Hey, Howdy! In doing genealogy, you become aware of just how important your children are. After all <BG>, they are the ones who will likely decide what to do with your collection of files, books, and other assorted papers you have kept in piles in your office for an "X" number of years. So you try to make friends and come up with interesting things for them to do with you as a family...on occasion. For those of you who've not heard of our "Gallivantin'", this is when we get in the car prior to breakfast--"early" being a definition I don't care to tackle here--and take off with a foggy notion in mind of where we want to go. In my case, I don't usually take ALL of the kids. I have my reasons--my inherited daughter, Victoria, will be 12 on Saturday, my son TJ will be 12 at the end of August, and the youngest, red-headed Brett, will be 11 in Oct. To pile those 3 long-legged young people into the back of my poor little "Mountain Chivy", a '93 Cavalier, is not only cruel and unusual punishment...it's just staring Trouble right in the face and laughing. Since Ingrid is my usual adult Gallivant Companion, she, of course, obligingly scooted her bucket seat close enough to the dash to bruise her knees. This was Sunday morning. Yes, last Sunday morning, when the majority of travelers are headed home after a 4-day weekend. We were headed for swimming and a picnic on the Buffalo River, a place my poor, uncultured children had never been. Yes, the Buffalo is a LONG-ish river, and it was twice as long as you think last Sunday. We didn't even cover half of it, either. Arming TJ with motion-sickness medicine, we went south from Branson to Harrison, AR, taking Hwy 65 to Hwy 43 West...or south, depending on where you're going. We were going to Ponca, in the very NW corner of Newton County, AR. But first, there was Gaither Mountain to climb, and Chivy had the air conditioning on as we crept to the top, two Harleys laden with couples right behind us. We pulled off at a "turnout" as we got to what was the crest of Gaither, and looked out over the eastern half of Boone Co. The Harley couples joined us. Boone Co. has the odd distinction of actually being mostly flat around Harrison, and it is really different to this hill-bred woman to see that far with only a lot of flat between me and the next ridge--which apparently was over by either Hwy 7 South or Hwy 65 South, maybe both. We moved on. The couples, backs to the vista, were taking pictures of themselves sitting on the guard rail preventing certain children from dropping a minimum of 500 tree-covered feet down to the field below us..."Mom, wouldn't that be cool if I just fell off, rolled down that hill some, got caught in a tree or something, and they had to get a helicopter to come rescue me?" I didn't even look to see if there WAS a hill below us, for all I could see were trees and brush. I also didn't answer that question with a "yes." The redhead scooted back to the car in response to my look. Crossing Gaither mountain was pretty neat, new country to me and the kids. The bickering going on between the red-head and my brunette daughter was distracting, and as we dropped down the old, curbed highway into Ponca, I smelled brakes. That's right. My brand-new brakes. Just installed less than 2 weeks ago. This was A Steep, Sharp, Drop. I slid down into 2nd gear, and just played with the brake pedal as I tried to count the number of ridges and creek valleys in the vista ahead. At least they didn't squall...the brakes, I mean, for the kids did plenty of it. We went through Ponca, old Newton Co. AR families who've been there since it was a county, and log cabins sitting right on the creek at the foot of these tall mountains. Perfect place to live, as far as Ingrid and I were concerned. At the intersection of Hwys 43 and 74 south of Ponca is the entrance to "Historical Boxley Valley", with yet another old wood house--this one uninhabitable--right there. We turned into the river access and parked. The better to cool off the brakes, if you will. Here, at Boxley, the kids jumped out to go "catch crawdads". It wasn't long before they were soaking wet, joining other families in the water by the low water bridge. For an hour, we wandered around the bridge area, not wanting to get too far down the islands--we don't like snakes. My kids, of course, squealed as the minnows nibbled if they were still for too long. They jumped off the low concrete bridge into the only depths over 4 feet there was in a small radius. The bridge is so low, canoers have to "take out" at this point, and walk some 50 or more feet to put back in. All I've seen of the Buffalo isn't really, really wide. Our motorcycle friends from Gaither Lookout came in, cruised through, said "Howdy" and wandered back out. I thought we might see them again through the day, but we didn't. They didn't swim. After snacks and drinks from the cooler--we left amid cries of "I'm not ready to go!" and "Let's stay just little longer". The only solace was Ingrid's promise of more swimming holes. Turning south again for a mile (unaccompanied by crawdads, I might add), we went into the campground and entry to the celebrated "Lost Valley" but it was much too hot to hike the trail back to see the waterfall. So we went back to Hwy 74, the road over Mt. Sherman. Two years ago or so, I wrote about Greg and me going over this mountain (the other direction). It is only 14 miles to Jasper, but you go UP, travel the ridgetop for a while, marveling at the lucky people who have this view all the time...then you come down. These are only hills to folks in the Rockies and other mountain ranges, but they are steep, the roads carved out of narrow benches and zig-zagging back and forth. And they are a great deal higher than the hills in Taney County. This area of AR was settled by the Cherokee Old Settlers in the late 1810s and early 1820s, and you get an idea of what it was like to ride in a wagon then...although the roads are undoubtedly much smoother now. Mt. Sherman is surrounded by mountains similar to it in size, the Buffalo along one side, with creeks chipping away at the others. What aren't sheer cliffs are extremely rugged sides covered in many different kinds of trees. We've had so much rain, everything is green and lush this year...markedly different than the past couple years. At Jasper, we stopped in the cemetery to see the grave of Silas Shruggs Stacey, the Cherokee Doctor. He is Ingrid's 2xg grandfather. We also drove through Jasper, stopping for lunch at the Ozark Cafe on the square. No picnic, thankfully--I chickened out and got a ribeye. I'm jealous...Taney County doesn't have such a fixture like the square, since Bull Shoals Lake was impounded. Even if I did ever get to move here, I'd be an outsider. And I'm from less than 100 miles north. >From Jasper, we head east 5 miles to a primitive campsite on the Buffalo called Hasty. The kids whoop and holler in the water, proclaiming this "the best swimming ever", but wanting a rock to jump off of. Since the water is only about 6 feet deep over on the far side of the river, I'm rather grateful I don't have to holler "No!" Here about 1/2 an hour, we travel back up the gravel red road and turn back west. Despite the kids' not wanting to go on. I'm mean, of course. On Hwy 7 North out of Jasper, Ingrid wants to visit another campsite called "Ozark". Not a townsite. This one makes me a little leery...I've not had any more brake trouble, since I'm doing the downshift thing in my automatic, and the boys chant "Mountain Chivy" as we go down again, another red clay and gravel road. One side of the road goes up the mountain, the other drops down into a tree-lined ravine. Victoria is above chanting. Just so you know, I rotated the cruelty of sitting in the middle with the hump...everyone got 2 turns. <BG> On this piece of our trip, Vic was in the middle and she was tired of looking at trees. We stayed here a while. Ozark has the best campsite of any we've seen yet, far as I'm concerned, but still no showers. Apparently, as I find out while we're here. only 2 campgrounds on the Buffalo have shower facilities. Drat. Down in the swimming area, there is a big bluff that is scalable by swimmers, so of course, my 3 are across the river (which really isn't a lot bigger than Bull Creek in Taney Co.) and climbing ASAP. Once you climb up some 8 feet, you hesitatingly make your way across a narrow path about 30 feet, where the other kids were waiting in line to jump off a protruding point into fairly deep water. The horizontal opening in the limestone cliff doesn't appear big enough to have housed any bluff dwellers, but you can sure see them staying here. The river is sand-bottomed at this place, whether by nature or Uncle Sam, I don't know. It was pretty close to perfect. We'll be back. >From Ozark, we again climb a hill back up to the highway, and continue north. Then, Hwy 7 goes down to its crossing of the Buffalo at Pruitt, and we turn into the river access here as well. Our last swim of the day. Taking the dirt road down to the river, we could barely see the top of the cliff rising above us. Most of the cliffs right on the river are bare vertical rock, with trees in various crevices, nooks and crannies. There's not as much cedar here as you would think, with most of the trees appearing to be hardwoods. Varieties of walnut, elm, oak, lots of mimosa and pine, and others we couldn't name. All green and full-bodied, enjoying the hot, hazy day. Here, at last, there was a big rock to jump from. Gleefully, the kids spied it and headed downstream towards the other kids playing on and around it. Ingrid and I sat down and enjoyed just looking at that awesome cliff. You could see cave openings toward the top, and while I didn't pick it out, I'm sure the spot that big rock fell from was up there somewhere, too. By the time it was 6, we'd been there about a 1/2 hour, and it was time to head home, even with complaints. No car troubles, 4 swimming holes, not too much yelling (well...), a pretty good meal--and I still had some diet Dr. Pepper in the trunk. We headed north, with more complaints of "I'm cold" because of the air conditioning (which was barely on). By the time we reached Omaha on Hwy 65, all 3 kids were sound asleep, the red head in the middle with his head between his knees. When I stopped for gas--$1.19 at the state line, when it's $1.35 in Branson--Brett had slid back against the seat, resting his head on TJ's, which was on Brett's shoulder. Vic was curled up with her towel over her, tucked into the corner. Good thing that door sticks. <BG> Otherwise, she'd've had to use Brett's other shoulder, and the way they bickered Sunday, that wouldn't have worked. It was a good day. Wish you could've been there, but then...you'd've had to drive. Just so you know, if you asked them after we got home like I did, none of the kids had any fun....at all. Didn't like the river, all of them squeaked about minnows nibbling on them, the 11-yr-olds discussed and checked for leeches for 15 minutes after each swim. But they want to go back. I could be certifiable. Have a GREAT Week! Vonda ListMom for MO-AR-WRV http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~moarwrv/ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gregvonda/ http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/~vondak/