Spent 10 days in the lovely Arkansas hills in the '30's resort town, now grocery-store and school-less town of Winslow located in the Boston Mountains. My relatives own a good 2% of the real estate (my estimate) and those living in Winslow represent 1% of the population. The views are lushly green in summer and only hint at the valleys and mountains visible in winter.
The hotspot on Saturday mornings is the Winslow Mercantile where my brother Jerry serves donuts and coffee and everyone in town seems to turn up at one point or another after shopping at the farm market that sits in front of where the train depot used to be. It's all freight trains now (the regular 3am woke me without fail) other than a Friday and Saturday excursion train from Springdale to Van Buren that will pick up passengers in Winslow if prearranged.
The most exciting adventure in town is walking through the train tunnel (absolutely pitch black with evenly spaced cutouts to duck into should a train come along) and then out onto the mighty high train trestle. I traversed it back when Kylee was young enough to need to hold someone's hand but haven't ventured in since.
This trip was mostly family and friends for a week-long celebration of Lee's 80th birthday that included an amazing fireworks display put on in by Jerry, swims in Mike and Karen's pool, coffee at the mercantile, yoga at the school and lots of eating and game-playing. I had such a good time escaping the New York heat I'm trying to devise an annual visit!
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