I had the opportunity this weekend to go someplace I've wanted to go for a long time.  Even though it's just a stone's throw from my home, it's taken me almost 40 years to get there. 

I'm fortunate to live in an area where parts of my family have lived since pre-Civil War times, and I am also fortunate to have had a granny who loved to tell me about all those folks.  She'd tell me the stories of their lives, lived so long ago, with such color and salt that I became completely infatuated.  I wanted so badly to see them myself, and the places where they lived out those tales.  Yesterday I decided to try.

It was a beautiful late summer evening when Will and I began our hike back in the woods to the homestead of my great-great-grandparents, George Orwan and Margaret Sanders Orwan.  She was the daughter of a plantation-owning Southern sympathizer, and he was a Northern soldier. 

These two were star-crossed lovers, meeting during the almost forgotten Battle of Brushy Hill that was fought near our town during the War Between the States. 

The battle was fought in the field surrounding this spring, supposedly over the very rights to the spring. The battle may have even involved a band of gypsies who were squatting nearby, and the local Native Americans, who had dug out and cleaned up the spring, and were camping around it. 

On this peaceful evening it was almost impossible to comprehend the agonizing battle that raged around that very spot, especially when it was so easy for us to walk right up and get a drink.

With our bottles of fresh spring water in hand, we continued on up the path beside the creek.  Just a bit further along, we came into a clearing accented by a massive clump of yucca plants, and I knew we had reached our destination:  The Orwan Homestead. 

This is where Mr. Orwan returned to after the war.  He settled on the very land where he fought that terrible battle, then he married his true love, Miss Sanders (despite her father's objections) and built their homestead just up from the spring.

He raised his family there, and even allowed the gypsies and Indians to use the land and spring just as they had before the war.  We believe this is a photo of the Orwan family, after the kids were grown. 

I was lost in my thoughts of this family as I approached the yuccas, and I realized as I drew nearer that I was actually in a garden.  Albeit, a long abandoned and very overgrown one.  I was overwhelmed as I gazed at a huge lilac surrounded by massive clusters of daylilies and flag iris.  There were sweet pea vines climbing shamelessly through it all, and a border of baby's breath and asters that stretched as far into the brush as I could see.  

I knew exactly who's garden it was, too--Aint Lib's. 

Lizzie (or Aint Lib, as Granny called her) was one of the Orwan daughters.  Lib loved to garden and always grew a yard full of beautiful flowers.  Her first love had been killed in Europe during World War I, and so she never married.  She remained on her parent's homestead with her other two unmarried sisters until her death in the 1940's.   

This is Lib in her garden, with her niece, a few years before Lib passed away.

And this is me in Aint Lib's garden, seventy years after it was abandoned. 
I wanted to stay forever.  But, night was falling and my time was running out. 

After tearing myself away from the place where Lizzie "Lib" Orwan found her solace,
I searched the area for signs of any structural remains while Will explored the field.

I came up empty-handed; he found a wild turkey feather.

Will stuck the feather in his hair and took off whooping and hollering through the field, and I gave up and sat down in the lily patch.  I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the place full of life and activity.  After a few moments, I was startled out of my trance by the sound of children's voices.  I looked around in amazement, wondering if I had accidentally conjured up some voices from the past.  And then around the bend came my friends Andrew and Lindsay and their kids. 

Whew!  Since Andrew's family now owns the property I was sitting on, his appearance certainly made more sense than that of ghosts from the past! 

I hadn't lost my mind after all. 
Keep your comments to yourself, please. 

I was grateful for Andrew's arrival, because he was able to lead me to the last remaining structural remnant of the Orwan Homestead:  the root cellar.  Now hidden deep in a grove of cedars and brush, the cellar had eluded my earlier search.  It's certainly not in great shape, especially after a tree fell on it a few years back and the roof caved in.  But I was thrilled to find it.  

We stood quietly, murmuring in hushed tones about all that had occurred there, and then, with the sun setting over the horizon, we slowly made our way out of the woods of the previous century, and back to civilization and the modern world. 

And as it always goes, the kids made it back quicker than we did! 

The first cool day that comes along after a long summer heat wave is cause for celebration at our house.  When the rain came last week and brought with it a twenty degree drop in temperature, we decided to abandon the homestead for an afternoon hike in the Ozarks Hills.  

And to us, the most majestic place to hike is at the Ozark's own Ha Ha Tonka State Park. 

I've been visiting Ha Ha Tonka since I was a kid, back in the day when you could still splash around in the mouth of the spring.  What fun that was!  And you talk about cold!!!
Times have changed, and the mouth of the spring is protected now.  But you can still take a quick dip further on downstream, and so we decided to make that spot our final destination.

There are countless trails to choose from, but we decided to start our hike on a trail that I had never been on.  It's near the castle ruins, which are so breathtaking and attention grabbing that it stops me in my tracks no matter how many times I've visited.  And because of that, I never make it to any of the trails nearby.  This time I did my best to walk right past the castle without pausing.  It was hard.  Okay, so I paused for a photo....but only for a second.

My perseverance was rewarded because I made a new discovery just as we started on the trail: 
The castle had greenhouses!  And not just one or two little hoophouses, but an entire complex of carved stone, glazed glass, boiler heated, works of art greenhouses.  Of which nothing remains except rubble.  Still, the gardener in me was fascinated.  In fact, I stood there and studied the information plaque for so long that I didn't even make it any further down the trail!  My family hiked the trail without me, while I traipsed around in the ruins like Indiana Jones in search of the holy grail.  Without the whip.  It was exhilarating, even if I didn't find any treasure. 

I reluctantly tore myself away from the greenhouse ruins when I heard my family coming back up the trail. But I couldn't resist one more shot of the castle as we passed back by.  What a tragic structure, once an extraordinary symbol of turn-of-the-century wealth and luxury, now an empty shell.  Destroyed in an early Autumn fire that raged over half a century ago, it was never to be rebuilt.  The place is simply mesmerizing.  See why I get stuck there?

But, determined not to get left behind again, I turned my back and walked away.  On down the trail we went.  And what a trail it was.  Parts of it are a piece of cake to follow, like this nicely paved, flat walkway...

...which morphs into a slightly more challenging set of rustic steps.  This is where the heavy breathing started.

When the trail changed into something even more challenging to navigate, I was beginning to re-think this trek.  That's a drop-off there on the other side of the tree.  Just thought you should know.   Cue the big sighs and amp up the huffing and puffing.

Believe it or not, I managed to pick my way along the trail.   And I actually found some interesting things on the way.  Like this grinding stone from the old grist mill. 

And a hollow log...yep, hollow.

And a millipede, I think.  I didn't really count all his legs.

And I can't resist a shot of the wildflowers. 

And then there's this.  A balancing rock.  Quite an incredible feat of nature, but it made me so nervous that I quickly scurried on by....you never know when that thing could fall. 
I worry about things like that. 

And then finally we reached our destination.  We wasted no time jumping in--after that hike, you wouldn't either!  I must say, the frigid waters were quite invigorating, and it was just the re-charge we needed to start back down the trail.  Although this time, we were soaking wet!