Caverns, Springs and Ghost Towns

Today we toured the Blanchard Springs Caverns in the Ozark National Forest. Our tour was about an hour long which took us into two very large rooms (The Coral Room and The Cathedral Room) and we saw some awesome sites.

Nathan at our cabin, ready to head over to the caverns.

Mom and Nathan at the caverns.

Giant Column

Battleship

Flowstones

Soda Straws

After our tour of the caverns, we drove down the mountain to Blanchard Springs. This is where the water rushes out of the cavern and makes a waterfall as it leaves the mountain.

We packed a picnic lunch and ate next to the springs. This is an advantage of traveling in the off season. We were the only ones there.

The springs flowing down the mountain.

The beginning of the springs where the water falls out from the caverns.

Nathan enjoyed climbing on the rocks next to the springs. He is pointing to the waterfall.

Nathan taking a quiet moment.

Most of the "Fall Foliage" had already fallen to the grown by the time we arrived in Arkansas. I couldn't get over how large this leaf was.

Nathan and his Daddy.

Nathan enjoying the Fall Foliage.

After spending several hours at the springs, we drove north on a scenic drive to a tiny town called Calico Rock. The one interesting or weird thing about this town was that they have a ghost town. It is the only authentic ghost town inside the city limits of a town in America.

This use to be the main section of the town. The farmers figured out that they could make more money raising cows then growing cotton, so the cotton gin closed. Then, in the 1960's, due to lack of business the railroad ended service to the town. And, this East part of the town became abandoned and to this day it is still left in this condition.

This sign greats you as you cross over the bridge to East Calico Rock explaining what happened to this part of the town.

City Jail

Feed Mill, which was the old Cotton Gin.

Here's a look down one of the streets in this ghost town. Some of the buildings have burned down or are falling down. And it has just been left in this condition.

On the way back to our cabin, we stopped at Mellon's Country Store. It has a wide variety of gifts, handmade crafts and antiques. They also sold ice cream, so Nathan enjoyed a special treat. I let him pick out which ice cream treat he wanted. He chose an orange push up.

We arrived back at our cabin right at sunset, which is right around 5PM. Randy captured this great photo of the the sun just behind the mountains.