Traveling at a mule's pace

The 850 miles from Ashville, N.C., to Tahlequah, Okla., go by slowly -- at a mule's pace, to be exact.

Ten to 12 miles a day is just the way Gene and Noqah Glasscock like it.

Hitched across from City Hall in downtown Pea Ridge, their wagon and mules drew quite a bit of attention. Drivers slowed and reached out of their windows to take pictures of the canvas-covered wagon adorned with signatures of people from across Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.

After taking pictures in front of the Cannonball Cafe with owner Darla Nix, who invited the couple back for dinner, the Glasscocks headed to a quiet valley to camp. Accompanying the Glasscocks from Cassville, Mo., to Pea Ridge were Jesse, Tina and Donald Hayworth of Washburn, Mo. Heading out of town on a single-lane road, the mules clomped along, chains from the hitches jangling. Asphalt transitioned to rocky dirt road and then the mules faced a cattle gap o'er which they could not pass.

"Woe! Gee!" Gene called out to Kate, who balked at crossing the gap. "Back, Gee. Back!"

Noqah's leather-glove-clad hands pulled back on the reins. Buddy twisted in the collar. Kitty nudged at Buddy.

A phone call to city officials resulted in Nathan See, street superintendent, arriving with panels of plywood to place over the rails of the cattle gap. Still the mules balked -- until Jesse and his quarter horse, Ringo Rex, got in front to encourage them to cross.

A buckskin quarter horse, Ringo Rex helped several times on the journey from Cassville, Mo., to Pea Ridge -- once pulling a difficult hill and then Tuesday, encouraging the mules to cross the cattle gap.

The Hayworths had met the Glasscocks on Monday.

"My mom shoes horses," Jesse, 17, said, explaining that when the Glasscocks stopped at the Barry County Museum they asked about someone to shoe the mules. His boss, Skip White, recommended Jesse's mother, Tina Hayworth.

"Bless her heart, she's gone way beyond that," Gene said of Tina shoeing the mules. "She's become a real good friend."

The Hayworths struck up a friendship with the Glasscocks who were quite impressed with Tina's farrier abilities.

"Mule shoeing is different than horse shoeing," Noqah said. "A mule will dig up on its toes when pulling."

Gene said a farrier they used somewhere else in Missouri did a very poor job, but Tina's skills were exceptionally good.

"I've only found three or four farriers who should be allowed to call themselves mule farriers," Gene said. "She's one of them. They're rare."

"I don't take compliments from many people, but from these two, it's special," Tina said.

After shoeing the mules, Tina and Jesse saddled up and joined the couple on the next few miles, traveling from Cassville to Washburn on Monday, then from Washburn to Pea Ridge on Tuesday.

"After I shod the mules and found out what they were doing, I called in for vacation. This was a dream," Tina said. "Even if it's just for two days. It's a good one."

"I'd like to go all the way with them to Tahlequah," Jesse said. "I like to ride. I'm really sore though.

"I keep thinking about what they (Cherokee on the Trail of Tears) had to go through," he said. "I 'bout froze in the cafe after being out in the heat all day."

A senior at Southwest High School in Washburn, Mo., Jesse trains horses. He said he's had Rex for about four years.

Tina's husband, Donald, drove a truck pulling a trailer to take Tina and Jesse home after they set up camp in a valley north of downtown. The three helped unhitch the mules, then drive metal fence posts into the rocky ground to string a temporary corral for the mules with access to Otter Creek.

Tina said her white mule, Pearl, was a little skittish in front of the trailer on the highway, but content to walk behind the wagon.

As they sit around the campsite, cooling off with bandanas dipped in Otter Creek, the Glasscocks and Hayworths share stories. The mules roll in the grass, unfettered by their harnesses.

"My wife tells me I'm old enough to settle down," Gene said, obviously tired from the day's travel. Inside the wagon, their queen-size bed is cluttered with items that fell off the shelves on the rough road.

"Everything we own is inside there," Gene said.

The Glasscocks are following the route of the Trail of Tears, a route over which thousands of Cherokee passed in 1838 and 1839 when moved from their homes in the east to Oklahoma. The couple is making a memorial ride for Noqah's son, Johnny, and "following in the footsteps of my grandmothers," she said, referring to her Cherokee roots.

Noqah and her son, Johnny Bunco, had talked for 20 years about following the Trail of Tears in honor of their ancestors. Then, Johnny died Sept. 1, 2012. Noqah was left alone and grieving.

"Call Gene Glasscock," Noqah kept telling her. She stalled. She grieved. Then, in December 2012, she called. The two talked every day after that.

"I told him about what Johnny and I had been planning," she said. "He said he can't take a trip like that with a woman unless he's married to her."

So, the two were married and began the trek in the homemade wagon Gene had built and taken from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again from 2010-2013.

"We're carrying his ashes," Gene said.

"On May 5, I finished the ride ocean to ocean and back again. We got married right after that," he recalled.

Two of the three mules -- Kitty, 14, and Kate, 13 -- had pulled Gene's wagon on the journey across the country. Now, Buddy, 12, a smaller mule, joined them.

Noqah Elisi, 62, and Gene, 80, celebrated their second wedding anniversary on the trail. She will celebrate her birthday Aug. 2 on the return journey from Oklahoma to back east.

She is originally from Big Brushy Creek, Green Mountain, N.C.

Gene, when asked where he's originally from, smiled and said: "My mother." Then, he added that he's from a town "that's no longer there -- Clinton, Texas." He said he was raised in eastern Oregon, lived in Seattle (where he worked high-rise construction), Alaska, Mexico and Paraguay. He said he's had a life-long relationship with horses.

"I've seen pictures of me in diapers on horseback," Gene said, recalling that he got his first horse when he was about 11 and his parents got divorced. "I think it was a consolation prize for them splitting up."

He has six children, 42 grandchildren and innumerable great-grandchildren. His children's opinions of his travels vary and include:

• "Daddy, you don't belong out on the road like that. You belong here."

• "Daddy knows what he's doing; he enjoys doing it; leave him alone." ("I like that boy," he said, a smile covering his face.)

• "At one time," he said, "someone said something about me staying at home and I said 'Baby, you want me to sit in a rocking chair and rock myself to death.'"

Traveling is not new to Gene who said that in addition to the cross-country drive, he has ridden horseback from the Arctic Circle to the equator and traveled on horseback to all 48 contiguous state capitals.

"This ride is different though," he said, admitting that traveling with his wife makes everything different. "I've always been alone before. Having my wife with me -- it's harder. I want to take care of her and make things easy on her. I've never worried about making things easy on myself."

Noqah said there are two specific things about this trip that she thinks are important. First, "I'm right where God wants me. There's not anything that can compare to that feeling." And, second, "The people we've met... there has been such an outpouring of generosity and kindness and help. I stand in amazement and awe of that."

"We can't be successful without the help of other people. It always takes somebody there behind us. This trip has been a success because of the people behind us -- the trail angels -- like Tina, Jesse, Donald -- people who step up and help.

"Our people are Cherokee people," Noqah said. "They made it because they helped each other ...They survived in the face of genocide. There's coming a time that's going to get really hard. We have to get over the big 'I' disease -- get over the me, me, me, I, I -- and start taking care of each other."

The couple spent the night Wednesday outside of Centerton, then were to head to Gentry, to Siloam Springs and on to Tahlequah before turning around and heading back east.