Deb and I had reason to drive west from Yellville on US Route 62/412 yesterday morning. Our trip took us 20 miles from The Mountain, to the intersection with US Route 65 south of Harrison.
We caught glimpses of damage done by the Boone-Marion tornado a week ago. On our way Home, we left the main roads behind, venturing south of the highway into the thinly settled places where many of Deb’s customers live.
Harmon. Olvey. Eros. Pyatt. Snow. Tiny towns, rural communities and rolling pasture land with spectacular, sweeping views of the Ozarkansas countryside.
We tracked back and forth across the tornado’s cruelly random path. The devastation was unimaginable, the scenes we passed heartbreaking.
It’d be cliché to say, “It looked like a war zone,” but it did. Mile after mile, it was beyond anything I’ve seen in my 67 years.
(There are 15 images in the gallery above. I encourage you to take the time to look at each one — and realize that they don’t come close to capturing what these good people are going through.)
I couldn’t bring myself to blog about that yesterday. I saw it once with my own eyes, and again when I flipped through the photos that Deb and I took.
I didn’t have it in me to visit it a third time.
Meteorologists use the phrase “fish storm” to describe a hurricane that won’t make landfall, thus sparing lives and property. In the same way, they often talk about a tornado “fortunately” touching down in wide-open farm country.
I get it, y’know? A twister in rural America tears up fewer structures and threatens fewer lives than it would if it struck a densely populated area.
What I saw yesterday left a very different impression.
Driving along a narrow county road, passing hundreds upon hundreds of broken and uprooted trees, then slowing at the sight of one particularly massive oak on the ground — and realizing that there was a flattened house underneath it.
Wooded fencerows that acted like giant sieves, choked with shards of sheet metal and shingles, farm implements and bicycles and toys, entire walls and trusses.
Smoke in the air from countless burn piles, the most expedient way to dispose of trees and brush and debris.
A weary man standing by the roadside, watching a front-end loader push around rubble that once was his house.
No, there’s nothing “fortunate” about any of that. Our hearts are with these people.
Despite the sadness and desperation, it’s still beautiful country, and yesterday was a perfect day for a drive. As we approached Yellville, we turned north from Route 62 onto Arkansas 125 and ran it to Dodd City, where we picked up Arkansas 14 east and south.
Those two roads, back-to-back, were just what I needed, bobbing and weaving through a deep-green landscape and putting a smile back on my face. It was 20 miles of pure joy.
Deb and I were getting pretty hungry by the time we reached Summit. On a whim, we decided to stop at Allen’s Grocery and sample its “hot deli.”
Allen’s is a local institution, almost as old as I am. Now operated by a fourth generation of the family that founded it over 60 years ago, the place is impossibly small and cramped, and yet it’s thoroughly wonderful — a typical old-school grocer with a loyal following.
There’s even a couple of gas pumps under the awning out front.
We settled on burgers and fries (Deb chose breaded “potato logs”) with a side of mac’n’cheese. We drove on to Yellville and took our lunch at the picnic area west of town.
The food was great and the setting couldn’t have been better. It gave us time to decompress a little, too.
That process occupied us the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.
This is the first Sunday in a long while that laundry isn’t on our schedule. We had to go to Gassville anyway, though, to fetch a few things from storage. We were headed Home, back in Marion County again, when we made a spontaneous decision to turn left on Arkansas 101 toward Rea Valley.
That simple, spur-of-the-moment choice kicked off one our trademark mini-adventures.
A few miles down the road we saw a sign for “Lower Crooked Creek Access” and veered left again. Pavement quickly turned to gravel. We rolled through park-like pasture land belonging “101 Ranch & Wildlife Refuge,” according to the signs. So in addition to herds of beef cattle, we saw dozens of whitetails — mostly solitary and unbothered does, but also a pair of fawns tucked into tall grass under a large oak.
A steep descent told us we were approaching the creek. And indeed we were — but it wasn’t the public access. The road dead-ended at two private homes.
We turned around and drove back the way we came. Halfway to the main road I flagged down a pickup coming toward us, and (in typically friendly Ozarkansas fashion) the young couple pointed us in the right direction.
The correct turns put us on yet another narrow, steep and twisting dirt road. This one ended at the picturesque public access on Crooked Creek.
We chatted awhile with an older fellow who owns much of the land surrounding the AGFC area. Nearby was a disabled and abandoned SUV, which a Marion County deputy soon arrived to investigate.
Otherwise, we had the whole place to ourselves.
As we drove away, I seemed to remember seeing on a map that there’s a back way from Rea Valley to The Mountain. We set off in that general direction, only to be sidetracked again by another sign — “White River Ranchette Access.”
This time we didn’t get lost. The access was busy, the parking lot full of trucks and empty boat trailers.
Upriver from Ranchette, on a bluff just out of sight around the bend, is the site of the infamous Whitewater real-estate development. And a few hundred yards downriver on the Marion County side is Hand Mountain, which is where last Sunday’s second EF3 tornado crossed the White.
Broken and uprooted trees were clearly visible on both banks. We spoke with several folks who’d just come off the water, all of whom confessed to being shocked at the extent of the destruction.
From the banks of The Mighty White, we wound our way west toward Home on still another unpaved road. This one, too, was a pleasant surprise, even treating us to a panoramic view of the valley from high ground.
Such are the rewards of leaving the beaten path. In fact, we made a weekend of going where no one goes, going where we’d never been before.
You should do that.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB