Some of Everything!

June 6 – After breakfast and our 2 mile walk, I was already tired but we needed to get in more hours so we loaded up and headed to the giant shrubs.  We put in about 1.5 hours and you can now see some results.  We still have some trimming to do on the entire section but it’s getting there.  So many old branches underneath and it will take time to green up again but won’t be so sprawling. 

After resting and showering we decided to have lunch at the top-rated local restaurant,

Along the Little Red River

Chuck’s Diner and Steakhouse.  There were lots of cars and it was pretty full.  They had the list of the day’s desserts posted and all sounded yummy but we passed.  The other board listed the specials and sides for the day.  Bill went with the meatloaf sandwich which he thoroughly enjoyed.  I had the breaded pork loin with sides of corn salad and cukes and tomatoes.  The pork was excellent and especially good since I don’t normally eat fried foods.  The corn was not what I expected so won’t have it again.  The cukes and tomatoes were delicious.  They were kinda pickled in a sweet vinegar dressing and even all the onions in it were good.

Remnants of the old bridge

Across from the restaurant were the remains of the old bridge that used to cross the Little Red River and read the marker.  It was replaced in 1979.  Then we drove to the other side of the old bridge and into a small park where the fishermen put in and park.  There were quite a few people in the river, mostly fishing.

Next stop was Bridal Veil Falls.  If we didn’t know where it

was we would not have seen the sign.  It’s a small turn off a main road and then again we almost missed the next sign which was just one word “Falls”.  There’s a small parking area and a huge marker.  From where we parked it’s a short walk to an overlook so you can’t really get a good look at the falls.  We could see people down in and saw the path to go down but think we will save that for when Kam comes. 

Bridal Veil Falls

Back on the main road we saw a 5^th wheel with 2 blown out tires stranded along the road.  There were a couple of vehicles stopped to help but we wondered where on Saturday in this small town would they find tires.  The Wal-mart here doesn’t have a tire/service department.  We also passed a doe that got hit.  I don’t understand not hauling it in to be butchered.  What a waste!

Time for the errand part of the day.  I know it seems like we go to Wal-mart a lot, but Bill is trying to get some of his scripts transferred and it’s not going well.  We stopped again and they still didn’t have it so if we’re there I go ahead and get what is currently on our list.  We went to McDonald’s for wifi but Bill hadn’t charged his laptop enough and I felt bad having him just sit there so we didn’t stay long.  We stopped at Auto Zone and picked up the seat covers he ordered.  While there we learned that one of the guys who works there got the call from the broken down 5^th wheel and he got a hold of the tire store owner who went in and got the tires and was on his way out to service their RV.  I guess it helps to know everyone in town.  It was a woman and her 2 children, so she was very lucky. 

I checked my corn crib and it was empty so either the deer came after the weather settled last night or this morning.  I don’t think to look out when I get up.  I put out feed and after dinner looked and we had one big doe and at the same time I got to see a hummingbird getting some dinner.

Work tonight was really slow since most arrived during daylight hours.  There are always some who show up in the dark between 9 and 10 to get a site.  The campground is pretty full so we just sent them to the tent loop that is the last choice.  It seems to always have something left.