A new National Park hiking challenge on an abandoned M&NA Railway right-of-way.

GILBERT - If you're not familiar with the "coolest little town in Arkansas, " literally, Gilbert is the only town inside the Buffalo National River Park boundaries. It's very small, but it is far from a ghost town.

The late Forrest King rode in on the M&NA Railway with the Incoming Kingdom Missionary Unit, a group hunting a remote area to wait for the end of time. Dwain interviewed him in this yellow house, shortly before he died. He and his son, Rev. Eldon King, sang an original song together. That's what we always think about when we see this house.

Gilbert is so small that we found minor details of this life (Forest was born on August 16, 1901 and passed away on Thursday, January 13, 2000. Forest was a resident of Gilbert, Arkansas.) on a website that only carries the last 20 obituaries for Gilbert.
He was number 19, and number 20 died December 1996.
If you want to see a celebration, it is when someone in Gilbert has a baby. A real population explosion!

Just look at how blue the Buffalo River was today, and the sky was so blue. As you can see, the old Missouri & North Arkansas Railway ran parallel to the Buffalo River as it left Gilbert for Marshall, Arkansas, and every little town between here and Helena, Arkansas.

Remember, this is January, for Pete's sake. We're bundled up. But we're not complaining. It won't be long before we warm up.

This part of the Gilbert trail is so easy to hike, like most abandoned railroad right-of-ways. They are scenic, too. Just look at the rock wall. Megan's mother would like that rock wall. Park Rangers would have had to slap her hands, or she and Clinton would have disassembled the wall, hauled it to Harrison, Arkansas, and reassembled it in their yard.

We argued if these were elk tracks or bear tracks. We finally decided somebody put horse shoes on an elk. Actually, this trail is limited to hikers and horseback riders. We stepped around horse scat further down the trail. Bicycles and motorized dirt bikes and UTVs are forbidden in the park.

As far as we know, Alice Ivy dogs aren't forbidden. She's checking out debris left on the right-of-way after last month's floodwaters rushed up the banks, 40-50 feet above today's waterline and 200 feet from the channel.

Since no one else was on the trail, we took Alice Ivy off her leash, and she ran free. She's well behaved and didn't stray further than 30 feet from us. She was so happy. As we write this, Alice is asleep, exhausted, on the rug in front of our little fireplace.

This trail is like the Wizard of Oz, where it turns into color. Look at that jungle gym of vines reaching, reaching, reaching, high into the trees. Are we following Dorothy into the witchy woods?

The trail goes on and on. It's just hard to know when to stop. We might have gone all the way to Helena, if we hadn't run into a big mud pit where a wooden railroad trestle used to cross a seasonal streambed.

We're literally coming and going. It's hard to resist a 180-degree panorama shot.

We're getting warmer, especially with that bluff knocking off the brisk wind. Perfect.

Time to celebrate, our coats are off. Dwain stored Megan's hat and mittens in his carry-all, and we're heading back to the trailhead.

Wait, what is that sound across the Buffalo River? It doesn't sound like a woodpecker. It sounds like two pieces of wood scraping together ... a turkey! We had to think about it for a bit before we recognized the sound. That call was loud and followed us almost all the way back to our truck!

Those lines of bright canoes say we're almost back to the truck. Today, we didn't see any floaters. Boy, that water would really be cold if you flipped that canoe.

This is the town's main commerce. The Gilbert General Store was built in 1901 by “Uncle” Billy Mays and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Some folks say it is the one of the last of its kind in the Ozarks Mountains. We came here on the 4th of July one summer and Dwain took the most gorgeous pictures of a fireworks display bursting over the general store.

If you want to play a pickup game of basketball, it looks like a basketball is provided with the hoop.
We got about 2 miles roundtrip on this leisurely hike. After repeating the Tyler Bend lookout hike, we're up to 4 miles in the National Park Service's Iron Ranger Challenge.
Only 96 more miles to go in 2016.
Megan and Dwain

'Please,' Brer Rabbit pleaded, 'Don't throw me in the blackberry bush!'

 A popular old Southern tale involves the simple psychological manipulation of Brer Fox by Brer Rabbit.
How? A blackberry patch is the plot.
It's as simple as why Dr. Bill Baker returned again and again to Gilbert, Arkansas. He said people in society say: "Every rabbit has his briar patch."

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Dwain is already pricked by stickers on these "tame" blackberry plants. These plants may be tame, but they're still armed with sharp briars ... just like the briars where Brer Rabbit landed.

What makes these blackberry canes "tame" is the size and number of berries per plant. Each of these blackberries is as big as our thumbs, and so ripe they literally pop off the vine.

These plants originated with Megan's Dad, Clinton Tinkle.
He gave Dwain's Mom, Mattie Lair, a few of the canes, and they've thrived behind her house.
This year, she let us pick the berries.

What can we make with a gallon of fresh blackberries? And another gallon? And another gallon? And ...

Yum! Yum! Yum! Megan's just taken a hot blackberry cobbler out of the oven.

Can you smell the aroma, served in heirloom berry bowls with ice cream and whipped cream.

Where is the cherry on top?
Sorry, we don't want that taste to interfere with the blackberries.

Mmmmmm! Here are our main ingredients for blackberry jam: 8 cups of fresh blackberry juice, minus seeds, and Blackberry Brandy.

We'll add some No-Sugar Pectin and artificial sweetener to the bubbling juice, then fill and seal 8 half-pints with No-Sugar added Blackberry Jam.

In 10 minutes, these half-pints of Blackberry Jam will be finished processing and ready to store. Maybe we won't eat all of them this summer.  We have to save two for the fair.

 
If you're not familiar with Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, the plot involves a rabbit that constantly pesters and belittles a fox.
Finally, Brer Fox catches Brer Rabbit.
Brer Rabbit begs Brer Fox to roast him, hang him, drown him, skin him, cut off his legs. And after each suggestion pleads: "Don't throw me in the blackberry bush!"
At that point, Brer Fox flung Brer Rabbit deep into the blackberry patch.
"Ouch! Oow! Ouch!" Then the blackberry patch fell silent.
A few minutes later, Brer Fox heard a scuffling sound at the other end of the briar patch, and Brer Rabbit scrambled out of the bush.
Remember what Dr. Baker told us years ago?
“Born and bred in the briar patch, that’s me,” laughed Brer Rabbit. “I told you not to throw me there. In all the world, that’s the place I love best!” 

The next berries to ripen will be a different variety of "tame blackberries." They're big and juicy, but the plants don't have briars.

Mmmmm, we love summer.
Dwain and Megan