So far at this point in our trip we have visited Little Rock and Hot Springs. When planning the trip I studied the map of Arkansas and tried to decide what would be fun. I knew I wanted us to visit the Fayetteville/Bentonville area last, so I thought, hmm, how about heading into the mountains for a bit? I searched on airbnb for various rural places, and finally found a wonderful cabin near the town of Pettigrew.
The host had warned me ahead of time about a few things: 1) that you probably wanted an SUV or something along those lines for the 5 miles of gravel roads plus their driveway 2) there was no phone service or reliable internet and 3) they had dogs that would be visiting. Oh, and 4) that you needed to bring all your supplies because the nearest grocery story was 4 miles away.
There was also a stern warning about 5) not taking a certain route that google might suggest you take because the road would be impassable at a point and you might get stuck and damage your car.
So, with all of those warnings in mind, it sounded great. 5 miles from a paved road, awesome! Beautiful pictures on airbnb! No phone service for two days so nobody could bug me about violin lessons! Remote location! Hiking! Dogs and chickens and a river! And, since this is important on airbnb as well, a thoughtful and communicative host!
It was about a 3 hour drive from Hot Springs to the cabin. Along the way we stopped at a Walmart to get groceries and stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Russellville for lunch. We carefully watched the roads as we got close and initially missed our first turn off onto the gravel roads, but it was easy to backtrack.
We’d been driving on various winding highways up until this point, but it is difficult to describe in words how interesting and unlike what we were used to it was like driving on these dirt/gravel roads in the Ozarks. We were surrounded by trees at times, with a creek even going across the road here and there. We would see a farmhouse here and there, some in ruins, some that looked like people still or recently lived there. I’d say about half of the houses we saw looked abandoned and the other half looked lived in. We saw cows and ponds. We kept crossing over the Little Mulberry Creek, which was fairly wide at points (for this there were various types of bridges.)
As we drove along our directions had given us various landmarks so we knew we were on the right route. We eventually turned onto a smaller, less well-maintained road, and then headed up a very steep, rocky driveway to get to the cabin.
The host normally lived in a house right by the cabin but she wasn’t there while we were there, which was a little scary at times (so desolate! so thinking of serial murderers!) but also very lovely for privacy. She had mentioned that someone would be by feeding the animals, but I didn’t realize that meant her dogs…
We found the cabin easily and parked in front of it, and then a dog came up. I was nervous at first, but it turned out that her two dogs were the most friendly and welcoming dogs you’d ever meet! The information in the cabin told us their names were Lola and Neena and they pretty much hung out with us the entire time we were there!
As we were getting the car unloaded and getting settled, we kept hearing a strange noise. I thought maybe it was just the screen door being weird (I don’t know!) but it turned out it was a couple of free range chickens. The dogs and the chickens didn’t seem to bother one another!
Anyway, we got settled, and then decided to take a walk. The dogs led the way down the driveway and then we all went to the creek, which was right near the driveway-the road we turned off of to get to the driveway continued a short distance and then dead-ended at the creek, though google maps showed it continuing across. Perhaps there was another road across the creek, or perhaps in very low water one could drive a certain kind of vehicle across, but there was no obvious way to do so, so that would be another piece of bad advice from google.
The dogs led us to the creek where they did a little swimming. We poked around a bit and then decided to just walk up the road a bit. We passed some other houses and saw a few people out with their dogs, which was a bit awkward: we assumed since these dogs were completely free range that the closest neighbors knew them and that the dogs got along, but it seemed that neither of those was true. We didn’t have leashes or anything, but the neighbors seemed to be very wary with their dogs. As I said to one person, I was sorry, but these dogs weren’t even our dogs!
After walking a bit we headed back to make a fire and have dinner. The cabin had modern amenities and a small kitchenette (a two burner stove, coffeemaker, microwave, and small fridge), with lots of pots and pans, flatware, dishes and such to choose from, but there was also a firepit outside and some firewood to use. We thought a fire would be lovely since it was getting cooler! Louie worked on that while I made a shrimp with couscous dinner inside, and then we hung out a bit.
After eating we moved to sit by the fire. It was enjoyable, but the one dog kept getting up and barking into the night, which became a little scary….was there somethign out there? was she hearing things we weren’t? Being so remote, more remote than most of our camping experiences, and having this dog barking like there was danger, was a bit frightening! We decided after awhile to just go to bed, and it was nice and cool and wonderful to snuggle up under the covers.
In the morning we made oatmeal, and then headed out to hike. We decided to do a hike called the Redding -Spy Rock Loop, which was advertised as 8.3 miles and looked to be a good way to spend the day. It was about a 45 minute drive away, which sounds like a lot until you realize that 30 minutes of that is the 5 miles on gravel roads!
It is worth mentioning at this point that the two dogs slept outside our cabin all night, one of them possibly slept underneath it. They were happy to see us in the morning, but a bit harumph-py that we were leaving again.
We had a teeny bit of trouble finding where to park, and ended up finding a place that in retrospect we didn’t like as well as our first place, but it was all okay. We loaded up, added copious amounts of bug spray, and headed out.
The hike was perfectly nice. It was a bit swampy at first, so we were glad to gain some elevation. This isn’t a great time of year to hike in Arkansas due to bugs and humidity, though we were quite lucky with the weather not being too hot. The other thing that isn’t as nice is there are very few views as the trees all have their leaves, so you are just doing a lot of walking around in the woods! We had a few trees in the way, including two really big ones and had a couple of tricky diversions due to that. Louie joked he wished he had brought his saw along on the hike to help out more.
The trail was pretty easy to follow however. We were a little disappointed to find there was also a road up to Spy Rock (gravel, yes, but we saw a few vehicles go by) but nonetheless it was a lovely hike.
Eventually we got to Spy Rock where we enjoyed a lovely view and ate our lunch. There was a nearby backcountry camping area for those who like to camp.
After lunch, we got on our way again continuing along the east loop of the trail. The description in a book said there would be a variety of waterfalls, so we looked forward to that. It was a nice hike down, and the waterfalls were small but still a bit of fun along the way. I was a little worried about a tricky water crossing but nothing was too tough. The last mile or so of the trail was pretty rocky under foot and got to be pretty annoying, but before too long we found ourselves back at the car!
Louie ended up with a bunch of ticks on one of his socks, but I seemed okay. He tends to attract more ticks for whatever reason and I tend to attract more mosquitoes.
I don’t think we saw anybody on the hike, unless I am forgetting something.
After the hike, we decided to take the long route back to the cabin: there was another route in from the north side, so we drove around a bit to see the area more. There are some great windy roads, some tiny towns, and then about 7 miles of dirt roads (we drove through Pettigrew and then into the county road territory.) It was better from the other way but nice to see more of the land. One dog came out to visit in the road (actually this was a common thing, it happened at least twice) and we had to proceed cautiously while he said hello to the car and smelled it. Louie did an impression of the dog saying “Hi folks, we don’t get many visitors out this way!”
We finally found our way back to the cabin and I was beat! I showered and then spent the rest of the afternoon reading. Louie headed back down to the creek with the dogs and had a nice time taking pictures of them in the water.
Just some random pictures of the view from the porch, the chickens, and then Louie petting the two dogs. They were sweet dogs!
We made (bean) burgers on the fire that night and hung out outside for a bit, but were tired early and so didn’t stay up too long. The next morning we were headed to Fort Smith and then to Fayetteville to our next airbnb.
The one dog (Lola) was again barking at nothing or everything, and we thought maybe she was being proactive and warning any potential intruders of her presence. Occasionally the second dog (Neena) would join her and they would run off into the woods together…who knows if they found something, or if it was just the chicken, or who knows. Honestly after a point the dogs were a bit annoying which led to our decision to pack it in early, but we were pretty tired anyway!
It was a wonderful place to stay, and there was much more to do in the area as far as hiking and such if we stayed another few nights, so I highly recommend this cabin!
In the morning we packed up, said our goodbyes to the dogs (Louie was particularly sad, and did end up walking down to the creek with them one last time) and then headed out on the dirt roads again. We had just under a 2 hour drive to our next stop and wanted to get a good start on the day.