Petit Jean and Silver Mines

 Where you come from? 

There is a difference between where you come from and where you came from. We come from Florida, but we came from Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas. The gal at the Silver Mines Recreation Area in Missouri asked where we “come from” and apparently in Missouri-speak it means “came from.” 

When Dave answered, “Florida,” she replied, “You come from Florida? That’s a long way! You must wanna just climb in that trailer ‘n’ sleep!” 

Come to think of it, after 6 hours on the road, counting fill-ups for the truck, and both fill-ups and empty-outs for us, yes, we certainly could climb in and fall asleep. But first, the place we came from. 

We have just enjoyed three amazing days at the #1-rated Arkansas State Park, Petit Jean. Now, don’t even try to pronounce this with the French pronunciation; the locals call it Petta G. 

Sunrise over Lake Bailey in Petit Jean State Park

Before I describe the park, let me give a big “Thank you!” to Roberson’s Tire Service in Morrilton, AR, the gateway to Petit Jean. They fixed the tire’s stem valve – no charge! 

The park is on top of a mountain plateau 68 miles north of Little Rock. Although it’s a plateau, the geography is such that there is a basin in the plateau at the top of the mountain. For us, this meant a gorgeous lake view from our camper, including spotting a bald eagle. We enjoyed a hike to a waterfall overlook (not much water to look over this time of year) and a climb down Turtle Rocks to Rock Cave and its abundance of pictographs inside the cave. Pictographs are cave drawings made from an ink-type pigment with a binding agent, in this case an iron oxide base with (probably) egg white as the binding agent. The binding agent allows the dye in the ink to be permanent when applied to the sandstone cave walls. (Petroglyphs are pictures etched or chiseled into the rock, and although there were a few of these in the cave, most of the ancient artwork consisted of pictographs.)

Turtle Rocks

A park interpreter showing us pictographs.

The one geologic feature of the park that overrides all others is Hartshorne Sandstone – a hardened sandstone, and containing a lot of iron in this region of the country. We discovered this from one of the park interpreters, a biology major who works in the park during the summer. As we took a hiking tour with him, we discovered how the Hartshorne governs the type of vegetative growth, which in turn influences the kind of wildlife in the area. The most prevalent tree is the short-leaf pine tree, and our interpreter explained how to differentiate this type of pine from others. 

Hartshorne sandstone.
The reddish color is from the iron oxide content in the rock.

Later that night another interpreter, in a campfire-less “campfire talk,” told stories of the possible origin of the park’s name. Apparently, there are at least 27 possible explanations, but due to the mosquitos starting and his workday ending, we enjoyed only three of these. Bonus: we saw fireflies for the first time on the trip! 

Another wonderful bonus at Petit Jean is the abundance of birds, especially around the lake. I previously mentioned I use an app called Merlin to identify bird pictures, songs and calls. Created by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, Merlin has a database of over 6,000 birds. At one point the app identified eight different birds singing simultaneously nearby. The Eastern Wood-Pewee, Carolina Wren,  Eastern Kingbird, and Chipping Sparrow are the most prevalent birds in our camping area, but also identified were the Canada Goose, Mourning Dove, Summer Tanager, Blue Jay, Brown-headed Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Barn Swallow, Red-tailed Hawk, American Crow, Northern Mockingbird, Eastern Bluebird, Downy Woodpecker, Rock Pigeon, Red-eyed Vireo, Tufted Titmouse, and House Finch. After our three days in the park, I could pick out songs from at least four of the birds. It’s a whole new world when you open your ears and look up into the trees. 

Eastern Kingbird at Petit Jean State Park

Too soon it was time to drive to our next destination, in Missouri. We are camping, as I mentioned earlier, at Siver Mines Recreation Area, which is about 100 miles south of St. Louis in the Mark Twain National Forest, and where we encountered the gal with the come/came from question. According to a fellow camper, at one time this area was an actual mine, with silver and lead the predominant metals found. Abandoned in the 1930s, the miners of that time knew nothing about many metals. This camper and his wife now own the mineral rights here and spend weeks at a time collecting various minerals – some silver, but also iridium, which is used in spark plugs.

Silver Mines was the first stop of our trip where we had no water hookup, so we filled gallon jugs in Petit Jean. This worked out fine, and we will need to repeat the process several times during the trip. 

Time for lights out – tomorrow we explore our first National Park – Gateway Arch in St. Louis. And now you know where I come from, came from, and am coming from. 

A bridge over the St. Francis River
at Silver Mines Rec area.