Can you tell Bob has gone back out on the boat? I'm here and have a post to share. I'm hoping to schedule several this week so I won't have lapses when he's home next month. Cross your fingers.
Now, how about a road trip?
A couple of weeks ago I decided I'd check out a place I've not visited since our move here. I've passed the sign for the turn off hundreds of times but never ventured down what seemed a harmless blacktop road. The Department of Conservation said said 6 miles. I have to tell you, that was the LONGEST six miles I've ever traveled... and still not reached my destination.
I don't know how much farther I had to go when I decided I'd had enough of this crazy one-lane logging road with an embankment on one side and a ravine to the other.. depending on which direction you were going. I did get lucky three different times. Once, going down, before I got to the the 'narrows', I met a Jeep Waggoneer coming my way with a canoe on the roof. I had just left the blacktop but the road hadn't become interesting... yet.
Later, after I'd turned around, I met with a smaller jeep but he must have known the road and how far he could hug the drop off. He stopped and motioned for me to pass. About a mile farther, a woman in a 4-door sedan that didn't appear to have any business on this type of road.. and I use that term loosely, came barreling around a curve and I barely had time to hug the bank to let her pass... she giving me words as she went by. Seriously?
I'm also surprised to find very little information regarding Rymers Ranch on the Dept. of Conservation websites. The closest I came to was
THIS article published in 2015.
I also found a bit of information a book, Civil War History of the Ozarks, I found at the Cabool Library.
The book describes Rymers Ranch as being located 'on the butte of Devel's Backbone (as spelled in the book) near the town of Birch Tree'. Half way up the face of a 100 ft. perpendicular cliff some one made the signs and by nobody knows. The 'hollow' is known is Johnny Hollow, having gotten it's name from an outlaw robber who was known only in the hills as Johnny. For months he had kept stolen cattle hidden in the canyon.
I can tell you I will NEVER travel this route to Rymers Ranch again. I want to check with the Ozarks Scenic Riverways headquarters in VanBuren MO to find if there is another route to what I'm told is a picturesque spot.
I'll keep you posted.
That book did provide a lot of cool information I'm going to continue to research and bring you here. Bob and I have also been exploring eateries we find on our wanderings. I hope to add some of those to the blog as well.
