There's a particular shade of turquoise that Ozark spring water produces that I've never been able to photograph correctly. The light refracts differently, the clarity is almost artificial-looking, and every photo I've taken of Alley Spring has flattened it into something ordinary. In person it is not ordinary.
Alley Spring sits six miles west of Eminence in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, a national park unit that protects the Jacks Fork and Current rivers. The spring flows from a cave in the bluffs at a rate that's nearly constant year-round, and that half-mile spring branch runs brilliant blue and clear all the way to the Jacks Fork River. The constant temperature — around 58 degrees — keeps it cold even in July heat.
The red mill beside the spring is the other reason people come. Built in 1894, it's painted that specific barn red that looks painted-on in photographs but is completely natural in person. The mill operated as a grist mill powered by the spring's water, and it's now run as an Ozarks history museum by the National Park Service. The building is intact, the machinery original. You can walk through and understand how this kind of operation worked, what the surrounding community looked like a century ago.
The swimming in the spring branch is cold and perfect. Kids wade through the shallows, adults sit on rocks with their feet in. It's one of the quintessential Missouri summer afternoons: shade, cold water, somewhere green and quiet. Come on a weekday if you can.