It can be said that there are way more parking places than buildings in downtown Little Rock. While that fact is not great for urban planning, all the parking decks do sometimes provide some interesting angles to get pictures from. One recent weekend I headed downtown around sunset and snuck up to the top of a parking deck that was devoid of any other cars or people. The top of the deck provided this view of the distant Pulaski County Courthouse.
A few blocks over is another parking deck, right by the main branch of the Central Arkansas Library. It provides this great view of President Clinton Avenue and the River Market.
This is one of my favorite parking decks to take pictures from. The view is great, plus you can just hop on down the stairs and get a pint (or three) from the Flying Saucer.
One activity we started during the pandemic would be to drive downtown and have a family picnic. We would pack up the kids, order takeout from Flying Fish and then find a shady spot on the grounds of the Clinton Library to eat a good meal while being socially distanced from everyone else. Now that things are opening back up, there is usually a good crowd of people in the park and on the bridge. And also, tons of people getting their pictures taken. It never fails, but there's always lots of people getting their senior/graduation/engagement/pregnancy photos taken at the park around sunset. I apologize to all of the other photographers out there who have had to photoshop us out of the background of their pictures.
But after eating our delicious meals from Flying Fish, we burned off the fried foods by taking a walk across the bridge. This night, some interesting clouds were reflected in the high and muddy waters of the river. The river was high, you can see how it had flooded the wooden walkways at the wetlands below.
Along the road between Dover and Hagarville sits Annie's Chapel, a quaint old church that was built in 1886. I wasn't able to find out much about the church besides the year that it was built (and that it was once a Methodist church)
I don't know who Annie was, or if anyone ever knew the answer to the question of Annie are you ok? Are you ok? Are you ok Annie?
Anyways, the door to the church matched the rest of the building with faded and peeling paint.
I invited myself inside and looked around. The internor was graced with a collection of pews, all covered with dust and cobwebs. Next to the altar was this old piano...
The church sits near the delightfully named community of Booger Hollow. One idea of where the name originated is because back in the olden days (after the end of the Civil War), the valley was considered an inhospitable area. The rough road that headed down from the mountains was a good place for bandits and highwaymen, who would attack and rob travellers. Because it was a "booger" of a place, the name Booger Hollow stuck.
Another idea was that the community sat between two cemeteries, and that one should need to bring a friend with them if they were walking around at night. The word Booger here instead is a combination of the words boo and bogus. But however the name was derived, I think we can all agree that it is definitely a strange name to pick. And that perhaps those early settlers should have dug deeper and pulled out a better name for the area.
Tucked along a country road near the small town of Dover is the old Rushing Church. Faded and peeling paint adorn the front and sides, and a wooden steeple with broken boards sits atop the church.
I searched for any information about the church and its history but came up empty-handed.
There is a small sign over the door that says "Established 1899," but that I'm not sure if that means when the congregation was established or if it's when the church was built. But one definite way to tell the age of the building is the thick layer of moss and lichen that have grown upon the stone stairs over the years...
