2023 Issue 5 Sept/Oct Focus - Mid-South Magazine
Focus Mid-South Magazine
Focus Mid-South Magazine
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
travel<br />
Regional Oddities<br />
Bona Fide Day Trips to Arkansas & Alabama<br />
story and photos by Brandi Rinks<br />
One of the perks of living in Memphis is the proximity<br />
to so many charming and historic <strong>South</strong>ern towns for<br />
weekend adventures. Within a few hours' drive you can be<br />
either in Mississippi, you can be either in Mississippi eating<br />
Kool-ickles and gearing up to hear the best Hill Country<br />
Blues of your life; in the valleys of the gorgeous Arkansas<br />
Ozarks seeing a folk singer at a rustic barn show in a nature<br />
preserve; in East Tennessee drinking moonshine before<br />
riding a rollercoaster or in Alabama touring a grotto built<br />
by Monks, any of which can also include side quests to<br />
unassuming dairy bars, thrift shops, BBQ junts, drive-ins,<br />
regional oddities, and gas stations with spicy tater logs that<br />
you’ll be craving for months afterward.<br />
One of my favorite recent day trips was a jaunt into the<br />
Arkansas Ozarks for the Meadowcreek Concerts in the<br />
Barn series. When I saw that poet and folk singer Willi<br />
Carlisle, who put out my favorite album of 2022, was<br />
playing a Saturday show in a barn on a nature preserve just<br />
a few hours away in my home state, there was no question<br />
that I had to go.<br />
My boyfriend and I left Memphis mid-morning, and our<br />
first stop was just over an hour away at Kennon’s Dairy<br />
Bar in Wynne, Arkansas. With a menu that ranges from<br />
bologna sandwiches and cheeseburgers to Frito pies and<br />
bacon-wrapped Polish sausages, it’s a lowbrow cuisine<br />
lover’s dream restaurant. We got milkshakes and tater tots,<br />
perusing the bulletin board for upcoming events while we<br />
waited, which included a weekly country dance that I made<br />
a mental note to check out later.<br />
After acquiring the necessary fuel for a rural Arkansas<br />
road trip (sugar, grease, salt, caffeine), we choogled on<br />
for a scenic loop through the Bald Knob National Wildlife<br />
Refuge, where depending on the season, you may see<br />
some of the hundreds of species of wildlife and birds<br />
that either live there or pass through the area during<br />
migration, including shorebirds, ducks, geese and even<br />
Bald Eagles. Like most people, the pandemic spurred<br />
new hobbies for us, one of which was birding – basically<br />
Pokemon GO but with real life creatures. On this trip<br />
we were on the lookout for a rarity, Roseate Spoonbills<br />
that had landed outside of their typical migration range.<br />
After creeping along the gravel roads of the refuge,<br />
hanging out the windows with binoculars and driving<br />
extra slow so as to not be a disturbance to any plants<br />
or wildlife, we spotted them! We updated our eBird<br />
logs, tried to identify some hawks in the distance, and<br />
then headed off for our next stop–lunch and peoplewatching<br />
at The Bulldog in Bald Knob. I’m a sucker for<br />
diners and tater tots, and Jeremy will try any barbeque<br />
he encounters, so this checked both our boxes.<br />
After lunch, downtown Heber Springs was a good<br />
spot to look for coffee and stretch our legs. The Gem<br />
Theater is an adorable twin cinema that looks straight<br />
out of a Wes Anderson film if you need to take some<br />
travel selfies in a quiet, rural downtown.<br />
We arrived in Fox about an hour later with time<br />
to kill, so we drove around until we found Brad and<br />
Dad’s Drive-in, a tiny diner in nearby Timbo, Arkansas,<br />
complete with wood-paneled walls and a camo<br />
decorated menu that’s made up of about 99% fried<br />
foods. Am I saying you need to have tater tots for<br />
every meal on this trip? No. Am I saying you can find<br />
perfectly fried and salted tots at every stop along this<br />
route? Absolutely.<br />
Finally, it was time to head to Meadowcreek for the<br />
barn show. Meadowcreek is a not-for-profit located in a<br />
privately owned, protected 1600 acre nature preserve<br />
in a valley of the Ozarks near the unincorporated<br />
32 Go! | <strong>Sept</strong>+<strong>Oct</strong> <strong>2023</strong> | focuslgbt.com