Have you ever seen a happier miner?

As you can imagine it is a nightmare trying to find a spot on Memorial Day weekend without a reservation. We were able to do a few things though. We finally ended up at Tyler Bend at the Buffalo River Saturday night, where we swam, hiked a trail to the Collister Homestead (where there were some really great overlooks), and enjoyed an interpretive disscussion from a national park ranger.

The next day we drove to Eureka Springs, which is basically a tourist trap disguised as a historial landmark. Later that day we drove back to Lost Valley near Ponca, to see the waterfall in the cave they have there. I had been there before, but Jiang had not. You must take a flashlight, be willing to crawl almost on your bellow 200 feet and not be claustrophobic. It is well worth the effort to see and plus it is like an air-conditioner in the cave, which is great on a hot summer day like it was.

Lastly, we went and swam at Pruitt on the Buffalo River before heading home, because we couldn’t find a suitable camping spot. All in all it was a good time, but way to much driving and wondering around looking for a camping spot.

One photo of Jiang at the Collister Homestead: (click here for all the photos)

The water level was somewhere between 2.1′ and 2.35′, depending on who you talked to. It was a good level for us beginners to intermediates. We floated from High Bend to Turner Bend which is approx. 12 miles. We were going to do the 15.7 mile journey from Wolf Pen, but there was a downed tree blocking that route. I’m glad we took the route we did, since we were all cold, sore, wet, and tired by the time we got done. All in all we probably dumped over 4-5 times. Next time I want to only use a kayak (much easier to control is seems).

When we were about 2 miles from the pull-out point we ran into some drunken rednecks from around those parts (what other type of people live in that area?). Jiang was shaking he was so cold, and just wanted to finish as quickly as possible. After flipping over, one of the drunken rednecks helped us flip our canoe over, but became REALLY REALLY angry that Jiang didn’t help. After he was done helping, he said he was going to go sown stream and beat him up. Ove course we told him not to and told him he was sick, but that didn’t seem to register in this plankton of a man. So the next 2 1/2 miles down, Jiang was harrassed and cused out unceasingly. When he wasen’t in his face he was just a little down stream screaming and yelling. I seriously thought we would have to call the police when we returned. Fortunently, they took out on the other side of the river to load their car and we didn’t hear anymore from them. It really pisses me off that assholes like that can ruin the rest of your otherwise great day.

If you see any of the individuals below, you are asked by local officials to drag them into the streets and shoot them:

Of course, at first you are always uneasy thinking about someone new coming into your home. But, Jiang has been a really great guy to have around. We have gone hiking several times and even went on a 14-mile two day hiking trip at Devil’s Den State Park. Pictures soon to come… Here are just a few pics, goto Flickr to see all of em’.