We pulled out of the campground at 6:30 AM. Best time of the day to be driving… Dark, but hints of light in the east, no traffic, and it always feels good to get an early start to the day.
After it got light we enjoyed the last of the Missouri autumn colors…
We crossed the boarder into Arkansas. We drove through Salem, AR, enjoying the old stone buildings. However, there wasn’t much else here…
We did stop in Evening Shade, AR. Wasn’t there once a TV sitcom set in Evening Shade? All the locals met in a diner? Well, there are no diners today in Evening Shade. We stopped at a gas station to buy some coffee…
Fall colors in Arkansas are not as dramatic as in Missouri…
We bypassed Little Rock. We spent a few days in Little Rock in 2019, so we did not stop today…
We pulled into a rest stop in Arkadelphia, AR. Yes, that really is a city. I think the city name expresses its love for large primitive boats full of pairs of animals…
And we soon were in Texarkana, TX.
We pulled into the local KOA, did minimal set-up, and happy hours ensued.
We considered going out to dinner, but the only decent restaurant was a BBQ place across an 8 lane highway with no crosswalks in sight… So we stayed in and made a light supper – pizza!
We set out this morning for a long drive to tour the Timber Charcoal Plant…
We see lots of industry and businesses alongside the road on our travels, and we rarely know what they are…
This is the Timber Charcoal Plant…
It has rained for the past 24 hours, and the sawdust covered dirt parking lot stuck to my truck’s tires…
The plant uses waste product from lumber mills. This is wood recently brought in from a mill that makes pallets, so all the scraps are about four feet long. It is all hardwood, usually oak, pecan, hickory…
Our tour was led by the owner, the third generation of his family owning this plant. His nephew works here, making it a 4th generation operation. He mentioned many times how they are not getting rich owning the plant, but all the employees have full health care, retirement plans, and good pay. They set production goals for the week (40 hours of work) and generally they finish by noon on Friday; they all get paid for their 40 hours, and they get to go home early…
When he was asked if his children will take over for him, he equivocated… I got the impression that he wants better things (college, profession) for his children, but he was still proud of what he has accomplished here…
These funny concrete and stucco buildings are the kilns. They burn the wood at about 260 degrees F. This places tremendous stress on the concrete and steel structure…
These giant pipes are part of the air cleaning system. They exhaust the smoke from the kilns and send it to be cleaned, so that air pollution is greatly reduced…
The kiln on the left is under construction – you can see the wood formwork for the concrete…
The roofs of the kilns are reinforced concrete, but the intense heat cracks the concrete and the roof will collapse. Therefore they build a steel exoskeleton atop the kiln to hold up the roof…
Here you can see the rows of kilns with their steel doors…
This kiln is being loaded with wood. The bundles are left with their steel straps on…
The wood will be stacked wall to wall and floor to ceiling…
This is a close-up of the steel door jamb, totally warped by the heat…
Another kiln under construction, steel door frame in place…
This what a fully loaded kiln looks like after it has been burned and cooled. It is about 25% of the original volume.
This plant produced high quality chunk charcoal; sizes will vary… (charcoal briquets use lesser quality charcoal that is mixed with water, paste, and sawdust, then formed into cute little uniform size briquets…) This piece of charcoal is almost 100% carbon…
This shows the steel ceiling supports of the steel exoskeleton above… warped from the heat, but still capable of holding up the roof…
Everything – equipment, buildings, people – are covered with soot… (no photographs of people allowed…)
The finished product, ready to be bagged. Smaller pieces are screened out, larger pieces are broken up…
The charcoal is bagged and the bags are put on pallets. They sell their product to many different resellers, so all the bags are proprietary, and the plant name is not mentioned. That way each brand can claim they are the best, and no one knows that it all comes from the same plant…
Their charcoal is sold to serious home BBQers, competitive BBQers, and professionals, such as BBQ restaurants…
We dusted the soot off our shoes and headed back to the campground…
We stopped for lunch in the town of Eminence…
We had a typical Ozarks lunch with another of our caravan friends…
We relaxed for the rest of the day. Tonight is the Final Banquet of the caravan, held at the campground clubhouse (or Pickin’ Shed, as they call it here in the South…).
The clubhouse is about 1000 yards from most of the Airstreams. Most caravaners chose to drive…
Once inside we had a little entertainment, then our final caravan meal, a nice catered affair…
Then more entertainment… This Final Banquet is a longstanding caravan tradition. In the olden days people dressed up in dinner jackets and formal dresses. We are much more casual today. This is all planned by a committee of caravan volunteers…
After much celebrating we returned to the Villa and an enjoyable time was had by all…
We returned to the Villa. End of Caravan – we depart at 0 dark 30 tomorrow, heading for Texarkana, TX. An enjoyable time was had by all…
We traveled back to Mountain Grove to visit the Missouri State Fruit Experimentation Station…
They were ready to welcome us!
This place is what it says it is: they do research into many types of fruits…
So they showed us the fruit of their vines…
We had a lovely tasting of their wines…
After the tasting we toured the winery…
Not exactly a large facility. But, after all, they are just doing research…
Next stop: The wine store… We exercised great restraint…
Next door is a small brewery.
We all had lunch there. It is sort of a hobby brewery: family run, only open on occasion. Today they served us tacos. Not really Mexican food; just Missouri food (beef, cheese, tomatoes) served in a tortilla… Taco sauce served on the side…
We returned to the campground. We enjoyed Happy Hours together…
And then we had a little entertainment…
This was a local group that had spent some time in Hollywood recording their music, mostly for movie soundtracks… But they live here now, playing these types of gigs…
On a side note:
This electric organ is in the clubhouse. These hymn books are properly placed. One might think they hold church services here now and again; however, when I picked up one of the books it was almost stuck to the rack, and it clearly had never been used, or even opened before… Apparently, they’re just props.
So we returned to the Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…
After the two-day cold snap we had about a week ago the foliage colors have definitely changed…
After a quiet morning we gathered our chairs to watch Mule Jumping…
Meet the mule: Pedro…
Here he jumps…
He is a champion in Missouri – he has jumped 60″!
He only made it to 56″ today. He really likes the roar of the crowd, and he is very proud of himself when he makes a high jump…
After all the excitement of the jumping mule we had a rest in the Villa. Tonight is dinner at the Viadel Winery, the same place we had lunch yesterday…
The winery is normally closed on Monday, so we had the place to ourselves…
The meal consisted of Bruschetta salad, Lasagna, Pizza (see our comments from yesterday…), and garlic-buttered breadsticks, which are made from their pizza dough that I so enjoyed yesterday…
The vineyards are still looking good…
We managed to get one last picture of the caravan group…
We returned to the Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…
Mostly free day today… We drove 4 miles down the road and had lunch at Viandel Vineyards…
They opened at 11:00 am and we were there… Its a rather rustic place…
Of course, I couldn’t help but notice the absolutely useless and non-compliant disabled access parking and ramp…
All of their wine is made from grapes grown on the property…
We had a nice table outside. It was a little cool, but nice nevertheless…
We tasted six of their wines – two dry (one red, one white) four sweet – Grape, Blueberry, Blackberry, Apple. The sweet wines were made from Muscato grapes, infused with the fruit flavors, but no added sugar. They tasted like I would like to pour them over ice and add some 7-Up on a hot day… The dry wines were from grapes unknown to me. We ordered a very nice fresh bruschetta to enjoy with the tasting. Then we ordered glasses of the red wine and two of their small artisanal wood-fired pizzas. It was great lunch. We will come back here with the entire caravan tomorrow night for dinner…
We returned to the Villa. We are seeing some mild autumnal colors all around us…
Fun day today! We drove a few miles south to the town of West Plains, and stopped into the Presbyterian Church…
We weren’t here for a church service; the church offers its facilities to community groups for various things…
Our time here started with lunch. We (there are 57 of us…) were fed Thanksgiving Dinner by a local Amish family. There is a Amish community of about 20 family is West Plains and the surrounding area. This family of eight (including six kids) prepared and served Turkey, stuffing, beans and corn, potatoes and gravy, salad, fresh rolls, and pie for dessert…
It was lovely…
We then heard from a local historian about the Ozarks culture and history in this area… This bearded man in the next photo was the originator of this caravan, and his family has been here since the early 1800s; they left Tennessee when it got to be too crowded: They had seen a human footprint down by the creek that was not part of the family… He is a retired Judge…
We migrated to the church sanctuary, where the local high school choir was assembling…
This group is all seniors, and some of the best singers in the 100 person choir…
The best part? They sang all showtunes! South Pacific!, My Fair Lady! Who could ask for anything more?
They were great and it was lots of fun to hear them. I hope these experiences give these kids a leg up as they leave school and grow into productive citizens…
As we left the church we enjoyed the historic downtown, although most of the businesses have all moved into strip centers along the highway that bypasses the town…
Our evening was free… Happy Hours and sunset ensued…
Today we leave Branson after a week here… We saw 6 shows, and we were served 7 meals, all but one of which was Green Beans or Corn, Chicken, Potatoes, and Beef or Pork… As I have already reported, some were better than others… Branson is a tiny town (12,000 population) that has 9,000,000 visitors/tourists every year…
Travel days all start the same. People hitching up, catered breakfast in the clubhouse, then the Drivers’ Meeting…
And then we hit the road… This is considered the high plains of the Ozarks…
And the roads were even good!
The campground in Mountain Grove is a little rustic, but it had all the necessities… Having good power is important here! Temperatures hit 23 degrees in the morning…
The evening meal was pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches. No green beans or mashed potatoes in sight!
We returned to the Villa and turned on the furnace. An enjoyable time was had by all…
This morning we visited The College of the Ozarks, just south of Branson. It has nick-named itself as Hard Work U; its students work on campus for their entire time here in various jobs and trades, from hospitality (cooks and waiters), agriculture, administration and marketing, etc. As a result, there is no cost to the students for tuition and housing. The college obviously also has generous donors. Most students are lower income and from the Ozarks region; they also have students from many other parts of the country and from other countries.
We gathered in the admissions and visitors center; we were given an overview of the college by a student, a senior.
After the information session we headed off to explore the campus. This is the Williams Memorial Chapel, built in 1956 by students. Try as I might, I could not find out who the architect was…
The interiors are quite beautiful…
After the chapel we visited the mill and store, and the greenhouses…
Of course, no visit would be complete with a visit to the tractor museum. Most of these tractors were originally in use on campus, and they were restored by students…
After our walking around we had lunch in the college restaurant, prepared by students, from ingredients grown by students, and served by student-waiters: The menu? Beef brisket, chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans! Except that this time it was fresh, farm-to-table, not out of a can! The table setting was even perfect: the silverware was properly placed, not rolled up in a paper napkin… The meal was as good as a mass-produced banquet meal can be expected to be. The servers were top notch and very professional…
We returned to the Villa to warm up… It is COLD!
This evening we attended Dolly Parton’s Stampede. I expected a tryical country music show. Boy! Was I wrong!
Walking towards the entrance we were given a hint:
The “theater” looks more like a rodeo arena. (Luckily for me, this is NOT a rodeo… As much as I don’t like killing animals for sport, I don’t like torturing them for fun, either…)
Of course, this being a dinner show, we were served a dinner of soup, corn on the cob, potatoes. and chicken…
But first the MC rode in…
More horse and riders appeared… They rode around in fancy circles…
And then the bison came into the arena…
And then the covered wagons and the “settlers”…
Finally the chicken arrived on our plates. A whole chicken!
This next part was fun but it didn’t photograph well. It was the pig races!
Of course there was the obligatory tribute to veterans and patriotic song…A good show, but something I never would have selected. That’s the fun of caravans – I do things I wouldn’t ordinarily do…
Adventures in the Villa 