Caverns and folk music

After leaving Tennessee, we are generally headed toward Big Bend National Park in Texas. However, Heather recommended a detour to Mountain View, AR. What a neat place! It is a little town in the Ozark mountains, where a whole community of country folk musicians live. The town square is set up with multiple jam spots, where the local artists can come an practice, entertain, and market themselves to what I expect is a substantials crowd of tourists in the warmer months. We took in a local "Hoedown" show , and a night of free music at Jimmy Driftwood's Barn. Sunday was a bit chilly, so we killed a couple hours playing scrabble in one of the only open shops - the Candy Factory! (great fudge!)

The other highlight of this place is Blanchard Caverns. Wow! This is the most visually impressive cave I have seen. The tour led up through two very large rooms (1000ft long, 700ft long) with towering columns, stalagmites, soda straws, curtains, etc. There are water formations almost everywhere you look. We were both taking pictures almost non-stop. This cave has color, too - Really pure, sparkling calcite, rust-stained orange walls, and streaks of gray and yellow in the transitions. The 1.5 hour tour was not nearly long enough. The lighting was a challenge, as always, but I've put up a few of my more pleasing pictures...