The new bridge at Two Rivers Park. I thought black and white captured the moment so nicely.

After six days touring the great American West, it was off for Arkansas the grueling heat and humidity. We went back across Kansas so we could stop for the night at Mom and Dad’s farm in far eastern Kansas. We stopped just outside of Dodge City to get a look at the Arkansas River, or what used to be the Arkansas River. By the time the river leaves Colorado and enters Kansas it’s bone dry, as you can see in the photo. Compare it to the photos in this previous post. All the water is sucked out for irrigation purposes. I find it fascinating that we can allow one of the great American rivers to exist in this condition. The river runs about a half-mile from our house in Little Rock where it’s nearly a half-mile wide.

I had a great idea for photo of the rising full moon from the top of Pinnacle Mountain, so on Friday I set out to complete the first part of my idea, which was to get to the top of the mountain. The trail is only .75 of a mile long, but it’s uphill all the way. Pinnacle Mountain State Park is only a few miles west of Little Rock and it’s a very popular place. The trail traverses great expanses of huge rocks and so many people have been over the trail the rocks are worn slick in most places. Slick enough to slip on even when dry. The mountain is about 1,000 in elevation (the highest hill around) and provides a commanding view of the Arkansas River, Lake Maumelle and other lesser mountains to the south and west.

I got to the top about an hour before the moonrise and about two hours before sunset, so I had some time to kill. In wandering around the peak looking for something to shoot, I was drawn to the ubiquitous graffiti. I decided to make a little photographic study of the marred rocks.

The graffiti is pretty poor. Most of it was applied with Magic Marker™, though some used actual paint, and a few hardy souls have actually carved into the rock, like Bill in the top photo.

I used a little fill flash to bring up the names on the rock on this one.

My plan was to use my 70-300mm telephoto lens to shoot the moon just as it got above the horizon with the Little Rock skyline in the shot. I kept watching for the moon to rise, but I was concerned the haze on the horizon would obscure it until it got too high in the sky. That’s exactly what happened. “Best laid plans” and all that I guess. All I had left was to wait for the sunset.

This is the side of the Bill rock lit by the setting sun.

This is a six-shot panorama looking down the Arkansas River Valley toward Little Rock. Click the picture to make big and see the all the detail.

For the Bill shot I blended three shots of different exposures using a technique I learned from Tony Kuyper’s Web site.

Abby’s Gramps gave her a fishing rod on Easter and she had a big time fishing in the bathtub. When we got home she wanted a fishing rod at her house so she could fish in her own bathtub. So the next week we got her a Barbie fishing rod and tiny tackle box at Wal-Mart. I was looking beyond the bathtub, so I also got some hooks, bobbers and split-shot sinkers.

In order to go fishing for real, you’ve got to get a tin can and go dig up some worms in the back yard. She found digging worms enjoyable and we found quite a few, though they were small.

We headed out to Pinnacle Mountain to try our luck in the Little Maumelle River. At first it was pretty fun to watch the tiny bream come up and eat the worms right off the hook without actually getting the hook in their mouths. I got out my flash and was practicing balancing flash with the ambient light from the mid-day sun. It made these pics kinda look like Abby was standing in front of a fake-swamp backdrop.

But fishing sucks when you don’t catch any fish. They took all our worms and we went home in defeat.

So today we hooked up with Jim and Brayden and went to try our luck Monday afternoon at Maumelle Park, which is actually across the river from the city of Maumelle.

The ground was muddy and the river was muddy so we couldn’t see the fish in the water this time. Abby, who had gotten up way too early that morning, grew bored quickly. So did I. Then the geese came around and livened things up. (Get ready for cavalcade of goose photos.)

A bunch of adult geese roamed on the bank out of the water and Abby kept saying, “I want to catch one of them.” Then she would head toward them until they hissed at her.

Meanwhile Jim and Brayden actually caught some fish.

Brayden didn’t want to kiss his fish when I suggested it, but Jim was game.

Weird. It’s been weird this week. It feels like a pocket of calm before everything changes – again. Gina’s been out of town this week leaving Abby and me to forge ahead as a duo. Tuesday was extra dull and I asked Abby what she wanted to do and added that watching Calliou was not an option. She said, “Go to the Big Dam Bridge.” So that’s what we did.

I took my 70-300mm telephoto lens with us because I thought maybe there’d be some gulls flying around, but there weren’t. We walked up the bridge and watched a storm over Pinnacle Mountain. Then we walked down the bridge and out on an unpaved trail that branches off the North Little Rock River Trail. Abby was looking for fire ants. She’s taken a liking to stirring up their mounds and watching the ants go nuts and then running away shrieking. We got our shoes muddy and Abby saw some bugs, but no fire ants.

This looks like smog or something, but it was raining pretty hard just on the other side of the I-430 bridge. The rain never got to us, though.

I like the really long lens because it does great things with perspective and depth of field. Behind Abby in this shot there’s a bridge and big river and a dam but it all goes to some kind of gray amorphousness with the lens at 300mm.

Abby found some sand to play in and then cried when she realized we didn’t have her plastic beach shovel with us. Don’t be fooled by her facial expressions. She was having a good time.

Then I taught her how to levitate:

I got a fancy new tripod and ball head a couple weeks ago and I haven’t really gotten to break it in. I’ve been using an el cheapo model from Wal-Mart for a long time, but I got sucked into the thinking that a decent tripod is worth the big bucks. So I went all out (for me anyway) and got a carbon fiber number from Manfrotto. I paid a little extra to get the carbon because it’s lighter and I do a lot of hiking with my camera. I did get to try it out on a hike and though it’s bigger and more stable than my old junky tripod, it’s about the same weight. The shots of the waterfall I got on that hike weren’t even good enough to put on the blog. The tripod was an excellent buy. It does make a difference. I also was never convinced that a ball head would be that much better than the pan head you get with the cheap ‘pods. I was wrong. It makes a world of difference in the ease-of-use department.

On Sunday, I went down to the North Little Rock side of the Arkansas River to shoot the sunset over downtown Little Rock. The sunset sucked, but a great full moon was rising behind a thin veil of clouds. I cheated on the above shot by shooting the skyline and the moon separately and then combining them with my camera’s neat overlay feature. I shot the skyline from the tripod and then put on a long lens and shot the moon hand held. I don’t know if the moon ever appears in that spot if the sky from the vantage I used. But I do know the moon would never appear to be that big in a photo shot at that wide of an angle. So it’s pretty fake on at least two counts. I think it’s a little more impressive if you don’t resort to such fakery, but what the hell.

Tons of photogs have shot the skyline and posted them to Flickr, so I was trying for a little different look. This is what I came up with. The blue rail is on the Junction Bridge, an old railroad bridge that has been refitted for pedestrians.

I wanted to try out the tripod on a panorama so I shot three photos starting at the I-30 bridge continuing across the River Market and ending with the Junction Bridge. I stitched the three together in Photoshop. Normally I’m not a big fan of panos because they are awkward to view on a computer screen. (Click the photo to make it big enough to see. You’ll have to scroll back and forth to see it all. See what I mean about awkward.) I think it turned out well.

Ever since Abby saw the street car in the Little Rock River Market back around Christmas she’s wanted to ride it. The bone chilling cold kept us both inside all day Thursday and we were about ready to do harm to each other. We had to get out.

My original intention was to go to the Children’s Museum of Discovery in the River Market where I knew it would be warm and I hoped it would provide hours of entertainment for Abby. When we got down there and she saw the street car, she started screaming “Ride It! Ride It Now!” I had no choice.

So we rode the whole line. From the middle of the River Market t the Clinton Library to North Little Rock. It’s actually a good way to see the major sites of the river front area of both cities. I’ve got a whole series of shots of Abby sitting alone in the street car with major landmarks visible through the windows: the Old State House outside, Dickey Stephens Park, the Clinton Library, the Doubletree Hotel, the Peabody, the riverboat, the submarine, various liquor stores, a Subway, etc.

We did make it to the museum, where Abby threw a massive fit over something and we had to leave. She calmed down later and we went back, where she acted like a proper lady. I was worn out by then and didn’t take any decent photos in there.

Day 5 of the Atay-At-Home-Dad Experiment dawned bright and warm. Hallelujah! After another round with the cable company, Abby and I set out to see the other end of the Little Rock River Trail. The pedestrian bridge over the Murray Lock and Dam is the centerpiece of this part of the trail.

We got to the top in time to watch a barge lock through to the upstream side of the dam. Abby nearly had a tiny heart attack when the big horn blew to signal the opening of the lock, but later when we had made it back to the truck she said, “I was brave when the boat made that loud noise.”