Vacation Day 2

We had a beautiful drive down today, particularly in the rolling hills and mountains of northern Arkansas. We passed through Eureka springs laughing at the names of a couple of establishments. It’s always fun to mess with Lynn by telling her I’d like to visit an establishment with a name like “The Rowdy Beaver”. We arrived at Turpentine Creek Wildlife refuge around five which isn’t bad for leaving around 12:30 and taking our time, courtesy of highway construction every few miles in Missouri. The refuge is beautiful. It’s invisible from the road and easy to miss, as I proved myself. The staff was very friendly and the accommodations were clean and neat if not luxurious. We stayed in the Blue room, one of two “quasi suites” flanked by tiger pens and just across from the main compound, as the staff referred to it. (More about that in a moment.) Our neighbors in the green room were Elroy and Louise, a couple who had visited the sanctuary before and decided to return to stay the night. Our neighbor on the other side, just outside our windows was Loretta, a beautiful white Siberian Tiger. Loretta didn’t emerge from her den until later in the evening, but it was worth the wait. I don’t have the words to describe the beauty, majesty and wildness of this creature. It was awe inspiring to look at her.
Included in the cost of our stay was the freedom to roam the compound, a group of pens holding lions, tigers, and … (no bears) a black panther, several bobcats, three leopards, a rhesus macaque and two macaws. I say we were free to roam, but we were safely separated from the animals by high fence which was set 8 feet or more from the pens which are full enclosed to a height of 10-12 feet. Directly across from our room was a pen holding two lions and two tigers who seemed to coexist amiably. I even watched a brief wrestling match between a lion and a tiger. It was really interesting and a little frustrating to read the stories of these animals, several of which had been kept as housepets by foolish people who eventually realized that they couldn’t keep them and asked the refuge to take them. The sad and frustrating stories were those in which the animals had been mistreated. All the animals appeared happy and well cared for here at Turpentine creek.
After a walk around the compound, we decided to make a late evening run into Eureka Springs for gas and camera batteries. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Eureka Springs, despite its proximity to Bentonville, doesn’t have a WalMart. A friendly clerk at the gas station directed us to Berryville, about 10 miles East. Alas, Berryville did not have the correct battery, so we purchased disposable cameras and, after a reconnaissance of Eureka Springs—eerily beautiful by night, returned to Turpentine Creek and settled in for the night. What a night! We learned that the cats make three distinctly different sounds—coughing, caroling, and roaring—and they were in full chorus, joined by some delightful solos from the coyote, a Tiger singing tenor, and the occasional aria from the burros in an adjacent field. It was beautiful, and loud. I’d never actually heard a lion roar before and it is amazing. They open their mouths wider than you’d think possible and out would come this bass explosion that rattle your eardrums, and, I’m sure could be heard over a mile away.