Arkansas Travelers: Rally Style or How to Make it to Conway by the Road Less Traveled

We drove to Conway, Arkansas last week.  We stopped for gas here.  It's called Love's.  Appropriate, don't you think, if you are headed to a wedding.

The next stop we made was in bumper to bumper, non-moving traffic on I-26 in Asheville.  We were headed for the detour that would take us around the rock slide on I-40 West.  My husband does NOT like to sit in traffic.  Let's just say his patience is sorely tried in such situations.  Thankfully, he had spent a fair amount of time before we left home looking at alternate routes for our trip so he knew another way to go.  We got off at the next exit, turned around, and headed to Highway 74 West.  What a lovely route - through the Nantahala National Forest, along the Nantahala River and through the Nantahala Gorge.  All was well.  We saw kayakers on the river, the surroundings were beautiful, the few cars on the road with us moving along apace...

...until Tennessee.  We came upon a flashing sign that read...

  

Rock Slide Ahead 

Road Closed

Detour 

Local Traffic Only 

Yep.  Another rock slide.  Another detour.  This one, though, was unexpected.  It had not been listed on google maps.  You may think they are pretty smart, but those google people don't know everything.  

We made a quick call to Thomas, who checked the Tennessee DOT website and sure enough, there was a large rock slide on Highway 64/74 (pictures here, you should look at them, they are pretty impressive).  The DOT site suggested a detour but it would add an extra hour and a half to our trip!!!  

My dear husband, thinking of the long drive still ahead of us, decided to spare us the pain of such a tortuous detour.  Determined and resourceful man that he is, stopped at a gas station and bought a map.  We're not going to let those DOT people tell us how to detour.  Oh, no!  We'll find a better way.  A quicker way.  A shorter way.  There has to be one.

We surveyed the $12 Tennessee map book. (wow, that was expensive!) and filled up with gas. (Coty was to be heard later admitting that the wisest thing he did on that part of the trip was to fill up with gas - you'll understand why in a minute).  Anyway, our overpriced map book revealed some little roads that appeared to cut a lot of miles off the detour and bring us back to the highway just past the rock slide.  Bingo.

The first part of the detour was...um...interesting.  A few mountain houses with rusted pick-up trucks, confederate flags, and various assorted other lawn "ornaments."  One place even had a beat-up helicopter hanging in a tree out back.  I am NOT KIDDING.  Ask Matthew.  Or Joel.  Or Albert.

We had a lot of laughs.  We were getting excited at the prospect of a little adventure.  We were even jolly when not sure whether to go straight or turn right.  We went straight and the road started petering out...so we went back and turned right.  Good decision.  We were on the right track, literally.  See.

Now really...most people do not go this way to get to Arkansas.  But we are not "most people."  We like adventure.  We got over worrying about getting lost or losing time, and enjoyed the views.  Mountain streams, vistas across mile after mile of forested slopes, rhododendron filled valleys.

And one very large mudhole!

We came around a curve and saw what appeared to be an impassible, very deep, very wet mudhole.  We got out to look.  I am sorry the photo above is so out of focus.  It really is pretty funny.  Coty walked right up to the edge trying to figure out how deep it was and whether or not we could make it through.  We discussed throwing logs and leaves into the mud or making a human bridge like these people, but you must remember, we were only five people in the wilderness, no town anywhere near, no extra people for a bridge!

What to do?  What to do?  

Turn back???

Oh, no.  Not us.
  

M, J, A and I got out of the rented mini-van and walked ahead, well out of the way and then Coty rally drove it* right through the mudhole to cheers and whoops and hollering!  It was pretty impressive.  Oh, yea!

(*Note -  We used to live in Kenya.  We once watched Safari Rally drivers on muddy roads in Central Province.  I think my husband may have secretly longed to be a rally driver ever since.  He would have made a good one!)

But, we were still not out of the woods.  After the thrill of conquering the mudhole, we drove for awhile.  And some more.  And kept driving.  At last, we came to a sign for a right turn that would take us back to the highway in 3 short miles.  We turned right. We came to the highway.  Unfortunately, it was just before the rock slide!!!

The trailer in the picture has the words "Incident Response" on the side.  Cones blocked the highway.  We pulled up to the trailer and a man walked out to our car.  In order to enlighten him, Coty said, 

"We have come out of the forest.  We are going to Chattanooga."  

I almost died laughing.  I still cannot think of that without chuckling.  That man must have thought we were crazy.  (He might have been right).  He told us to go back to the top of the mountain and turn right.  You can get to Chattanooga that way.

It was NOT that easy.  We headed back up the dirt road.  We got to the top of the mountain.  We turned right.  We almost got side swiped by a pick-up truck (or perhaps we almost side-swiped him) going around a curve in the road.  We drove and drove and drove.  I started to think that maybe we were never going to get out of those woods and get to Chattanooga.  Maybe this was an endless loop, a maze without an exit, a bad dream.  Maybe we were lost in the mountains for good.  "Sorry, Rob.  We can't get to Arkansas from here.  We will not make it to your wedding."

But no.  We did. Finally. Make. It. OUT!

Instead of an hour and a half detour along plain old Tennessee back roads we had a two hour adventure in the woods.  Instead of irritation, we had fun.  Instead of sitting behind cars, we saw only two pick-ups and one of them had a bumper sticker that read "Got Guns?"  

After a very memorable detour we made it!

To Chattanooga.  To pick up Thomas.  And on to Memphis for the night.  And then Conway the next day.  And the wedding.  And joy and happiness and celebration.

But that is a post for another day.