Mincy-Drury Conservation Area
Walking Along Bee Creek
Friday, December 2 started out a bit on the cool side, but with a blue sky and the promise of a sunny day. Our plan for today was a trip back to the Mincy-Drury Conservation area and the countryside around it. We had driven through it so quickly on our last trip that we thought it would be fun to explore it a bit more thoroughly.
We drove up to Mincy, stopping to look at the church. It was an older one, with a fairly new pavilion next to it. It was late morning and the sky was blue with just a few streaks of cloud starting to appear. The old time bell at the top of the church caught my eye.
We then drove east into the Drury area and found the parking lot. There was a short trail that led to a sink hole. I didn't get a really good picture of the sink hole, but there were a couple cool trees along the way. We decided to continue following the trail through a food plot and it led back to the road.
We drove a short ways until we found another parking area. We stopped for an apple and a poke around. There was a campsite here, and a nice view. No restaurant could offer us a better table than Mother Nature did.
Backtracking we then turned south into the Mincy Conservation area. This was the part that we had briefly looked at on our last trip. I wanted to find the Bee Creek School and Cemetary Historical site as marked on the map. We were in luck, last time we were here the road was closed, but this time it was open so we drove on down, following the creek. We found the trail to the school and off we went. The only remains of the school were the foundation. We could clearly see that there were two separate rooms,, with an entrance to each at the corner. I guess that was for boys and girls.
A faint trail led away from the school and we followed it. We could see a few headstones in a small clearing. They were very old and long gone, but not forgotten. The graves had flowers on them. As the trail meandered around there were other burials. It seems this cemetery was not just a small square patch but a trail of graves. Returning to our vehicle we drove further down the creek, then turned back and headed home. We stopped by a food plot to see what was growing, Turnips, and nicely ripe. We pulled one up and ate it.It was very good.
This was my first trip to explore a specific area in the Missouri Ozarks. It is only an hour from my home town of Harrison Arkansas, and it was flat. The Ozarks has a lot to offer the serious vacationer or the casual visitor as well as us residents, who are fortunate to be able to go exploring when we want. One thing I have learned as I have gotten older and that is it is not what you do, but that you do. It is important to keep moving or the buzzards will begin to circle. Stop moving and they might start roosting on your rooftop!