Back in August, Ray Roth, one of my rockhunting friends from New Orleans, contacted me and asked me when I was going down to Arkansas for some quartz crystals. I told him I would be heading down there the second week of November and would have at least a couple of days free to dig quartz crystals. I usually have some photo work down there as well, but wanted to set two days aside for crystal collecting and set my vacation time up this year for just that. Ray said he would meet me down there and we stayed in touch through September and October by email.

He contacted me a couple of weeks ago, end of October and asked me about lodging options in the Mount Ida area, he was thinking about staying at the Crystal Inn once again, having stayed there before. I told him I would be staying at Mountain Harbor Resort, on Lake Ouachita, which was about five miles east of Crystal Inn and right on the lake. I mainly stay there because its one of the most dog friendly places to stay at, very scenic and pretty, and one of the few places I have found that has very friendly staff that are responsive to your needs. I have stayed at this place in the spring and fall both, one of the nicest  places to stay at. Ray asked for their website and I emailed it to him…he checked into it and decided to stay there as well, told me they gave him a great rate on a room that he couldnt pass up. Their fall rates are much better because its their off season…and he was going to stay with them for about a week so they gave him a good deal. Their guestrooms are very nice…one or two king size beds and a sofa sleeper, fridge and freezer, coffee maker, patio with chairs and lake view, nice big backyard, and very pretty walk in shower with ceramic tile walls and glass doors.  http://www.mountainharborresort.com is their website if anyone would want to check them out, very dog friendly place.

I usually stay in a log cabin when there, and made reservations for one back in August when I talked to Ray….thinking a few friends would visit with me while there and I would need the extra room…then found out the first two nights I wouldnt need the extra room. I mentioned that to the gals at the Lodge and they made me such a sweet deal, I just stayed in the cabin the whole time there. We were so busy during the day anyway, I didnt even notice no one else was there with me besides Missy, my border collie.

Ray arrived there on Tuesday, November 6th, the day before I did and the gals at the Lodge made him feel right at home. I took off Tuesday from my work, to get my packing finished for my trip the next morning, and to pack some goodies for Ray from Missouri and Kentucky both. I took him some fresh found druse and some purple fluorite from Marion, Kentucky, as well. Missy and I rose early the next morning, and after picking up my Mom, we headed west toward Joplin, where we would pick up Hwy 71 and head south to Fort Smith, Arkansas, our first stop. We made good time driving down there, nice sunny day and as we crossed the Boston Mountains on Hwy 71, we noticed quite a bit of color remaining in the trees in the mountain valleys…usually a good sign it will be colorful further south.

We soon arrived in Fort Smith, where I stopped off at my Uncle Harley and Aunt Dorcas` house, to drop my mom off…this is one of her younger brothers and he had already left for the family farm at Waldron to go deer hunting with more of our family members…Mom stays in Fort Smith and goes shopping with the gals til Sunday when we all meet at the farm for a reunion and dinner before heading home. I stayed and had a small lunch with Aunt Dorcas and Mom, and then filled the gas tank and headed south on 71 once again, passing through Waldron myself on the way to Lake Ouachita. Waldron is where my Mom and Dad were both born and raised, and where we used to go for Christmas when I was young and growing up…to visit my grandparents on their dairy farm…. I really cherish those memories…helping milk cows, feeding the calves….playing in the hayloft of Grandpa`s old barn…and I really miss my grandparents…my Grandpa lived to 90 yoa…milked cows til he was 65 yoa. Grandpa wasnt one to sit around and do nothing in retirement though…so he went to work for the US Forest Service there as a carpenter, helping them build fishing docks and pavilions and picnic tables, and also helped them fight forest fires in that area…..and then retired himself 25 years later, and died soon after from a rare blood cancer, caused by moldy hay of all things. I remember his supervisor at his funeral service, came up to me and told me that my Grandpa was something else when it came to hard work…she was amazed at his strength and work habit one day when she left him with the truck and radio on a forest fire, and she took a crew of younger men up the mountainside to rake a fireline…she said about halfway up that mountain, they all came to a staggering halt…out of breath and about to drop…trying to recover and gather some strength to continue up that steep hill..when all of a sudden here came your Grandfather raking a line right on past them and up that hill moving at a steady pace and he wasnt breathing hard nor had he broken a sweat !!  Needless to say, I dont think she ever doubted him again after that. 

I drove on toward Mount Ida from Waldron, stopping off briefly near Y City to photograph the fall color on the Fourche La Fave River….

This is one of my favorite stops because the color along the river is simply beautiful…on both sides of the highway bridge…

I stopped just south of the river to check on a small waterfall in the area of the old store there…but apparently the river was down far enough that the waterfalls were not even running this year…so we turned east on Hwy 270 and continued toward Mount Ida. As I dropped off the mountain east of Pencil Bluff, I crossed the Ouachita River a few miles west of Mount Ida and had to stop and walk back to the bridge with my camera…

…it was absolutely gorgeous color on the east bank…and then I took a good look at the reflections in the water and in the distance the color on the trees on the hillside was fantastic too !!

 

 

I had planned to stop at Bob`s Food City there and pick up some milk for my cereal and some Blue Bell Ice Cream, but decided I would get it on Thursday instead. We continued on to Mountain Harbor and arrived around 4 pm. After checking in with Pati and Luann at the Lodge, I stopped off at Ray`s room and gave him his care package…six flats of goodies…we sat on my truck tailgate and he looked over the fluorite and was happy with what I brought him to add to his collection. He showed me a large package of frozen gumbo that he had cooked and brought to me…while I have never tasted it to my knowledge, my Dad LOVES it as does my Supervisor at work. I had him hold on to it while I was there. Missy and I headed over to the cabin to get settled in….

…and then headed back to the Lodge restaurant for supper with Ray. That`s another great feature of the resort…they have an excellent restaurant with great food and service, plus a nice view of the lake, as the restaurant sits up on a hill overlooking a large expanse of water there. I had been looking forward to their hand breaded chicken fingers and steamed veggies, with some of their homemade potato salad…and boy do they know how to brew some good sweet tea, too.

After a good supper, I checked my email and found a reply from an area mine owner regarding a visit at their mine on Thursday morning. I had contacted a buddy of mine, a quartz dealer who resides nearby, a few days earlier and asked for area mine information. Mike had told me that the only mine that was actually digging and open to the public in the area at this time, was Sweet Surrender Mine, north of Mt Ida near Story, on the north side of Lake Ouachita. I had heard of it but had never been there before. He knew the owner and suggested we go there and dig, maybe even talk to Randy the owner and see if we could work a deal with him on getting into a pocket. He told me that a fellow that he sent there two weeks prior, was able to get into a pocket that Randy found with the track hoe, and removed several buckets of crystals nice enough to wrap up. I told Ray and we decided to go there the next morning and see what we could find.

Missy and I woke up at sunrise and got a good hike in, walking the north lakeshore as the sun was coming up, this view of the main marina right off our cabin`s back deck…

..we then walked around the lakeshore toward the north marina….

…..I was looking for quartz veins in the shale, to see if there were any crystals or just massive quartz….

..most of the lakeshore was made up of a shale shelf that stairstepped down to the water`s edge…this one shows two nice maple shrubs cloaked in fall colors….

…and occasionally we would come across chunks of massive quartz laying on the beach, in a manner of speaking, and sometimes in the edge of the water….

…and then we walked on around to the north marina via the lakeshore, here you see a couple more of the cabins on the lake…

…we then watched a couple of guys heading out of the harbor toward open water to get some fishing in….

 

…in the upper left hand corner of the photo above you`ll notice a house near the top of the mountain…its referred to as a glass house…I met the residents on my May trip there and photographed it the previous fall season there.

When the fishermen hit the open water, they really opened up the boat and took off…

…as we got over to the north marina, we hit a stretch of shale that looked pretty and shapely…looked like it would make nice stepping stones….

 

At this point, we reached the end of the road that our cabin was located on so we started back to it…passing Cabin 18 up as we walked back…I stayed in it a few years back for a couple of nights, its the most popular cabin they had back then, its the closest one to the water….

After a quick breakfast of Arizona Green Tea and a few cookies, Missy and I met up with Ray at the Lodge and then headed to Mount Ida…I needed to stop at the bank`s atm and then we drove north on Hwy 27 toward Story to do some quartz crystal digging at an area mine…

we were there til around 3 pm…for a more extensive look at the quartz crystal digging we did down there, check out my rockhunting blog site…

http://jwjrocks.com  

We headed back to Mt Ida, stopping off at Bob`s Food City and picking up some milk and ice cream, and then returned to the Lodge for supper.  We decided to go to Miller Mountain Mine the next morning and see what we could find there…I have been there several times and NEVER had a bad day there…plus they have reasonably priced baskets of crystals some of which come from a variety of mines in the area, but I have always had good luck pulling some really good material from the baskets I have purchased there.

After yet another good supper at the Lodge, we retired for the night and prepared for a better day of quartz crystal collecting. For whatever reason, which I havent figured out yet, I again rose early the next morning…and Missy and I took off for another hike…thinking I`m supposed to be on vacation so shouldnt I be sleeping in later ??  This time Missy and I hiked over to the west side of the lake where we normally shoot sunsets from, the north point…this time though the sunrise this morning was putting on a good display and making me think it was sunset instead….

 

 

Looking the other way, to the east though, the sky was rather cloudy a few minutes later as we walked around to the campground side of things…

…there is a campground on the very north point of Harbor North side of Mountain Harbor, operated by the Corps of Engineers and closed this time of year…another shale lakeshore with some good color there…

…we then hiked down to the water`s edge facing south and photographed the reflections of the north side marina and boats….

 

 

…I looked at the clock on my phone and it seemed we needed to head back and get some breakfast down before we met up with Ray again, so I turned and shot the campground across the bay….

After cleaning up and getting some breakfast down, we met Ray at the Lodge and after checking email, we headed to Miller Mountain Mine via the backroads…Ray told me when we finally arrived there, that he was all turned around and didnt know how to get back to the resort from there now…told him by avoiding the drive through Hot Springs we had probably saved about 30 minutes driving time going the backway. We stopped at the entrance rock shop to visit with Caretakers Faith and Bill for a bit…Bill was down at the mine so Ray and I talked to Faith who caught us up on the past year there, and some scuttlebut for the other area mines…

…this is a great place to do some fee digging for quartz crystals…only ten dollars a person and even less in a group of seven or more…keep all you find and can dig from daylight to dark here. Today we found a lot of smokey quartz crystals and Ray even dug into a pocket of golden healer clusters, this one the first one he found there...

 …and here are some I found, including a big point at the top center of the photo below….

…and here is Ray taking a break from digging at Miller Mountain Mine….

We stopped off at Colton`s Steakhouse on the way back for a good steak and fixins…I contacted one of my models, Scott, who was just leaving his workplace and he met us at the steakhouse. Scott visited with us over dinner and then took off for home as we headed west to the resort. After checking my emails once again, Missy and I headed back to the cabin for the night. We had decided to try Judy`s Crystals the next day and dig at Fisher Mountain Mine, which is located south of the Mt Ida Airport. Ray didnt sleep well that night and called early to ask for a few extra hours of rest. I had no problem with that at all, getting another hour of rest myself, and then getting our walk in around the resort.

We walked down to the wood bridge on the Harbor North Road and shot the sailboats over at one of the Marina`s, looking toward the area of the Lodge...

…then heard a speedboat coming down the lake behind us, so turned around and snapped these guys speeding along against a wall of colorful fall foliage on the far shore….

…breezed by one of the newer family cabins on our way to the Lodge area…

…and then drove up to the Lodge area to see the big fireboat the resort has tied up at the main marina behind the seasonal Subway Restaurant….

…a retired Coast Guard Cutter that was actually purchased for the resort by a private donor in the area. I actually had the pleasure of touring it back in May when it was very warm both inside the cabin and holds as well as outside…the front machine gun had been replaced by a water deck gun, pretty neat investment for the entire lake area. I turned around and looked back to the east toward the boat launch site and saw some beautiful fall color as well as a couple of sailboats drydocked and sitting up high….

Missy and I headed back to the cabin to get in some breakfast and tv time while waiting for Ray`s phone call that he was ready to go to Fisher Mtn Mine. By noon, Missy and I were driving to Judy`s Crystals to meet Ray there…. arriving a bit early, I met and visited with Judy and her friends,  and walked around the displays to see what Judy had for sale outside the rock shop…finding some pretty quartz clusters and alot of colorful slag glass, for the most part. Ray pulled up soon after and we made our arrangements with Judy to drive on up to Fisher Mtn Mine and see what we could dig up.

The Fisher Mtn Mine has alot of history associated with it…..it`s Ocus Stanley`s original mine….he is the guy that got the quartz crystal hunting craze started in the area….the mine sits on top of Fisher Mtn about two miles south of the Mt Ida airport, easily spotted on Google Earth Maps off Logan Gap Road before it intersects with Owley Road. For those of you that know Judy, she suffered a stroke about five weeks ago and is now hobbling around on crutches and recovering from it. She seems to be doing pretty well now, her only complaint that she hadnt been to the mine in six weeks. Ron Coleman also has an old mine up there,  accessed by the same road, closed to the public by a very heavy steel gate.

This is the road that ascends much of the mountain to the mine, after passing through a very heavy steel gate off Logan Gap Road…a very pretty and scenic drive up I might add, this time of the year….

We ascended three times and leveled off three times in the mile and a half drive from the gate to the mine clearing…with a few scenic views of the mountains and valleys as we went…I had been told this might be a rough road, but as I pleasantly discovered, the lane was a thick carpet of oak leaves and pine needles under making for a soft ride instead with just an occasional rough spot along the way.

This was the view from the top of the mountain, when we arrived a few minutes later….

The view from up there was extraordinary…you could see to the south for miles and the color up there was pretty nice as well for a region without much rainfall since September, spotty but nice…

 

 

 

We returned to the resort after descending down the mountain and relocking the heavy steel gate and returning the key to Judy`s Crystals Shop, just in time for a pretty sunset over the lake…

 

 

… I told Ray as we pulled into the Lodge parking lot that it looked like a nice sunset was forming up and I would meet him at the restaurant in thirty minutes…wanted to photograph the sunset since there hadnt been a pretty one while there, til this evening. here is what I saw and shot the next twenty minutes…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…had a good supper of hand breaded chicken fingers once again, with the homemade potato salad…they really believe in feeding you there at the Lodge restaurant…then went back to the cabin to finish as much of the blue bell moo-lenia ice cream as I could. Missy and I got up about 7 Sunday morning, got a short hike and run in before packing the truck for the drive home, and before it started raining…the skies were dark when we finally stepped outside the cabin to take hike around the shore again…there was an extensive cold front coming in from the west, part of the Brutus Storm that had pounded the northwest with heavy snows earlier in the week, but the forecasters had said the storms and rain showers would hold off til noon at least…guess they were wrong again. We headed up to the Lodge to check out and check my email once again…and while there I updated the McRocks board too. Ray came down to send us off and gave me a big frozen chunk of gumbo to take back with me, and said, ” lets do this again sometime ”   He wasnt leaving til Monday or Tuesday and said he would let me know that he made it home safe and sound, his drive is about as long as mine, eight hours.

Missy and I headed up Hwy 270 toward Waldron, where we would stop for dinner and a family reunion at the family farm. As we approached Y City on 270, I came across some beautiful maple trees…….

 

 

…and some with cattle nearby in the fields….

 

…it was raining pretty hard when we came across this scenery just east of Y City….

 

 

 

 

…I drove maybe a quarter of a mile and crossed the Fourche La Fave River again, and parked on the bridge, because the fall color down by that river was just stunning this year…the first photo looking upstream…

 

 

 

 

…and then downstream….which is just around the corner and above those waterfalls I photographed Kyle in a couple of years ago.

…from here its an easy drive through cattle farms to Waldron…I decided I would shorten it a bit and take Ross Creek Road in to the farm from Hwy 71…it takes me through some scenic farmlands and passes by an old farm where one of my uncles used to live…it was now raining again and the wind the night before had knocked several colorful leaves to the ground and they coated the roadway in areas as well…

 

 

…the road today was a much smoother drive than I remember it being many years ago when my parents drove down it on one of our annual visits down there to see everyone…maybe the leaves and the rain had helped to smooth down the rough areas I remembered. Pretty soon, my grandpa`s old dairy farm came into view….

 

…I still call it Grandpa`s farm, even though it`s now taken care of by my Uncle Joe and Aunt Billie Jean, who lovingly restored the house and added a two car garage and a pretty white ranch fence encircling the house and garage…the old hay barn sits up behind the house at the end of the driveway and my Uncle Harley takes care of it and some acreage there as well…

 

…you can see the pine tree forest up above the house on the far mountainside too…a farm of many fond and cherished memories during my childhood years and continues to be  for many of us still today.

I could see some activity up by the barn as I started up toward the house, I met some of my second cousins riding toward me on their four wheelers in their hunting gear…Jansen had a doe stretched out across the front of his atv…he had shot it just prior to my arrival and was the only one so far to have harvested a deer. I pulled up and parked in the field just beyond the campers and let Missy out to stretch her legs before the rains started up again. As I was visiting with several of my relatives at the campers behind the house, the rain started to fall once again, so I put Missy back in the truck to stay dry and shortly after, Mom arrived with my Aunt Dorcas and Cousin Sherry. Soon after that, several of us cousins went for a ride on the four wheelers…in the rain and through some of the mudholes to one of the other nearby farms, to see a new deerstand, and then headed back to the barn before we were completely soaked by the steady showers.

It was obvious, we were going to be eating our Sunday dinner, prepared by family and friends, in the garage and the campers, as the rain had only intensified by the time it was time to eat. After prayer, we formed a line and started filling our plates, ribs and beef brisket the two main courses cooked by my Uncle Joe and friends, and several side dishes and desserts available, as well as two large pans of homemade breadrolls cooked each year by Nadene, dear family friends from down the road….who with her husband James,   also operated a dairy farm as my grandparents did, for many years. I filled my plate for the long drive home and made sure to get two of those delicious rolls she makes. After a bit more fellowship with relatives and a good meal, Mom, Missy, and I headed home in the steady rain. We finally ran out of the rain around Rogers and then hit it again east of Springfield, the last thirty miles the rain coming down hard. It was a good trip again, but we were definitely glad to be home, safely and soundly.