Birthday Trip! Day 1

This year for my "Birthday Trip"  (in reality our quest for fall foliage) we picked the Buffalo River area of Arkansas.  We set out very early Saturday morning 11/1. We found the Shady Grove RV park and got all checked in and set up then drove to Harrison, AR to eat and get a few supplies.  We stopped by the visitor center but it wasn't open on Saturday...exhausted we decided to go back and try to get some rest and start looking for good spots on Sunday.

We were up early and chose Steel Creek for our first stop.  

We parked near the campground and walked on a short trail to the river.  I took a few shots, the one above is one of my favorites. Then we walked along the bank and I saw these beautiful purple leaves!

Purple leaves always tend to catch me by surprise!

I took another of the river - 

And then we walked back up to the campgrounds.  Just on the other side of the road we spotted a trail so we thought we would check it out!

It was a beautiful trail, a pretty even walk, shady and peaceful.  We did come across a little bit of color but it wasn't really what we were expecting from our reading and the pictures we'd seen on the internet.  

After walking the trail for a bit we decided to head on over to the Lost Valley Trail...ever hopeful for more color!  This is a pretty well known hike and is family friendly for the most part.

It has some really interesting features along the trail including Jig Saw Blocks that look as though they have fallen from the bluff above, Cob Cave with a natural pool area, and Eden Cave and Eden Falls.  The path is fairly level and smooth until you get ready to go up to the cave and falls.

Nice that they have steps to help you climb up there!

We made it as far as the falls, but chose to NOT climb on up to the cave - it was getting late and we decided to head on back to camp.  We knew there were more days and more hikes to come so we weren't going to rush anything!

We were in for a few unexpected turns during this trip, even without a set agenda.  We had talked about a few things we wanted to do or see and each evening we would set out a loose plan...we were almost ALWAYS surprised where we ended up! RARELY where we planned to be!