Advertisement
Day 3
Woke up bright and early on Spring Creeks Farm in Willow Springs, MO! Heather went for an early morning walk/jog around the property and I stayed behind to blog and get caffeinated. On her walk, Heather met some of the local cattle and also found a small box turtle who seemed as though he was heading for the creek behind George and Martha’s home, so she helped him get there quicker (after bringing him to the house to show us of course)!
Once everyone was awake, Martha made a delicious breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausage (with Chef Diego’s help). It’s so nice sitting around the kitchen table spending time with family, really brings home the entire reason for this trip which is to see and spend time with all the lovely people in our lives that we don’t see often enough.
After breakfast Heather and I took a creek walk with Martha to explore a bit. The water is absolutely crystal clear, which is something you would never see at home with all the clay and mud. The bottom here is all silt and rock, quite a view. We heard about Martha’s adventures on
their 400-acre property over the years, including finding Native American artifacts and burial sites.
We came back to the house to find Diego playing the piano in accompaniment with his Grandpa George on the French horn. They did a great job making music together and obviously both enjoyed it tremendously.
We had previously asked how far away the Arkansas state line was from the farm, as that would add an additional state to our list. We were all planning to have a picnic anyway, so it was decided that we would head about 75 minutes south to Mammoth Springs, Arkansas for lunch. Nice easy drive and suddenly we crossed a bridge and the car GPS indicated we were in Arkansas! Mammoth Springs is only about 500 feet over the state line, but a new state is a new state.
Mammoth Springs has a visitors center, a dam/waterfall, lots of picnic tables and a fish hatchery with some of the biggest koi I have ever seen in my life. Some of those fish had to be decades old, at least thirty inches long. Luckily we had some travel quarters stocked up for tolls, and the fish food
dispenser they just happened to have available got several of them.
We settled into a pavilion for a picnic lunch (ham or sliced chicken sandwiches and chips) and afterwards Heather and Olivia went for a wander around the park and spent some time together while Diego and I hung out with grandma and grandpa.
On our way back to the farm, we took a tour of the town and surrounding area. George and Martha know the majority of their 2400 neighbors very well, it seemed as though every house we passed had a story and faces to put with the story.
We could tell that a storm was rolling in as we approached the farm, and we were not disappointed in the least. Shortly after we got inside the skies opened up and the thunder started. Neal the dog was less than enthused about the storm but the rest of us veteran stormwatchers couldn’t wait to park ourselves on the front porch with a cold drink and just watch the rain for an hour or two.
After it cleared up, George brought out a couple of .22’s for a little target practice with a newspaper. Livy
fired both a rifle and a handgun for the first time and did extremely well with both. She is an excellent student and takes both the safety and the proficiency aspects of shooting very seriously. It was a lot of fun teaching her how to use the weapons safely and effectively, something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time now.
While we were out having fun, serious business was taking place in the kitchen as Martha and Diego cooked up some absolutely delicious fried chicken (and some pan-seared as well for the healthier folks). We all sat down to dinner and chatted as a family.
After dinner we all gathered in the front living room and talked and talked until it had grown dark outside. Everyone had stories to share and it was so nice to just hang out and talk as a group. Eventually it was well past Neal the dog’s bedtime so he and his mama headed off to sleep. We read Diego a story and tucked him in, said goodnight to Livy and bid farewell to Day 3 in Missouri. 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0292s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb