The Second Sunday Drive, End of the Road

 

The Magnetic Valley Resort

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Walking at night along the meadow way,
Home from the dance beside my sweetheart* gay,
Walking at night along the meadow way,
Home from the dance beside my sweetheart gay! Hey!
Stodola, stodola, stodola pumpa
Stodola pumpa, stodola pumpa
Stodola, stodola, stodola pumpa
Stodola pumpa, pum pum pum
--Czech folk song as we sang it at church camp*

I found many versions of Stodola Pumpa on YouTube, perhaps the most intriguing being a Korean men's choir singing it in barely understandable English, the most charming being a group of small children playing it on their violins at a music camp in Hot Springs, Arkansas (shades of Suzuki Violin Camp).  But only one version used the same lyrics I remember from my childhood, and that's this one played and loaded by kaburto1966.  Curiously, there don't seem to be any versions that give the lyrics in the original Czech.  Sorry, Mark.

(OK, I know you really want to hear the Arkansas kids playing it on their violins. Click here for that.)

We woke on the morning of September 5th to the news that we would have to return home.  A friend was having trouble with the police and needed us immediately, if not sooner.  Having packed the car, we said good-bye to our hosts, Alvin and Charley, at the Magnetic Valley Resort, and headed north into Missouri, stopping at Cassville for breakfast.  While we ate breakfast, Kevin was able to get in touch with our lawyer and was told the problem had been resolved.  We turned around and headed back to Eureka Springs as we had wanted to spend another full day at the resort, enjoying its pool and the company of the handsome men who came as day visitors.  (There was only one other overnight guest staying at the resort.)  Our original plan had been to spend two nights at Magnetic Valley, then head west into Oklahoma, possibly dip down into Texas, then return home via Kansas and Colorado, until we reached Denver and I-25 which would take us north into Wyoming and merge with I-90 for the rest of the trip home.  I had made reservations to stay at a gay campground (Circle J) in the Dallas area, but as we headed to Cassville, I called and cancelled those reservations.  I had met the owners of Circle J while staying at Roseland, and was looking forward to seeing them again in their home environment.  Oh well, that will wait for a subsequent trip.

 

In case you couldn't tell, this is the Missouri State Line

 Back at Magnetic Valley Resort, we spent the day in and by the pool.  A variety of men ranging in age from their 20s up into their 70s came by for a while to sit beside the pool or play in it.  The weather was beautiful, not too hot, but pleasant enough to warrant remaining suit-free.  Even Kevin, who normally won't consider stripping down, was naked in the pool.  

As we learned, a group of these men get together every Wednesday for Prayer Meeting (at least I think that's what they call it).  Instead of going to church, they meet for dinner at an area restaurant, and we were invited to join them.  This evening, dinner was to be at a Thai place in Eureka Springs, and ten of us enjoyed a very pleasant evening and terrific food.  One of the men present actually spoke Thai, and we listened in as he and the waiter discussed the dishes.  At least I assume that's what they were discussing.  My Thai is non-existent.  They could have been saying anything at all--or even just jibberish.

 

Table Rock Lake, Missouri/Arkansas

Back at the Resort, I stayed by the pool enjoying the company of our host Charley, while Kevin returned to our room in the Dudeplex, one of the buildings accommodating guests at the Resort.  Around nine p.m.  Kevin appeared at the end of the pool and called me away from Charley.  We had to leave immediately, he said.  Apparently all was not well in Missoula, and regardless of what our lawyer had told us while we were having breakfast, the police were not done with our friend.  In fact, they had arrested him, taken him to the Detention Facility in Missoula, and left Kevin's Expedition, which our friend had been driving at the time, on the side of the road.  What was worse than the situation with Kevin's car was that our friend had been house and dog sitting, and now there was no one taking care of our kids while we gallivanted around the country.

  

Holiday Island, Arkansas

We packed the Saab for the second time that day, and once again bid adieu to our hosts.  Heading north in the dark, we left Eureka Springs, once again drove through Holiday Island, Arkansas, crossed into Missouri, crossed Table Rock Lake (I'm so glad I got my pictures earlier in the day), and drove back to Cassville.  North of Cassville, we caught a major highway which took us past Kansas City and St. Joseph, until we crossed into Iowa.  We bypassed Council Bluffs (and by extension, Omaha Nebraska which is right across the river), continuing north to Sioux City where we crossed into South Dakota.  The sun came up somewhere around Sioux Falls, and by now we were on I-90 heading west toward home.

It feels like it takes forever to cross South Dakota on I-90, and it didn't help that we'd been driving all night after having a full day in Arkansas.  I don't recall when are where we stopped for food and gas, but at a rest area along the way, I asked about the fires in southeastern Montana.  When I had left, much of Powder River County was in flames, and I wasn't sure if we'd be able to make it home taking our usual route.  I was assured that there was no longer any real danger of being delayed by fire, but construction was causing significant delays on US 212.  As a result, we chose to stay on I-90 crossing northern Wyoming.

Dinner Thursday evening was at our favorite truck stop outside of Laurel, Montana, still over three hundred miles from home.  By the time we reached Missoula, we had been driving for twenty-five hours, with stops only for food and gasoline.  We had driven over 1,600 miles since leaving Eureka Springs, and over 6,000 miles by rail and Saab since leaving Missoula over a month earlier.  I certainly got a feel for how my new car behaved on a variety of roads and under various conditions.  Much as I enjoyed the trip, it was good to be home, and waiting for the next adventure.

 

The Pool at Magnetic Valley Resort

*The words, as we sang them at church camp said "maiden gay," but "sweetheart gay" seemed more appropriate to me under the circumstances.

 The Second Sunday Drive, Day 34

 

A Kudzu Covered Landscape

Western Mississippi

Many years have passed, the trav'lers gay,
Repeat the tune along the highway;
And every voice that sings the glad refrain
Re-echoes from the mountains to the fields of growing grain.

--Music by Colonel Sanford C. "Sandy" Faulkner, lyrics by a committee!

 To hear Bill Monroe play the Arkansas Traveler, click here.

Now the lyrics above are not the lyrics I learned as a child, although under the circumstances they seemed appropriate.  For you old fogies, like me, who remember things a little differently, the words I learned went:

Oh, once upon a time in Arkansas,
An old man sat in his little cabin door
And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear,
A jolly old tune that he played by ear.

  On Monday evening, Yelp had helped us find Stromboli's and, as I noted in my previous post, the best pizza ever (even Kevin thought so).  Tuesday morning, however, was not as promising.  The earliest opening I found on Yelp was 11:00 and that was way too late for us to have breakfast.  We asked at the front desk as we checked out, and were given the options of Huddle House and Waffle House.  The desk clerk had a definite preference, and for the second day in a row we had breakfast at Waffle House, albeit in a different state than the day before.

After breakfast, Kevin met with the owner of MFJ Enterprises, and filled the back seat of the Saab with catalogs from that amateur radio accessories manufacturer.  He also put in a plastic bag with two MFJ coffee mugs--something I learned only when I heard what I thought was glass breaking behind me.  I had visions of West Virginia wine staining the carpeting, but no, it was the empty coffee mugs, and they didn't even break.

 

Cotton Fields, West Central Mississippi

The last time I traveled through Mississippi, I was riding the train.  In 1999, I attended the winter convention of New Image International which was held in Birmingham, Alabama.  As I had some vacation time saved up and had never ridden the train in the United States, I decided to take Amtrak to Birmingham and back.  My choice of itinerary meant taking the Empire Builder from Whitefish, Montana to Chicago, Illinois, the same train on which I started this Second Sunday Drive.  But the winter conference was in the middle of January, and there was no leaving the station once we got to Chicago.  Way too cold. At Chicago I boarded the City of New Orleans and headed south across Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and finally Louisiana.  There was an overnight in New Orleans, which troubled Amtrak no end.  When I booked my tickets, the clerk kept trying to change my mind.  From Chicago I should take the Capitol Limited to D.C., then change to the Southern Crescent to reach my final destination of Birmingham.  When I insisted that I wanted to take the City of New Orleans, the clerk despaired.  "You'll have to spend the night in New Orleans."  I replied that there are worse things than spending a night in New Orleans, and indeed changed my itinerary to spend two nights in the Big Easy.

The City of New Orleans crosses Mississippi on a north-south route, and you see a lot of the state.  Even in the wintertime, you cross the state during daylight hours, and I have to say that my impression of the Magnolia State was not good.  This was the ugliest place I've ever seen.  From New Orleans to Birmingham, I took the Southern Crescent, at that time an older train where the cars were only one level and the seating was just above the rails.  (Both the Empire Builder and the City of New Orleans used newer, two level cars where you rode one level above the tracks.)  The route took us across Lake Pontchartrain and into Mississippi near the town of Picayune, then past Hattiesburg and Meridian before crossing into Alabama.  I felt that I had seen quite a bit of Mississippi and was not impressed.  It didn't help that our train broke down somewhere between Hattiesburg and Meridian and we sat in silence on the tracks for about half an hour.

Crossing the state by car, I was able to see a different, and greener, side of Mississippi.  Can't say that I have a much better impression of that state, but c'est la vie.  The one question I can't answer is how anyone lives in such a hot and humid climate.  When we asked natives, the response we got was invariably, "This isn't so bad."

 

The Mississippi River

Helena, Arkansas

We turned off U.S. 82 heading north on Interstate 55.  Past Batesville (of the Batesville Casket Company), we left the Interstate and drove west on Mississippi 315 until we reached the Big Muddy, the Mississippi River itself.  Crossing into Arkansas, we stopped at the Arkansas Visitor Center at Helena where I was offered a packet of brochures, maps and advertisements for various attractions throughout "the Natural State."  When I told the hostess that we were headed for Eureka Springs, she expressed amazement that we would try to get so far in one day--undoubtedly dismayed that we wouldn't be spending more time (and money) as Arkansas travelers.

Kevin did have another stop in mind.  A ham radio shop in DeWitt, Arkansas had caught his attention on the web, so from Helena we drove south and west to the seat of Arkansas County.  Over the phone, the shop owner told Kevin that he would probably be disappointed by his store, and when we got there, we found a small ham business tied in with a satellite tv operation.  While Kevin talked with the store owner, I stayed in the car reading.  By the time Kevin returned to the car, it was pushing 2 p.m. and I was past being ready for lunch.  Turning to Yelp again, I found a café across from the county court house, and that's where we headed.  The café was closed, as was every other food establishment we saw.  A UPS delivery man explained that he carried his lunch with him because "These folks eat lunch at noon, and then the restaurants close until dinner time."  Out by the main highway we found a Sonic and a Subway, and opted for the Subway because I wasn't ready to bring food into my new car.

 
Driving Interstate 40 into the Ozarks

From DeWitt, we drove north through  Stuttgart, catching Interstate 40 which let us skirt Little Rock as we continued north and west across the state.  Bypassing Conway, Russellville and Clarksville, we left the interstate to drive north on Arkansas 23.  We were finally in the Ozarks and this road could give some West Virginia highways a run for their money.  Kevin was driving and got to find out just how well the Saab handled in such situations.  There were a few times he passed trucks crossing double yellow lines to do so, but had he not passed the slow-moving behemoths, we might still be on 23. 

Once in Eureka Springs, we found Magnetic Road and Nancy led us right to the artists' entrance to the Ozark Passion Play.  This was not quite what we were looking for, but continuing on up the road, we found our lodging for the night, checked in, unpacked the car, and moved to the pool area where we visited with our hosts.  The day involved over 500 miles crossing two states, and had taken well over the nine hours that Mapquest suggests. 

 

An Ozark Mountain Farm

Near Huntsville, Arkansas