Welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis. This is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. And I’ll do it by loving my life enough to make it last as long as possible.

It’s been a while since I last visited Devil’s Den. This state park is probably one of the closest, if not the closest to where I live. I’m here with my friend Robert, who has lived here all his life, so I feel comfortable that he’ll guide me through this okay.

Interesting name, Devil’s Den. I looked up some information and found out that in the first half of the 19th century, this area was used by outlaws on the Butterfield Stage Trail. The Butterfield stagecoach route. Used for outlaws to hide in these caves. There are numerous caves and excellent hiding places in this area. That went on until the Civil War, and then you had Confederate guerrillas hiding up in here, doing their attacks on various Union soldiers and other targets.

Then, in 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, part of the broader Depression-era programs, such as the WPA, and others. The Civilian Conservation Corps was established to employ people, and a key component of this effort was building state parks in Arkansas building the facilities and the trails. These were constructed by workers back in the 1930s.

Wow, there are so many splits off of this thing you could easily get lost. It’s a good thing I have a tour guide along. It’s because of the CCC architecture that this site was declared a National Historic Site. And I believe that happened in 1994. And here we are in 2025. And already my right foot’s starting to hurt. Maybe we shouldn’t have started with rock climbing. I’ve been having trouble with that right foot. We’re overlooking the river here.

Wow, this is pretty steep up here. What river is this? Devil’s Den river? I don’t know. Definitely, someone could hide out in here. Just put your bedroll down in here, and you’ll see anybody coming.

Diet department. In the last episode, I told you I was in Davidsonville and decided to go to a restaurant called Renee’s. Well I did find Renee’s, it’s in Black Rock, Arkansas. It’s pretty good. There is a lot of character in the place. The people all knew each other—nice service from the waitresses. And I had a specialty there called the Sir Charles. The Sir Charles is a bacon double cheeseburger with a slice of fried balogna. These weren’t thin patties, either; they were thick like your Mom used to make. And they had a steak knife stuck through the burger to keep it together. I was able to take two bites of it with my hands before I had to start eating it with a fork because it just fell apart. But it was delicious. Then I had a slice of pecan pie with ice cream. Warmed-up pecan pie with ice cream on it. It was delicious. So, if you ever decide to head out to Davidsonville or anywhere near Black Rock, Arkansas, I highly recommend Renee’s Cafe. It just says Cafe in big letters on the outside and then the Renee’s sign is in the door. And I believe it is on Highway 166.

This must have taken some work for those CCC guys to build this. We have a staircase-like structure here. It’s pretty typical on this part of the trail. Nice flat trail here with some flat stones in it, surrounded by trees, of course.

Alright, we’re going to the Devil’s Den Cavern. Which I believe has been closed for years now due to white noise syndrome, a condition that I think is related to some respiratory infection. There’s a big rock face. There are some big felled trees around here. We earned our way up here; we might as well stop and take in the view.

These days, I sometimes think about retiring and how nice it would be to do things like this during the week or go to the grocery store at 10 a.m. when nobody’s there. But I’m not retired.

This is pretty steep. It’s hard on my foot. It’s hard on my whole body. I’m not getting enough exercise these days. We’re probably about halfway up. There’s an interesting structure up there. This is Devil’s Den Cavern. That’s why there’s a platform up there. Well, it’s a good hiding place for outlaws. There’s a plaque over there on the left.

I don’t remember which two entrances it is, but when I was a kid, people would let their toddlers climb through. An adult comes in one side with the kid, and the adult has to stop and they let the kid keep going and the meet them on the other side. That doesn’t sound like a good idea. You never know what a kid’s going to do; they may stop and start crying, and how will you get them out?

Well, that plaque says “Trail”. I’ll take a picture of it anyway. So, did you crawl through the cave when you were a toddler? Definitely not.

There’s some color in there. The tree in front of my house is starting to bloom now. It’s an Oklahoma something; that’s all I remember. So where do we go now? Up or down? It’s easy to get lost in here, that’s for sure.

You know, they have reenactments at Prairie Grove, right? They could have reenactments here of the skirmishes of the guerrilla Confederates. These look like steps here. Steep steps.

The Devil’s Icebox. I think there’s a bigger opening somewhere, but it is cool here. Yeah, it’s really cold in here now. It’s quite cool. It’s cool right here. Take a picture if there’s something interesting other than just darkness. The camera makes it look a lot brighter than it is. That is an interesting formation here. It seems like there is a barrier. It’s probably white noise syndrome—bad news for spelunkers.

This is the part I think of as being the Devil’s Icebox. Because it comes from below, which is how we visualize Hell as the domain of the devil. Do you see Satan down there? No, not even a serpent. It is in keeping with the Divine Comedy, though. But the metaphor goes both ways. God is the sun, the warmth of his love, the brightness of his life. I think you can use both kinds of metaphors. I hope Heaven is air-conditioned.

This looks more definitive because you can walk right in. I don’t remember the T-rex barricade. That’s steel. It’s metal. Amazing. It’s a loop.

I think I heard something about some astronauts staying in space for 9 months. At this point in time, which is late March 2025, some astronauts went up on a test flight of a Boeing Starliner. And the Starliner broke while they were at the International Space Station. They were supposed to be there for eight days but wound up staying for nine months. And they were severely debilitated, according to the news. Some people stay up there for longer. I know that people have been staying up there for a year, but still, being weightless for so long and then coming back to Earth’s gravity must be tough on the body. I think those two astronauts have been in space three times. On the space shuttle and then on the Soyuz capsule, a Russian vehicle. And now on the SpaceX Dragon, which is how they got home. I saw the splashdown and everything. It was pretty cool, just like anything related to space. They helped them out of the capsule, put them on stretchers, and took them back for medical exams. Then, they were on their way back to Houston for debriefing. It was all at the Kennedy Space Center.

They performed many intensive tasks, but they published some results of an astronaut who underwent a battery of tests before she went into space. Two years later, after spending months in space, she performed lower on every test. Robert is a nurse, so he speaks from a bit of his expertise. They did try to explain some of it away, saying she was past the peak of her career and under less pressure to perform. Then again, someone who works in space has to be dedicated to science and would want to do it right.

I read somewhere that this is the largest sandstone crevice area in the United States and possibly the world. It means it’s not an actual cave, I believe. A crevice is not formed by water movement or erosion. It’s formed by seismic activity. That’s why there are no stalactites or stalagmites.

That’s a big ole rock and another big one right beside it. There are some lovely views here. You can see the Boston Mountains, which I found out are the Southwest range of the Ozark Mountains. And it looks like we’re about halfway up. Maybe not, but we’re closer to the top than we were down there, that’s for sure.

My foot’s doing okay, but I can tell it’s being stressed. And I don’t know what it is, but it occasionally comes up. Sometimes, I don’t feel it at all, but other times, it’s pretty painful. I tweaked it pretty good recently.

My mother visited some relatives south of San Antonio, where they grow peanuts and watermelon. There were no trees; it was completely flat, as far as the eye could see. The only things breaking the horizon were the irrigation equipment and the house.

Plenty of steps here, thank you very much, Civilian Conservation Corps for building these trails. I’m sure there’s nobody left. You’d have to be more than 110 if you worked here as a 20-year-old. Hey, there’s a picnic table down there! There’s water on the trail, and it’s a little muddy. And up here at Devil’s Den Cavern, there is some masonry with cement. I’ll get some video here.

Some colorful blooms are coming in purple. I have no idea what kind of trees those are. What goes up must come down. Gravity. So we’re going down.

They said a probe of some kind had just left the solar system, launched in 1971. I think that was Voyager. There were two, Voyager I and Voyager II. I think one was supposed to orbit Jupiter. Then they launched one in the 90s that’s not far behind it. But it is much faster.

And we’re back down on Planet Earth. Does that stream go underground from the waterfall? I think so, but I didn’t follow it. You’ve got to stop now and then when you’re hiking because otherwise, you’ve got to be looking down, watching your step. There’s a little stream coming from underground. Heading for the river, no doubt, heading underground again or under a rock.

I’m wearing these eight-year-old boots. They’re old but trustworthy. Do we have to go up again? Okay, now I remember, these were the ones we saw on the way up. That must be a spring break group. It appears that the ground upheaval here was quite violent, judging by the way the rocks are angled. Like broken glass, yeah. I was expecting to see a lizard, a frog, or something similar instead of just squirrels. Yeah, the low today was in the 50s, I think. It was 61 when I left my house.

There are a lot more people here than I expected. I guess they are Spring Breakers. Spring breakers that aren’t going on vacation somewhere else. Like us. Or it could be that people are coming to Arkansas for spring break. I’ve seen some foreign license plates, like the ones from the eclipse, when people from all over gathered. I think the full eclipse could be seen from near Russellville.

There is orange fencing here that I don’t remember seeing before. There’s a little dam. I assume there used to be a bridge there. Yeah, that’s man-made, for sure, with cement and everything. A lot of moss. Here’s a lizard. It’s a beautiful lizard; it has some color.

I know these CCC guys did a lot of hard work because I doubt there was any mechanization back then. Not way out here. You’re lucky if you got a mule to help you out. Nice breeze. I was looking for fish. Smart fish don’t stay where you can see ’em. There they are. Eyes just have to adjust. Once you see one, there are twenty small ones, maybe three inches long. And there are a lot of them moving with the current. There’s a lot of fish down there. They’re well camouflaged.

My mother’s always looking for hawks. Says there aren’t many around here. But you’d think they would be here with all the fish. You see them turning over and reflecting the sun; that’s interesting. Getting stuff off the bottom. I suppose if you’re a fish, you spend your entire day hunting for food. I don’t see anybody fishing. Is it allowed? Should be. I know that at Hobbs, the largest state park, they offer fishing and hunting opportunities. You can do anything there. You have to draw out a fish that would be worth catching. It may be too shallow in this area.

When was the last time you went fishing? I don’t know, probably when I was in single digits. Here are your choices. Highway bridge, visitor’s center. Let’s head back. I need to get in better shape and do some more walking. A mile-and-a-half moderate-difficulty trail is enough to almost wear me out. It’s a lot of steps up and down. My legs are tired.

That looked like a temporary sign they had. The laminated one. I know that at Hobbs, they told me the tornado that came through a couple of years ago really damaged the trails, so that may be part of the tornado damage. Oh, those are tall steps. We’re pretty much back. This is the original “Y”.

So, folks, that’s all the news here from Devil’s Den State Park. We hiked a new trail here, took some pictures, and got a good workout. Remember, if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning, and if you don’t, catch the fever. And I will see you next time on Running: A FEVER.

Can we do the 15-mile one next time? Haha.