Scenic drive back to Mountain Home

This Thanksgiving we made our annual circuit to Siloam Springs and Ft. Smith to spend some quality family time and eat ourselves into a semi-coma. My apologies to our family members, but I got too caught up in the visiting (and eating),that I forgot to take pics. But we sure enjoyed our time together, as always! We chose an alternate route on our return from Ft. Smith to Mountain Home in order to see some new scenery and to revisit a couple of favorites. Our first stop was in Ponca on the Buffalo River - a destination we used to visit often in our younger white-water rafting and camping days and later on with our "cabin group" as we spent some week-ends at Cedarcrest Lodge. We were too late in the day to witness the large elk herds in Ponca and Boxley Valley, but did see one young calf wandering around near the Ponca bridge. We later stopped in Jasper to visit some of our favorite haunts. Enjoyable trip home to cap off a very nice holiday week-end!

 Elk calf

 Upper Buffalo River from Ponca low-water bridge

 Rare trumpeter swan in Boxley valley

 Entering Boxley valley from the south

 Unique shop in Jasper

Historic Ozark Cafe in Jasper