Thursday, April 11, 2024:
Spending the night at: Mack’s Pines near Dover and Russellville Arkansas
Weather- clear, sunny, and breezy. Hi 70, low 40, Humidity Hi 81%, low 23% NICE!!
We started hearing buggies start up and move about the campground around 7:30 this morning. I guess people were antsy since they sat around here all day yesterday waiting for rain. A big group of about seven buggies mosied on out by 8:00. We weren’t ready to roll yet and weren’t sure where we were going to go. I sat here and tried to map out a route on OnX which we really like to use to follow a route, using the Maprika app to show which roads were closed. It was a chore – but so way easier with our new StarkLink wifi!! 🙂
We finally headed out, and had to go a few miles on the highway to get to the turn off for the suggested route, then it was another mile or so of pavement. We were going to to do at least part of a 100 mile trip that Greg suggested.
Then we found a dirt/gravel road which was good. Pavement is really hard on Kawi’s tires.
We tootled along at about 25mph for awhile, and finally found a place with a pretty view.
Awe… my debonair (defined as confident, stylish and charming) driver ‘Paul James’.
There were just a few ground flowers out and about. According to smartypants tele/wiki, these are yellorockets!
Oooh – nice view! This is up on top at Pilot’s Knob. What a beautiful day!!
This was funny, and I kept thinking how my grandkids would love finding numbers in the dirt. I suppose it’s code for a helicopter pad or something? OH DUH! It’s called Pilot’s Knob for a REASON, Karen!!
We tootled along on our way, and came upon a HUGE three-trunk tree across the road. I guess the storm last night was crazier than we thought. We got out and looked at it, and didn’t see a way that we could drag it out of the way. So we turned around, went back and tried a couple of other offshoot roads to see if we could go another way, but those roads dead-ended. Hmmm.. My driver, Mr Paul James decided we’d go back and see if there was a way around or over this thing.
I got out a pair of gloves and moved a few small branches and chunks, but this baby was heavy. Kenny decided he could probably go over it if we got some of the sticking-up branches out of the way. So I gave him the gloves and he got out our trusty hatchet and did some chopping and hacking. (Do notice- there is a nice up-bank on the other side of the ditch.)
Sure enough, Kawi crawled over the logs! I took a video, and these are screenshots of the adventure.
This wasn’t looking good as he had the rear tires up on a log and the front diving down into the big ditch.
EEEK! The front passenger tire is in the air and I thought for sure he was going to lay over. The good thing was that there was a bank on the driver’s side, so he wasn’t going to go too far over. But, being the professional driver that he is, he gave it throttle at just the right time and crawled right out of there! WHEW!
We continued on our ‘little kawasaki braaping through the forest…” adventure and saw LOTS of dogwood trees.
Uh Oh. One of the places that Greg said we should see on this route was the Old School House. But there was a ‘creek’ crossing to do, which he said we’d have no problem with. I looked at it and said no. So we continued on and then were almost to the next cool spot called Bub’s Cabin, but we had another creek crossing to do. In some parts of the country this would be a stream or a river. I guess when you’re in the part of the country with the Mighty Mississippi River, nothing else really qualifies as a river. We could see a good rocky path across this one, so we crossed it.
And we found Bub’s Cabin, and the whole gang from our campground was here having lunch! There is a rock wall on the right in the shadows that I later could see went completely around the property!
The cabin was really cool. The other riders said that it is open and we could go inside, so we did.
It was so cool! It is completely furnished and taken care of, and not a speck of vandalism or disrespect.
It had two rooms downstairs, each had a bed, and other pieces of furniture.
In between the two rooms was a hallway that went from the front of the house to the back of the house. One side was a table and chairs, and the other side had a door to the outside porch and a stairway to the upstairs. So we went up – which was a challenge getting through the skinny doorway.
Upstairs were two big rooms and more beds, and a very short doorway.
This is a very interesting property, and I haven’t been able to find any history on it. There were newspaper articles and such on the walls in the cabin. I guess I should have read through them. When I searched on the Google, it came up with somebody’s facebook page that said they visited the cabin and Mr. Bub was actually there and they got to visit with him. It said he goes there every Saturday.
You can’t even see it in this picture as I hoped, but there is the rock wall along the edge of the tree line that surrounds the property that I mentioned. I don’t know where all the rock came from or how long it took to build. Wow! Same kind of rock that the chimney is made of. There were power lines running through the property, like Bub gave an easement, maybe?? There was no power to the cabin. Kenny says it’s like on Green Acres – you have to take your electric item out to the pole and plug it in to the one socket on the pole. HA!
What a cute fun old place!
There was also this big barn on the property.
There’s the buggy gang! In the forums for riding in this area, Bub’s Cabin is one of the highlights, and I see why.
While we were there, we talked to the gang about their ride out here and how they got around the big tree. They said they came the same way as us, but there wasn’t a tree. Hmmm…. maybe it fell after they rode through? But they also said that they went to the school house, across the ‘creek’. Ok, alright….. let’s go there on our way back. This is a huge ‘creek’!!
Kenny could see where the rocks were, so we waded Kawi across.
Yep – we’re crossing a ‘creek’ alright!
It really was no big deal – we’ve been through deeper water before. This didn’t even come through the floor boards. I’m glad we went across, because the Union Schoolhouse was another really neat treasure. It was originally built on this site in 1886, but burned in 1928 and was rebuilt in 1929 by local craftsmen.
By the 1970’s it was neglected and heavily vandalized. In 2009 a group of volunteers began the restoration process, and now it is well taken care of and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was open to explore.
What a neat old building, and it was great that they had all the old desks and furnishings.
And really smart to have blackboards and chalk for those who just have to leave their mark – they can do it without disrespecting the property. There were two big rooms on the main floor, each with an iron wood stove, (and window air conditioners).
Interesting how different kinds of wood were used. This picture was taken upstairs where there was a huge room.
I was trying to get a good picture of the stove, but the back light didn’t help.
Nearby there was an old cemetery out in the middle of a field. It had a wire fence around it so we parked and went in to visit.
There were some very old headstones, and quite a lot for infant son or infant daughter of so-and-so, dated in the late 1890’s. There were a lot of “Warren” last names.
There were some really pretty daffodils in several places.
After paying our respects to the locals, we continued on our way back towards camp. Going this direction we did find an alternate trail to get around the place where the big tree was. It was more of a trail and the kind of riding we like to do.
We passed an old General Store that is still operating as a store!
As we got closer to camp, we turned in and rode some of the Moccasin Gap trails. We discovered that this is an area of a few hundred acres of TRAILS. Greg said you could spend all day in here and it a good place to break things. It isn’t a place where you’ll have view points and vistas to enjoy, but there was definitely some fun and challenging trails. This picture was off to the side of the trail and looked like where an old bridge had been.
Yep – Kenny got to do some trail driving.
It was a fun way to spend the end of our riding day after so many paved and gravel roads.
Oh – this was tricky. We actually went up these rocks way over to the left by the tree, so that we wouldn’t tip over sideways. Good plan.
We did encounter another tree. It was actually across a drive-around to avoid a huge mud pit on the main trail. Then Kawi had to make his own drive-around the drive-around because there was no going over this tree.
We made it back to Mack’s Pines by about 5:30. It was an interesting day. It wasn’t really our favorite kind of riding because we did do a lot of miles on pavement to get from one forest service road to another, and then those were mostly gravel roads, without really much to see along the way. But it was still a fun beautiful day and we did get to see some treasures.
Oh – speaking of mud pits. There were quite a few giant puddles in the Moccasin Gap trails. When you go into them, you have no idea how deep or how mushy the bottom might be. Well…. we went into one, and Kenny thought he felt it getting a bit mushy so he gunned the throttle a bit to get out and turned the wheel a bit to driver…. which meant the passenger front tire was turned just right to BLAST me with mud. HA! I ducked in toward him and the back of me and my seat got plastered. James – you have some washin to do! Which he did. We got out the hose, some soapy water and a car-wash brush and gave Kawi a good bath. After all, we don’t want him riding down the highway tomorrow, in our living room, looking like THIS!
All in all, a fun day. I’m sure we could find lots more riding to do, but we are OK with moving along with our plan and heading more westerly tomorrow. We have lots more riding to do on this trip. On to Oklahoma tomorrow.