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| lrh | profile | all galleries >> Jasper ARK Pictures >> Jasper, Introduction | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
Jasper ARK is where we have vacationed as a family almost every year since 2012. (2014, serious family issue--2019, KSG instead.) It's a sleepy little place we managed to find in mid-2012 while deciding where to spend a week on vacation, as my wife had paid time off & was expressing the need to take a break from her hard working of the time. It has become to me what White Lake NC was when I was a child--THE place I absolutely MUST go to every year. All 4 of us really enjoyed it (her family was there part of the time in 2012 & really enjoyed it also, and in fact they went again in 2020).
During 2012, with my wife having a week's paid time off & us deciding how to use it, I wanted a place where I could hike in a relaxing scenic atmosphere, get some scenic landscape photos, & enjoy some splash holes also. NO "tourist traps" or "Disneyland" type of places, or places where you paid $150 a night in a resort or timeshare, were wanted. It needed to not be quite so far from home either. My wife at this time wanted to visit her grandfather who lived in Butler MO & wanted to check out nearby Branson MO (especially Silver Dollar City) as she as a child once had almost gone there on a family trip only to have the car break down the day of the trip, thus she had never gone. Her grandfather was willing to meet up with us in Branson MO, & she was really wanting to see him, but I didn't want an entire week centered on that, as my research indicated Butler had nothing and Branson was too "tourist-y." I looked around & found this place (via swimmingholes.org) which seemed just like what I had been looking for, and then out of curiosity checked to see how far it was from Branson, where her grandfather was willing to meet us. As it turned out, Jasper & Branson were only an hour away. It hit me--we could vacation there & zip up 1 hour to Branson to meet her grandfather on that 1 day & check out Branson that day as well, & then immediately return back to this place & resume what we had been doing. That is exactly how it worked out--just as I predicted, we had lunch with her grandfather which was over within 1-2 hours (as much on his part as anyone else's), and with that family obligation done (and with photos to boot, with me being the one to make sure it happened), we could resume doing whatever. Once my wife saw the crowded "tourist-y" nature of Branson & heard how expensive everything was, and how it contrasted with the less hectic nature of Jasper, she was as anxious to return to Jasper as I was. After I found interesting spots in Jasper at swimmingholes.org/ar.html (which is how I found out about Jasper to start with), she found cabins & the teen ("Zack") I called at the cabins was very helpful on the phone & made it sound like there were TONS of scenic & splash spots nearby, and in fact there were. The people at the cabin were very nice, our cabin happened to be immediately adjacent to a fenced-in playground where the kids could play vs being cooped up in the cabin & we didn't have to hover over them, & in fact at one point when our son of only 3 had wandered off with the cabin owner's kids while she was chit-chatting with us in our place, rather than panicking & launching into a "YOU SHOULD WATCH YOUR KIDS MORE CLOSELY!!" sermon, she shrugged it off with a "he's probably fine, he's probably went with my kids down by the pool" (her kids had been with her while she was with us & then left to go to the pool). We really liked that. Later, I learned that life-long great friend KSG was somewhat familiar with the area, if not Jasper specifically, & was also fond of it. The possibility thus was mentioned of that one day he may join us on some of that, & talk has even occurred of us (or him etc) one day possibly LIVING in the area somewhat. Meanwhile, we met us in 2016 and shared the vacation with us.During the inauguration year, 2012, I would be using a Garmin Nuvi GPS (phone service was scarce with the Virgin Mobile phone I was using) and knew I'd be finding places "on the fly" and saving them to this GPS. How could I backup these favorites in a way to where I could easily replicate them somewhere else, using a universal standard? I didn't want them "locked" into this unit. It was during this period I learned of "GPS Coordinates" and how to "pluck" them from the "favorites" after I'd saved them. This has been a perfect solution as to how to document any spot in a way to where I can easily share & reproduce them no matter what GPS system I'm using or whom I'm sharing them with.
So--with the relaxed atmosphere and anti-"tourist trap" nature of the town, the beautiful scenic/splash spots that cost nothing (or close to nothing) and are very quiet, & the friendly-laid-back atmosphere of the cabin, we 4 really enjoyed it and so did her parents during the brief period they were also around (to visit the grandfather also). Thus, it has become the White Lake of the present, the place we all want to go to every year.As I write this, 2021, the kids are now 12 and 14, and surprisingly still enjoy returning here every year. We, the adults, have become somewhat bored with doing the same things everytime (my wife especially), but the kids never tire of it. We have been looking for new spots in the region to sort of freshen things up. However, the old stand-bys still remain--Ponca Bridge, Falling Water Waterfalls, Blue Hole, Sam's Throne, and Pruitt among them. We eat at Sharon K's Cafe and Ozark Cafe, and the cafe in Mt Judea (used to be called Eagle Rock, its current name escapes me). This year, I have finally obtained a good gas & electric grill to make food preparation easier in the small-ish cabins.
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