Today we had decided to make use of our hire car and explore the local area away from the resort. On opening thwe car outside our cabin, we found that our glovebox had been opened and our paper work for the car emptied out, and an empty drinks cup, which smelt of whisky, had been left in the cup holder. We worked out that we'd left the passenger door unlocked because there's no central locking on the car and some drunken idiot must have been going around the site trying the car doors during the night. Nothing was taken and we hadn't left any valuables in the car, but it felt a bit unsettling to know that someone had been in the car while we were asleep (and had been daft enough to leave his drinking cup behind!) After reporting it to reception, who promised to inform the management, we finally got going.

Our first stop was in Horseshoe Bend to send a couple of packages back home - one full of our souvenirs so far and another containing Ruby Williams' 1st birthday present! (She seems to have grown already in the photos we've seen since we set off - we won't recognise her by the time we get back!)

We then headed south west to another small town called Calico Rock. Its Main Street buildings have all got protected status because they were built in the early nineteenth century, which is quite historical for America! It's just one small street with the railroad tracks at one end - the loacation next to the railroad is why the town became established. We called in at what is now the tourist information centre for a few leaflets and to ask where we could find what we had really wanted to see - Peppersauce Ghost Town, which was formerly known as East Calico. I've read a lot about these eerie, abandoned towns in books by Bill Bryson and Stephen Fry and was looking forward to seeing one for myself.
The old town began at the opposite end of Main Street from the railroad tracks and across a short bridge. The board just past the bridge told us that the town of East Calico slowly became abandoned when a new bridge was built across the river further down the road. This meant that people didn't need to pass through the town to use the original bridge and as the local businesses folded over a number of years, the residents gradually moved out of town, until the entire area was empty.

It was a weird experience, walking around an empty town, with buildings that had been overtaken by grass, trees and plants. Signs by every building explained what each one used to be and showed photos of each building as they used to look. The first place over the bridge was the city jail - a tiny, single cell which used to hold up to twenty prisoners on Friday and Saturday nights. The prisoners used to shout abuse at people through the cell door as they entered and left East Calico, so the authorities built a new front onto the jail to stop them! Laura was a bit spooked by the cell when we opened the door and looked inside, so we moved on.

The other building included houses, a feed store, a demolished cinema and a garage with a rusting tractor still on the site. It seemed a shame that the whole town had just been left to crumble - it's just waiting for someone to come and buy the land, demolish the place and start building again. In the meantime, it was a really interesting and unique place to visit, despite the weather being far too hot to walk around for too long!

We then got back in the car and headed south toward Blanchard Spring Caverns, an amazing 'living' cave system in the Ozark National Forest. It had been recommended to us by a few people since we arrived here and, although it was a long drive with very little petrol (!), it was well worth the $10 entrance fee. We were led by our guide Megan into the upper level of the caves to begin with. She turned on a set of lights and illuminated the view into the middle section of the cave, 100 feet below. The views were spectacular from the beginning and got even better as we made our way down and through the middle level of the caves on our 'Discovery Trail'.

A few facts about the caves - the temperature is a constant 58 degrees F (including the rivers and streams that run through the cave) and the limestone rocks from which the caves and their formations developed were laid down in ancient sea over 350 million years ago (thanks, Wikipedia!). The formations in the caves are still growing and changing and you can see and hear the water dripping through.

We were amazed by each of the 'rooms' we saw - the scale of the place was incredible and it was hard to imagine that we were hundreds of feet underground while standing in such massive spaces. The best part of the tour came towards the end when we were led into a room and asked to close our eyes. The guide then switched off all of the lights in the cave and plunged us into total darkness - when we opened our eyes, we couldn't even see our hands in front of our faces! She then turned just her headlamp on to show us what the explorers might have seen when they first entered this space. Finally, she turned the lights on full to reveal what's in the picture on this page - a huge, white flowstone (formed by the flow of the water over millions of years) jutting out of a still, green pool. It was an incredible sight and one that we'll both remember for a long time to come!

On a completely different note, our evening entertainment back at the resort consisted of a game of bingo (!) with the other guests. Again, we were the youngest in the room by at least 20 years, but I managed to win the first game and got half of our entry fee back! The host of the bingo asked me where I was from in front of the whole room and was amazed to find out that we were from England - in fact, his reply was (in a Deep South accent!) 'England??? The REAL England???' After assuring him that I WAS from the real England, we went on to win another two games, meaning we ended up $10 in profit for the night! We think another player at the end of the night might have said 'Get back to England' as we left, but we can't be sure...

Our busiest day yet in Arkansas!