A Walk In The Woods

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Abby got two long nights of sleep Friday and Saturday, so we knew we needed to somehow exhaust her on Sunday if we expected her to go to sleep before midnight. We figured a 4.5-mile hike would be a good start. We headed up the Seven Hollows area at Petit Jean State Park, which offers the bonus of a chance to be crushed by falling trees. Luckily for us winds were forecast to be in the 15-25 mph range.

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The hollows are really small shallow canyons formed by the erosion of the flat-topped Petit Jean Mountain. A mile or so down the trail we stopped for lunch and a family photo.

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We stopped off to marvel at the natural bridge. It was nice to see the graffiti had been cleaned off the rock formation since my last visit a few years ago.

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A spur trail leads up one of the hollows to an area dubbed the Grotto, which features a waterfall at the head of the canyon. The waterfall was just a trickle. A lot of nice fall color remained and this is the view looking up from the floor of the Grotto. It was at about this point in the hike when Abby and I stopped to observe two strangely acting grasshoppers that shortly began mating. Abby opined that she thought they were fighting and I unthinkingly remarked that I thought they were making new grasshoppers. Well that launched a conversation that Gina and I weren’t prepared to have just yet. So we just made some vague comments and fended off the questions until Abby gave up on it about an hour later.

Not Quite Done

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Despite countless visits to Pinnacle Mountain since moving to Little Rock in 1994, I’d never made the hike to the east quarry area until today. The trail head is over on the north side of the park at the visitor center. At the beginning of the trail there’s a nice deck with a great view of the Arkansas River. The east quarry is about a mile and a half from the trail head and offers an even better view of the river. The photo above is the Big Maumelle River with Lake Maumelle way off in the background.

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I was pretty surprised by the amount of color still on the trees. I wished I had been up there last weekend when the color was probably at its best.

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Speak Of The Devil

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An extended contingent of the Dailey family trucked up to Devil’s Den State Park for a camping trip and general fall frolic. We had three campers involved and my parents rented one of the rustic CCC cabins. The fall colors were blazing, but with all the visiting going on I didn’t get to really shoot many pictures. I did get one decent photo one morning as the sun rose above the mountain.

Fall Has Fell

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Abby, Gina and I embarked on our annual fall foliage expedition a couple of weeks ago. He set up our camper, Daisy, at the Buffalo Point campground as our base of operations for the weekend. The fall colors weren’t quite at their peak overall, but it was close. The dogwoods put on a vivid display of red.

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We toured the Rush ghost town, home to a few historic buildings. The former blacksmith shop is my favorite for the great colors in the weathered wood siding. Rush was a Zinc mining center in the early 1900’s and was evidently a classic boom-bust town.

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We dropped by the Collier Homestead at Tyler Bend to check out the historic structures and hike down to the river overlook.

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Abby and I posed for a pic at the overlook.

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I tried to do some fancy-schmancy flash photography, but my models were fairly divaish and I really didn’t get very far.

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Fair Is Fair

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We made our annual trip to the Arkansas State Fair a couple weeks ago and the most astonishing thing happened: Abby had a great time. I realize that sounds snarky, but it’s not intended that way. It was truly astonishing that she had a great time. Our previous four trips to the fair ranged from Abby having sorta of a good time for awhile to Abby being miserable. She’s got a reputation for not enjoying things that other kids enjoy. But on this magical night in October, she had a ball from start to finish. She even rode the swingy swinging twirling thing pictured above. Twice, She was having so much riding and game playing that we didn’t make it to see the animals or the Hall of Industry or the freak show.

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The fair is a target-rich environment for photographing things you don’t see every day, but it’s hard to shoot good stuff and enjoy Abby enjoying herself.

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Falling Waters

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Arkansas had some uncharacteristically heavy rains in early August, making the waterfalls run at a time of the year when even decent-sized rivers are generally down to a trickle. Gina and I had a day when Abby was occupied elsewhere and ran up to Falling Water Creek to check out the high water. We checked in with Fuzzy Butt Falls, a waterfall I had not been to. The fall is in a small canyon on a small tributary of Falling Water Creek and is a beautiful spot.