Mena Monday Apartment Inspection and Bonus Bridges

On Monday mornings, Gary frequently picks up the Mena elders in Waldron and brings them up to Ft. Smith for district or zone meetings.  This save miles for them.  We then run them back to Waldron after the meetings and they usually do missionary work in that area before heading back to Mena.  Since we were in the middle of apartment inspections a couple of weeks ago, we made arrangements to meet them at dinner time to inspect their apartment.  That meant we had 3 hours free in the area around Mena.  Gary had done some research and found 3 bridges on the historical registry for such things.  One to the southwest of Mena and two to the south east and much further out.  Gary determined that we could do all three of them if we hustled and didn't have any bad roads or missed turns---and of course, we had both of those things---lots of dirt roads and one turn that our car's GPS missed so we had to backtrack after ending up in someone's private lane.

Here is the first bridge-Mountain Fork bridge----by Hatfield, AR.  Built prior to 1920 but not sure when.

A little rickety as you can see--

Of course, I love to walk across the bridges but this one had a tiny hill and I couldn't see if cars were approaching from the other side--nor could they---

So, I had Gary and Jena (she chose NOT to walk across this bridge with me) drive in front of me to protect me from oncoming traffic.....

This was the road base of the bridge and I knew that I didn't want to have to step off the area designed for the tires and trust the siderails to support me...

It was a cool bridge though....

This is Bill---Oh the things you see on the scenic byways of Arkansas.

This is the sign when we knew that our car's GPS had mislead us......

The next two bridges were in a state park and both are old stone bridges built in the 1930s, I think. They are called the Shady Lake CCC Bridges as they were built as part of the government work crews of the 1930s.  It was hard (in missionary clothes and shoes) to get a good shot of the bridges from a distance.

This was the second one---

As a result of the dirt roads and the missed turn, we were going to be a few minutes late to the appointment for the apartment inspection.  No problem--we can be fast.....

until we came to a train crossing--no worries, we like trains--but then it stopped for about five minutes, then went again a few car lengths and then stopped for...25 minutes.  And of course, we didn't have cell service to let the missionaries know.  So, finally after other cars moved, we back out and found another way around the train....and we sent the missionaries off to their dinner appointment since we were now going to be about 35 minutes late.

We got lunch, visited a local Wal-Mart, and then stopped at a city cemetery to take pictures until the missionaries were done with their dinner appointment. We usually avoid city cemeteries because we assumed that they have been done and so focus on the ones out in the countryside.  

A mixture of the autumn leaves with the spring grasses
and little flowers

We weren't there very long before the missionaries called and were home for their inspection.  However, in that short time, Gary and I got about 40 pictures and almost every single one of them was not in Find A Grave.  Some of them had open requests which is always a good feeling.  We will definitely be spending more time at this huge cemetery each time we head to Mena.

This cemetery had fun names for their streets.

It is a beautiful cemetery on some small hills in town.  I loved these "mushroom" trees--trimmed so neatly.

From our Wal-Mart stop!

We will miss these days that combine district meetings, exploring, photographing gravestones, and being with the young missionaries.  What a great life we lead!