I headed west from Little Rock. Hot Springs, Mt. Ida, Y City, to the Oklahoma border. And back to Little Rock. Beautiful countryside traveling through Ouachita National Forest.
Full disclosure, I didn’t do the Oklahoma side, so I can’t speak to about two-thirds of the drive. I stopped at the Choctaw Nation-Stateline monument at the Arkansas state line.
The Oklahoma/Arkansas border is just west of Queen Wilhelmina State Park and at the top of Rich Mountain, Arkansas’s second highest peak at 2,681 ft. This is part of the Ouachita Mountains, distinctive for their east-west, rather than north-south, orientation. Skipping the details, it is the orogeny of the Ouachita range that is responsible for the world famous quartz crystals found around Mt. Ida.
The marker above shows the current Arkansas/Oklahoma boundary. But this was originally the boundary between Arkansas and the Choctaw nation. And, placed 40 miles west of the actual treaty line, depriving the Choctaw of 160,000 acres of land. Does the name Andrew Jackson ring a bell?
I spent a couple of hours wandering around Hot Springs. Beautiful grounds, beautiful bath houses.
And then one reads a little of the history. The men’s side of the bath houses were far more luxurious than the women’s side. The Army was called in to remove the poor people on the uphill side, so they would contaminate the water for the baths. And it was all Black people doing the work in the baths.
I mentioned the orogeny of the Ouachita Fold and Thrust Belt creating quartz crystals. There are numerous crystal shops with wide ranging specimens from small single points to large clusters. I fed my new age tendencies and bought a small (1.25″) smoky quartz point for upcoming Lammas.
What would a post be without food? The “Kimlet” at the Root Cafe in Little Rock. Gin, hibiscus tea, fresh squeezed lime juice, and winter mint syrup. And below the pickle plate at Flyway Brewing.
And consumption demands exercise. The Big Dam Bridge is the longest pedestrian bridge in North America that was never used for vehicular traffic. It is 4,426 feet long and provides wonderful views up and down the river. Just watch out for the bike traffic.
The Journey 