Ouachita Mountains

[Kirah]

Saw Flame's mention of heading over to Fort Smith and was like, yeah, love that area... and then realized I never shared this trip with y'all. So, rewinding to last fall...

I got a reservation at Cedar Lake Recreation Area, a bit north of Big Cedar, OK - which apparently was a non-reserve-able site, but the web site was messed up... fortunately, there were a lot of empty sites so I had no trouble. I loved the campground. I had the loop almost to myself, and there are really nice walking trails through the area.

I was there most of a week, then bugged out a day early, because they were forecasting freezing rain and I did NOT want to try to drive that stretch of 259 south of Big Cedar if there was ice on the road. It's steep and winding and I was towing my car.

A couple photos from the campground, then more general scenery in follow-up posts...

[Kirah]

My favorite drive was the Talimena Scenic drive/byway/whatever. It runs from Talimena State Park (roughly) over to Mena, AR. Great stretch of windy, slow road that really goes nowhere, so it's just people out tooling around to look at the scenery. Low traffic, lots of overlooks and informational markers, plenty of wide spots to get out and snoop around.

The first day was pretty gray and blah. Low, heavy clouds, just sitting there. But that turned out to be awesome, because that night temps dropped into the 20s, and all that cloud vapor froze onto branches and leaves and blades of grass, so when I got up there again the next morning, it had been transformed.

[Kirah]

I spent a couple of days driving on the so-called "highways" in Arkansas. Pretty country - not picturesque, but comfortable old hills and forests. The driving was a drag, though. Narrow roads with no shoulders, few passing lanes, and with lots of traffic, all going at different speeds, so you really had to pay attention. It was tiring. And even if there was a pretty view, there was no opportunity to gawk and take pictures.

Stopped in Heavener for food and to visit the "Runestone", in a little park above town. Big rock, with Norse runes carved into it, which the park presents as being plausible proof that the Vikings got as far as Arkansas? I have trouble buying that, but it was a nice walk.

[Kirah]

The last evening I was there, I parked myself at a place called "Sunset Point Overlook" along the Talimena Scenic Drive (did I mention that I loved that drive? I probably did it end-to-end four times in a week). That place was well-named

[Blue~Go]

So glad you wrote this up. I drove the Talimena Scenic Drive decades ago and was similarly impressed. It's nice to see it again and know that it's still so all these years later.

That frost really made it magical - wow.