Ozark Images: Mammoth Spring, Arkansas

My extended family and I drove from my hometown of Salem to Mammoth Spring, Arkansas a couple of days ago to see the old town and walk around its enormous spring. You see below an image of my brother Shan's wife, Shoshanna, gazing down the main street in the late afternoon as we were preparing to visit the spring.


But prior to heading down to the spring itself, my wife took this photo of a memorial bench commemorating Junior and Veda McCradic in gratitude for something left unidentified.


Merely a stone's throw away -- assuming that some Cy Young recipient is doing the toss -- we found ourselves confronting the cold river flowing up from that Mammoth Spring in the earth. Good place to fly fish for trout, as the little girl on the rock was presumably doing. Sa-Rah and En-Uk were jealous.


They contented themselves, however, by inspecting a shallow pool for minnows.


My good wife then took a photo of me as I offered a gruff pose with the spring's falls in the background.


Shan and Shoshanna offered a more pleasing image as they posed on the rock islet recently vacated by the fishing girl.


Shoshanna then offered to snap a shot for Sun-Ae so that all four of us could crowd onto the rock and into a photo, an opportunity that seems to have pleased the double-x contingent, but left the y's-guys less than thrilled.


Sun-Ae, however, soon commandeered the camera again and caught the three of us in an unguarded moment as I stood near our children to ensure that they not get swept away by the swift current as they sat on that rock islet dangling their feet in the swirling water.


Below can be seen from a walkway the river flow just below the fall of spring water from the dam, thereby offering a clearer impression of the total amount, some 10 million gallons per hour.


En-Uk and a cousin also stood on the walkway discussing things more or less aquatic.


An interesting group then appeared on the shore that we had recently visited. The individuals were dressed somewhat like the Amish but didn't look German. They were a mixed congregation of African-Americans and Caucasians and maybe some individuals of other ethnicity, all women and girls, wearing long dresses and long-sleeved shirts. The women also wore scarves over their hair. I wanted to return to that shore and ask them what religious group they represented, but since no men were included among them, I chose to leave them in peace.


A different sort of group soon awaited our gaze -- a mother duck with her six large ducklings, all seven paddling along on the spring's surface.


Our attention was then drawn to the old Mammoth Spring Depot, one of the attractions at Mammoth Spring State Park. Trains no longer stop there, so it serves only as a museum.


We ended our walk at a country music concert featuring some old singer who could imitate the voices of various well-known country artists and even mimic their appearance. In the photo below, you see him looking like Willie Nelson and singing "Whiskey River."


And that rounded out our evening at the spring . . .