Alley Springs

Posted on October 31, 2016 by RegenAxe

Alley Springs

Alley Springs One-Room Schoolhouse

Maple Leaf and Watercress Salad

Alley Springs Milling Machinery

Alley Springs Mill Conveyor Belt

Today’s post features more photos of Alley Springs. The picture of the turquoise spring, with the clouds and blue sky reflected in it, vividly shows the unreal color of these springs’ mineral waters. Walking around the Alley Spring’s pool, we encountered two men of about our age. They were both brothers, two of nine children and they grew up around Alley Spring. Their father and many of their uncles went to school in the one-room schoolhouse that is now part of the park. Later, I asked Anne if she thought that she could have been a teacher at this school. She said nope. I asked why and she said because I’m married. The mill is in amazing condition and the park service hopes to make it operational again. Their major concern is a crack in the foundation on the raceway side of the building, because people who remember how it was when the mill was still working told them that when the machinery was first engaged it shook the building terribly. The mill is a three-story affair, where power to operate all the machinery is transmitted from the waterwheel in the basement to the upper floors using leather belts. What I first took to be a horse’s harness belt with silver bells on it is a sample of the conveyor belts that transport the grains from one workstation to another. These little cups travel up and down in the wooden rectangular chutes that can be seen in the photograph with the mill machinery. These cups don’t look like much, but they were capable of moving the raw grain up and the ground flour and corn meal back down to the tune of 10,000 pounds of product a day. Finally, the vegetation around these springs is unique. Year-round the spring’s water temperature is between 40 and 50 °F. As you can see, watercress thrives in these micro-environments.

Happy Birthday, Reverend Doctor Alice!

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All the Boys Love Alice

Ozark Springs Tour

Posted on October 30, 2016 by RegenAxe

Alley Springs Mill

It is fall now and the weather this weekend felt like summer, but we were in the mood for spring, six springs to be exact, Round, Alley, Blue, Falling, Greer and Big. Tom Uhlenbrock had written a travel article for the paper, “The turquoise jewels of the Ozarks“, which guided us to these six sparkling springs, through the changing leaves of Mark Twain National Forest. Per Uhlenbrock, our base of operations for the weekend was Missouri’s newest state park, Echo Bluff.

Echo Bluff

We tent camped in one of the primitive walk-in sites, but the park also has full-service RV sites, cabins and a lodge. I had reserved the closest site, but we soon moved to the furthest one, once we learned that they also had luggage carts. At the car, a little boy in the RV campground came up and announced to us, “Lookout, two dogs are making-out down there.” Which made me wonder is that like heavy petting? Our campsite was the furthest from the rest. It featured a wood platform for our tent that was big enough or maybe our tent was just small enough to also accommodate a picnic table. We attended an owl talk, where we learned that the Bared owl’s call sounds like someone is asking, “Who, who, who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?” Late at night we heard a Bared owl and it sounded just like that. Wild horses roam the park and got quite close to us one night, while we were trying some night sky photography. This is one of the best dark skies areas in Missouri and we had a new moon this last weekend.

Blue Springs

Saturday’s itinerary included three springs and a fall. First up was Round Springs, which is only a couple of miles down MO-19 from Echo Bluff and also happens to be the oldest state park in Missouri. So, we went directly from the newest to the oldest state park. This spring is ‘as round as a silver dollar’. When we returned to MO-19 we had to wait while twenty vehicles all carrying either canoes and/or kayaks passed us by. Several National Scenic Waterways crisscross this region. With its red mill, Alley Springs, is the one spring not to be missed. The 2017 Missouri quarter that will be part of the US Mint’s National Parks series will feature Alley Springs. Blue Springs is undeniably the bluest spring and at over 300′ it also has the deepest pool. If the Statue of Liberty was submerged in it, the top of the torch would still be 5′ underwater. Like Alley, Blue pumps out over 80 million gallons of water a day. Our final stop of the day was at Rocky Falls. It is quite dry in the Ozarks now, so like most terrestrial flows, Rocky Falls was much reduced. This allowed people to climb the rocks of the falls. This drought only served to accentuate the lushness of the springs, with their subterranean aquifers that were still flowing steadily.

Falling Springs Mill

Sunday’s itinerary included two springs and a conundrum. Heading further south this day on MO-19, the conundrum came first with Falling Springs. Is it a spring or a falls, well it is both really. The old mill and even older 1850s log cabin make this spring memorable. Just a little bit further down MO-19 was Greer Spring. While most of the springs and falls are just across the parking lot, we had to hike a bit to get to this one. It felt good to stretch the legs. We saved the biggest spring for last, Big Spring, with over a 100 million gallons per day output. We had great weather this weekend and had a great time sightseeing. After a few of these springs, we began to notice some of the same faces. We were all doing the Ozark springs tour.