Red Oak II - Part 1
Out from Spencer, the country road merged onto the main road, and the traffic had picked up. This somehow made me forget where we were headed next. Let's drive! I stepped on the gas while Sumi was browsing something on her phone.
"Lowell Davis is an artist and sculptor. He grew up in the town of Red Oak, Missouri. After the WWII, people began to move to the big cities in search of good life. After some sixty years later, when he returned to his boyhood home from one of those "good life" careers in the big cities, most of these rural communities had become ghost towns. That's when he began buying the homes and businesses of his beloved Red Oak and moving them twenty three miles to his Fox Fire Farm near Carthage, Missouri and restoring them to their original grandeur a place known as Red Oak II."
Sumi read out loud. Sounded interesting. Why are you telling me this by the way? Sumi reminded me that it was the place Gary at the Gay Parita Sinclair had told us to go to. Oh, right. The problem with fast road is that it makes you forget and pass everything. The photos of the place looked good, too, Sumi said. She also said we have to make a right hand turn to go there.
"When?"
"Right now! Turn right, then stop!" she yelled.
Screeech! I stopped the car as Sumi instructed me to, and we were at an entrance of a narrow road between rows of cornfields. Just like when we entered Spencer, it didn't look very welcoming so I asked Sumi for a confirmation.
"You sure this is the road?"
"Look, there's a sign for it."
'Red Oak II, MISSOURA'
The signage was intriguing enough to make me want to go and find out about Red Oak II. But there seemed to be no end to the cornfield. It was five o'clock in the afternoon. We should look for a campground or something to spend the night and this road would put us far away from the main route. I hesitated for a minute and asked Sumi again for her opinion. Her answer was very straight forward.
"Let's go. When are we going to come back here, again?
"Right. Let's go, then."
When not sure whether to do it or not, doing it is the best option, if it was during a road trip. I saw many times in the movies, the narrow roads between cornfields. I wanted to drive on one once. This was the sort of road.
"What movie was it? Jeepers Creepers?"
We briefly joked and entered the road between the cornfields. Cornstalks in wind made swashing sound.
Within three to four minutes, there was another rooster shaped signage pointing to the right. 'Red Oak II, 1 Mile' This rooster signage was also very intricate. We made a right turn and kept driving through the cornfield.
Another two minutes, there was a wide gate in the middle of the cornfields. Considering the country road we traveled to get here, the gate was surprisingly large and fancy-looking. The columns on either side of the gate was stone-walled. One side of the gate was covered with ivy vines and the other was iron wall which was mosaicked with circular metal parts. The two signs that we saw must've been made by the same person who made this gate.
We parked the car and looked for a booth to pay entrance fee. Well, we couldn't find it, so we decided to look around first. Right inside the entrance way, there was a chestnut-red-colored two story building with green roof. It was tidy and clean and most of all, a tree with a large trunk created perfect shade at the front door of the house. The houses were said to be moved here from a nearby town, but trees were not likely. The path from the front door of the house to the front yard was also perfectly laid out that in the late afternoon, it went completely under a shade from the tree. It is 5:40 PM now in summer time, there should be enough hours to enjoy oneself under this cool shades. The stone patio area seemed to have been hand built from scratch. A professional touch. The design and surrounding space were also excellent. Wait, the outside area couldn't have been moved here. The old town would've been few generations before us, and couldn't have had designs like this back then. Unless Frank Lloyd Wright had designed it.
On our way here, I thought, maybe they say they had moved the buildings from the old town, but really, just copied the exterior shapes. However, as soon as I laid my eyes on the first house, I fell in love with Red Oak II. I asked Sumi what she thought of the place. She said she loves not only the houses, but the garden, sculptures, and every little objects in and around the place. She said she wanted to build our gardens back home just like these. She must really like it, but I quickly regretted that I had asked her. When we return from our trip, there will be a lot of work.
As I was worrying about the yard work back home, a cat strode straight toward me. It was coming toward us so rightfully that I naturally thought this cat must be the owner of this place. A spell made him turn into a cat during the day, but he still has to greet the visitors even if he was in the body of a cat. Sumi shook hands with the cat holding its paw, rubbed on the back. They greeted each other excitedly.
Then, suddenly, there were two turkeys appeared in front of us. They walked around as if they had their arms crossed with each other. They looked alike like twins. They strode around even more rightfully than the cat. If the owner of this place was under a spell, the turkeys were more likely than the cat.
A welcome greeting by these animals led us toward the inside of a farm, which was on the right side from the entrance. In a few steps, a white dog with black patches also came out to greet us. We've been wandering around here for over twenty minutes now and we hadn't met anyone other than few tourists just like us. If not the tourists, the animals were all we had met. Wait a minute, the entire family must've turned into…. We looked around the farm houses guided by the family that had turned into the animals under a spell. The cat meowed, turkey twins gabo-gaboed, and the dog woofed while busy showing the farm ground to us. We couldn't quite understand them well enough, but few things became clear from the body languages. 'It's very nice to meet you.' 'Please, take your time and look around.' 'The spell will break soon, give us some time, okay?'
This is the end of Episode 16. In episode 17, we finally find out the shocking truth about the turkeys and who the owners of the Red Oak II really are.
Read in Korean http://blog.naver.com/hwangjinkook/220247056005
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