Saturday, May 31, 2008
The Folk Music Capital of the World
[Be sure to click on photos for larger versions.]
This installment covers Tuesday (May 27) through Friday (May 30).
We started our journey about 8:45 on Tuesday morning, playing Jim Horton’s “North to Alaska” as we pulled out of the driveway. I offered to put the CD player on repeat, and play this tune continuously until we arrived in Alaska, but Carol had other ideas.
The travel day, which ended at Lake Lurleen State Park just outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was hot, but otherwise unnotable. We have a new GPS which seems to work fairly well, although we occasionally ignore its directions when we know a better way to get there. For example, the GPS would have routed us on a “shorter/faster” route through Dothan, rather than taking advantage of the circle around the northeast side of town
When we made our first Alaska trip in 2002, I was intrigued by the name “Twinkle Andress,” who was running for state treasurer in Alabama (see my first travel journal on www.themelsons.com). Well, Twinkle has apparently married in the intervening years, and as Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh is now running for the state Public Service Commission. We also passed the Gospel End-Time Deliverance Church, which we also noted on our earlier trip. Fortunately the end time has still not arrived.
We has a nice riverside, pull-through site at the campground – for you non-RVers, the advantage of a pull-through site is that if you don’t need to use your car in the evening, you can leave it hooked-up to the RV. After settling in, we decided to take a short walk around the campground, but were interrupted by rain almost as soon as we exited the coach. We ate in the RV this evening, and Carol read while I watched Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter on DVD.
It turns out that our nice pull-through site did not serve its intended purpose. Due to some campground construction, we couldn’t get out of our camping area on Wednesday morning without turning around, which necessitated unhooking the car and making a 5 point turn in the RV.
Today was our second driving day. It rained most of the morning, then turned warmer in the afternoon. Last summer, when diesel topped out at $3.19 a gallon, we had our first $200+ fill-up. This afternoon, with fuel at $4.51 a gallon, we broke the $300 barrier.
Our campground this evening was a nice Corps of Engineers project known as Rising Star. The only problem (before we arrived) was that both our old printed directions (from Microsoft’s Streets and Trips program) and our new GPS seemed to think that the best was to get there involved a route which would have us drive for several miles on a clay road on the top of a levee. We were too smart to fall into that trap, so after a lengthy detour we finally made it to our campsite.
Carol and I did stroll around the campground this evening. There was a nice cool breeze off the man-made lake, and we saw a number of birds, including several red-wing blackbirds.
We had supper in the RV again, then Carol continued to read while I watched the first three episodes of Saturday Night Live from 1975. They don’t quite know what they’re doing with the show yet. The first episode, hosted by George Carlin, featured a lot of sketch comedy. The second, hosted by Paul Simon, was mostly singing, with Chevy Chase’s weekend news as the only performance by the Not Ready for Prime Time Players.
On Thursday, we finally arrived at our first “destination” – Mountain View, Arkansas, the self-proclaimed folk music capital of the world. Our first two days were spent on U.S. highways which were mostly four-lane roads. Today the first three-quarters of our drive was on interstates, and the last quarter was an interesting trip on two-lane mountain roads. The GPS performed well on the interstate, navigating us through a series of merging and unmerging routes in Little Rock and North Little Rock. On the mountain roads we were too busy driving to pay much attention to the GPS. The sign that said “Steep and curvy road next 21 miles” did not bother us. What it neglected to say was “narrow and frequented by logging trucks racing downhill past you.”
Our campground, Sylamore Creek, is a few miles north of town and offers both cable TV and WIFI access. After hooking-up, we discovered that our house air conditioner is apparently low on refrigerant. Over the space of an hour, the A/C managed to “cool” the interior from 83 to 87 while the outside temperature remained constant at 83. There is a mobile RV service company listed as one of the local businesses on our campground map. However we have poor cell phone service at the campground, so we don’t yet know if we will be able to get the A/C recharged before we leave here Saturday morning.
To escape the heat we hopped in the car and went to . . . . . Wal-Mart. After getting our car washed, we dined at the local Country Time restaurant which featured country-style cooking. We then went to an evening music show at the Ozark Folk Center. The show featured several groups who play only acoustic instruments, and only songs written before 1943. Except for the last group – Mulligan Stew – I didn’t think the groups were as good as the ones we saw here four years ago on our way home from Branson, Missouri. Mulligan Stew was a five piece band consisting of a hammered dulcimer, a bass, a banjo, a guitar, and a fiddle played by a 13-year-old boy who is the state Junior Fiddle Champion.
On Friday we returned to the Ozark Folk Center, primarily to visit the 22 workshops in their craft village. Before touring the workshops, we stopped at the outdoor music stage to listen to a short set by Mulligan Stew, the group that closed last night’s show.
All of the craft workshops demonstrate skills that were common in the Ozarks. The gentleman in the wood shop (actually carving) had been a long time Alaska resident and we chatted for a few moments about our upcoming trip. While we were there he spent a couple of minutes carving our likenesses on round toothpicks. The fellow in the cooper’s shop was carving several maple spoons from a tree he had recently cut. The woman in the furniture shop was in the process of re-caning a chair. She spent some time giving us and the other visitors examples of how much life in the rural communities has changed in the past 100 years. The guy operating the foot powered lathe has two professions – woodturning (primarily toy tops) and as an arborist. Since he started woodturning about six years ago he has sold over 5,000 tops. His home workshop – which he showed us pictures of – holds over 80 varieties of wood, most of it gathered as a result of his arborist business.
In the evening we enjoyed a music/comedy show at the Cash Theater that featured music from the 50s and 60s.
This installment covers Tuesday (May 27) through Friday (May 30).
We started our journey about 8:45 on Tuesday morning, playing Jim Horton’s “North to Alaska” as we pulled out of the driveway. I offered to put the CD player on repeat, and play this tune continuously until we arrived in Alaska, but Carol had other ideas.
The travel day, which ended at Lake Lurleen State Park just outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was hot, but otherwise unnotable. We have a new GPS which seems to work fairly well, although we occasionally ignore its directions when we know a better way to get there. For example, the GPS would have routed us on a “shorter/faster” route through Dothan, rather than taking advantage of the circle around the northeast side of town
When we made our first Alaska trip in 2002, I was intrigued by the name “Twinkle Andress,” who was running for state treasurer in Alabama (see my first travel journal on www.themelsons.com). Well, Twinkle has apparently married in the intervening years, and as Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh is now running for the state Public Service Commission. We also passed the Gospel End-Time Deliverance Church, which we also noted on our earlier trip. Fortunately the end time has still not arrived.
We has a nice riverside, pull-through site at the campground – for you non-RVers, the advantage of a pull-through site is that if you don’t need to use your car in the evening, you can leave it hooked-up to the RV. After settling in, we decided to take a short walk around the campground, but were interrupted by rain almost as soon as we exited the coach. We ate in the RV this evening, and Carol read while I watched Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter on DVD.
It turns out that our nice pull-through site did not serve its intended purpose. Due to some campground construction, we couldn’t get out of our camping area on Wednesday morning without turning around, which necessitated unhooking the car and making a 5 point turn in the RV.
Today was our second driving day. It rained most of the morning, then turned warmer in the afternoon. Last summer, when diesel topped out at $3.19 a gallon, we had our first $200+ fill-up. This afternoon, with fuel at $4.51 a gallon, we broke the $300 barrier.
Our campground this evening was a nice Corps of Engineers project known as Rising Star. The only problem (before we arrived) was that both our old printed directions (from Microsoft’s Streets and Trips program) and our new GPS seemed to think that the best was to get there involved a route which would have us drive for several miles on a clay road on the top of a levee. We were too smart to fall into that trap, so after a lengthy detour we finally made it to our campsite.
Carol and I did stroll around the campground this evening. There was a nice cool breeze off the man-made lake, and we saw a number of birds, including several red-wing blackbirds.
We had supper in the RV again, then Carol continued to read while I watched the first three episodes of Saturday Night Live from 1975. They don’t quite know what they’re doing with the show yet. The first episode, hosted by George Carlin, featured a lot of sketch comedy. The second, hosted by Paul Simon, was mostly singing, with Chevy Chase’s weekend news as the only performance by the Not Ready for Prime Time Players.
On Thursday, we finally arrived at our first “destination” – Mountain View, Arkansas, the self-proclaimed folk music capital of the world. Our first two days were spent on U.S. highways which were mostly four-lane roads. Today the first three-quarters of our drive was on interstates, and the last quarter was an interesting trip on two-lane mountain roads. The GPS performed well on the interstate, navigating us through a series of merging and unmerging routes in Little Rock and North Little Rock. On the mountain roads we were too busy driving to pay much attention to the GPS. The sign that said “Steep and curvy road next 21 miles” did not bother us. What it neglected to say was “narrow and frequented by logging trucks racing downhill past you.”
Our campground, Sylamore Creek, is a few miles north of town and offers both cable TV and WIFI access. After hooking-up, we discovered that our house air conditioner is apparently low on refrigerant. Over the space of an hour, the A/C managed to “cool” the interior from 83 to 87 while the outside temperature remained constant at 83. There is a mobile RV service company listed as one of the local businesses on our campground map. However we have poor cell phone service at the campground, so we don’t yet know if we will be able to get the A/C recharged before we leave here Saturday morning.
To escape the heat we hopped in the car and went to . . . . . Wal-Mart. After getting our car washed, we dined at the local Country Time restaurant which featured country-style cooking. We then went to an evening music show at the Ozark Folk Center. The show featured several groups who play only acoustic instruments, and only songs written before 1943. Except for the last group – Mulligan Stew – I didn’t think the groups were as good as the ones we saw here four years ago on our way home from Branson, Missouri. Mulligan Stew was a five piece band consisting of a hammered dulcimer, a bass, a banjo, a guitar, and a fiddle played by a 13-year-old boy who is the state Junior Fiddle Champion.
On Friday we returned to the Ozark Folk Center, primarily to visit the 22 workshops in their craft village. Before touring the workshops, we stopped at the outdoor music stage to listen to a short set by Mulligan Stew, the group that closed last night’s show.
All of the craft workshops demonstrate skills that were common in the Ozarks. The gentleman in the wood shop (actually carving) had been a long time Alaska resident and we chatted for a few moments about our upcoming trip. While we were there he spent a couple of minutes carving our likenesses on round toothpicks. The fellow in the cooper’s shop was carving several maple spoons from a tree he had recently cut. The woman in the furniture shop was in the process of re-caning a chair. She spent some time giving us and the other visitors examples of how much life in the rural communities has changed in the past 100 years. The guy operating the foot powered lathe has two professions – woodturning (primarily toy tops) and as an arborist. Since he started woodturning about six years ago he has sold over 5,000 tops. His home workshop – which he showed us pictures of – holds over 80 varieties of wood, most of it gathered as a result of his arborist business.
In the evening we enjoyed a music/comedy show at the Cash Theater that featured music from the 50s and 60s.
