Visiting Blanchard Springs

One thing new visitors have to do when they come to my home town is take a 45 minute trip deep into the Ozark National Forest and tour Blanchard Spring Caverns. They're caves up near Mountain View, AR. Mountain View is like the Hill Billy version of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California: Lots of little shops and restaurants, but centered around a Hill Billy theme, army surplus stores selling hunter garb and flea markets with Elvis paraphernalia. I understand Grampa Jones from Hee Haw lived around Mountain View.

Anyhow, seeing that my brother's girlfriend had never been, we had to take her to see them.

We took our three boys with us, which is a bit of a risk, because the youngest is prone to have to go to the bathroom right in the middle of something we are doing. So, we made sure all of them, especially the littlest, went just immediately before we stepped onto the elevator and headed down 200 feet below ground to walk the caverns.

We had two guides with us: A gal I think whose name was Jenny who gave the lecture portion of the tour, and Tanner, who followed up the back of the group. I am certain of Tanner's name, because maybe 10 minutes after we start walking the cave route the littlest says, "I have to go potty; I have to go potty really, really bad." He had no qualms about interrupting the lecture to alert everyone with us of his dilemma. This is where Tanner came to the rescue. My wife told him she had to leave and he took them out. I thought we wouldn't see them until after the tour because they wouldn't be allowed back in, but right when we got to the end of the first route, we saw them winding their way through the cave to our group. I had to snap a picture.

My friend David Lee, whose family accompanied ours to the caves, and I, were discussing how there are many weird land formations throughout the U.S. that are called "Devil's" something or the other. Like Devil's Tower, or Devil's Postpile, or Devil's Sinkhole. We immediately started naming every cave formation devil's something or the other.

like Devil's battleship










Devil's castle









Devil's pipe organ









and Devil's soda straws










After the cave tour, we drove down to the back side of the caverns. The Caverns are formed by an under ground spring that deposits all the minerals to produce the formations in the cave, like iron, or as Jenny the tour guide says, "Arrn." A lovely waterfall comes jetting out the end, but sadly, we are told not to swim in the springs because the bat poop will make a person sick.

So, if you are ever down in our neck of the woods, pay us a visit and we'll take you to Blanchard Springs. We can stop by Jo Jo's on the way home and get a catfish dinner.