Boxley Valley

After breakfast at the Ozark Cafe, we took the kids around to show them some places around Jasper. We stopped at the river access points at Hasty and Carver, and then went on to Sam's Throne. The fall colors at Sam's Throne were almost nonexistent; the trees were still almost all green. But since we had a six-year-old who was obsessed with elk, we headed over to Ponca to visit the Elk Education Center. The little museum is run by the state Game and Fish Commission and has exhibits on the elk and other local wildlife. It is not, sadly, a school for elk to attend where they have an elk teacher (which was what Elliott assumed it was). 

 Afterwards we drove through Boxley Valley, and the kids ran around one of the old barns there.



We went back to Boxley that evening, trying to see if the elk were out. We passed by a bunch of cars parked alongside the road (some legally parked, others not), with some people sitting out by their cars in foldable chairs. But the elk must have been camera shy because they did not grace the waiting throngs with their presence. We drove on through the valley, keeping an eye out. We didn't see any elk, but it did give me a chance to take a few pictures of some barns.



But Elliott still wanted to see the elk, so we both got up before sunrise and headed off in the dark towards Boxley Valley. There were already cars lined up alongside the road when we got to the valley. But of course, the elk had other plans. We drove on, heading deeper into the valley that had a nice amount of fog in it. I used the lack of elk as an excuse to stop and take a few pictures as the sun began to rise over the mountains.





I stopped again to get some pictures of this field, which had some cows instead of elk. I set the camera up on the tripod, and used the LCD screen on the back of the camera to zoom in on the cows to set the focus. It was good timing, since the cow I was zoomed in on decided this was the perfect time to start pooping.



There was some nice color in the sky from the sunrise, which lit up the sky above the old Boxley Baptist Church (built 1899).



And then we drove on and finally found some elk, grazing in a field near the old church.



Elliott was very excited to finally get to see the elk, after all this time:



After a while the elk began to move to the far side of the field where you couldn't really see them that well, so we headed off to get a few pictures in the valley. 



We drove by the old steam-powered sawmill, which is slowly collapsing upon itself. I stopped to get a few pictures, since it might not be standing for too much longer.



And then one last shot from Boxley, of the old schoolhouse/cabin near Lost Valley.

Back To The Buffalo

So this little blog just celebrated its twentieth anniversary, with the very first post being about a trip to the Buffalo River. So I guess it's fitting that this next post would be about another trip to the Buffalo. So here goes: Last weekend we made a family trip up to the river, in the hopes of catching some fall color. I wasn't sure what to expect. It has been so hot and dry this summer that I was worried we wouldn't have any fall colors at all.

And it is definitely a weird year for colors. Some trees had already turned a dull brown, the leaves looking dry and wilted. In some places the trees are still green and haven't changed at all. But there were a few places, especially along the river, that had some decent color. We drove up in the mountains, and then drove through Boxley Valley to see if the elk were out (Elliott has become obsessed with the elk and was desperate to see them). Of course we didn't see any, but we did stop by the low-water bridge at Ponca and looked around.



We then headed over to Jasper where we had a place for the weekend, and got a good dinner from the Jasper Pizza Company. The next morning I woke up before sunrise, and drove through the darkness towards the Steel Creek access along the river. It was still dark when I arrived, the river and the campground were quiet. A thick fog had developed overnight, adding to the sense of stillness. I set up the camera along the river, waiting for the early light to start fading in.



The river was really low, which wasn't surprising since we've hardly had any rain all summer.





The fog drifted and moved along the river, and along the tops of the mountains.



The sun was rising, but it hadn't managed to break through the thick fog yet.



And the view from a different part of the river, where Steele Creek meets up with the Buffalo (or where it would normally if the creek wasn't completely dry).





The sun was finally able to break through the fog as I was heading out. I stopped for a quick few pictures (and only a few, a truck appeared on the road behind me so I jumped back in my car). After that it was time to get some breakfast at the Ozark Cafe.

The Narrows

I have to apologize for the lack of any recent posts to any readers of this blog (if there are any out there still). This summer in Arkansas has been brutally hot, and the heat has stolen any willpower to go out and take pictures. But last week it was like someone flipped a switch, and it went from temps in the 100s to temps in the 80s. And with the cooler weather, it made me want to leave the precious embrace of air conditioning and go outside to take some pictures. So I reached out to my good friend Zack, and we decided to pay a visit to a spot along the Buffalo River called The Narrows.

It's not easy to reach The Narrows. You can either get in a canoe and float there, or drive down a bunch of dirt roads. The dirt road option can be tricky, however, since the road crosses Richland Creek a few times. And when the water is up, you can't safely cross. But since we have barely had any rain this summer, we definitely didn't have to worry about this. We followed the road as it ran by the creek, and made a stop at this old abandoned house.



The house was built in the "dogtrot" style, with an open breezeway between the rooms in the house. A seemingly new decoration to the house was a selection of bones and a skull, hung Blair Witch-style on a railing. I'm assuming those were placed there to scare people away (or maybe they were fans of Georgia O'Keefe paintings?).



The wooden beams on the old porch didn't seem like they were very stable so we didn't really explore too much around the old house:









We then headed further down the road, and passed by a cool old barn:



And then another one:







And then we headed further down the road, as it headed deeper into Richland Valley:



And we went by another barn, which seemed to be leaning off to one side. This one probably won't be around for too much longer.







And then we finally made it to the Narrows (or The Nars), which is a really cool spot along the Buffalo River. It is the remnant of an old mountain, that once sat in between the Buffalo River and Richland Creek. The two rivers carved and eroded away much of the mountain, so all that remains is a narrow sliver of rock that stands about 100 feet tall, but is only a few feet wide in places. The Buffalo River still flows beneath the unique bluff, but Richland Creek has since migrated to the other side of the valley.





And to just give a sense of scale of how narrow the bluff is here. On one side is the Buffalo River, and the other side is the road far below.



The last time I was here was in 2012. We had camped in a field nearby, and we were visited in the middle of the night by a herd of elk.





We carefully made it down the bluff without falling, and I got one last shot before we left. This bluff that we were just standing on stands tall on the left side of the image. The road runs to the Buffalo River just beyond.

2025

It's the end of the year as we know it. 2025 was a pretty chaotic year (not just because we have a pandemic baby running around our house). There was a lot of crazy and negative news during 2025, so it was good to find some positive things out in the world. We were able to do some traveling, and managed to visit four different National Parks. And in between parenting, working and napping, I found the time to take a few pictures. So here's a countdown of my favorite photos from 2025:

#25:

June 2: Cairo, Illinois.
Cairo sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and was once a prominent town. But it has been struggling for several decades now, and the historic downtown area is a sea of grass-covered lots. But a few old buildings are still stubbornly holding on, including the old Cairo Board of Trade Building (built 1912).

#24:

August 12: Little Rock, Arkansas.
The original plan that night was to get some pictures of lightning over downtown Little Rock, but the storm clouds fizzled out and drifted away. Clear skies were left, which provided a good opportunity to instead get a shot of the moon rising by the capitol dome.

#23:

April 26: Broadwater Hollow, Buffalo National River, Arkansas.
2025 was a particularly good year for waterfalls in the Ozark Mountains. And Paige Falls at Broadwater Hollow was looking really nice in the Spring. It's a great waterfall to visit - especially because it's a really short and easy hike to get there.

#22:

March 24: The Sinks, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee.
It was just after sunrise when I made it to The Sinks, a dramatic waterfall along the Little River. It was a cold and rainy morning, and I had to hide the camera under an umbrella. When we went back there later on during the trip, the sun was out and the parking lot was completely full.

#21:

January 18: Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

And also:

October 18: Near Hamilton, Arkansas.
My five-year old son Elliott is still obsessed with all things cars (including trucks, trains, fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, helicopters, excavators, school busses, and also just the movie Cars). So for him, here are pictures of two old cars I found while out driving through eastern Arkansas. Both have been parked for awhile, gathering dust and rust like a rock gathers moss.

#20:

September 12: Near Stuttgart, Arkansas.
I accidentally arrived too late to this old rice dryer and had to set up the camera in the dark. But I wasn't alone out there, I was greeted by about one billion mosquitoes who were eager to swarm anyone silly enough to be standing out there at night.

#19:

March 27: Tremont, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee.
We went to the Smoky Mountains over Spring Break, but Spring hadn't yet made it to the Smokies. The trees were still bare and devoid of leaves. But you could still catch some great color in the trees, when the sun set low enough to cast the mountains in golden light.

#18:

November 19: The Edge, New York City, New York.
Caroline and I took a little trip up to New York to celebrate our anniversary, and one of the first places we visited was the Edge observation deck at Hudson Yards. The deck, which I assume is named after the guitar player from U2, sits on the 100th floor and is billed as the highest skydeck in the Western Hemisphere. It was a pretty good way to kick off our visit.

#17:

May 25: Marty's Falls, Smith Creek Nature Preserve, Arkansas.
It started pouring rain as we started the short hike to this waterfall, and of course I had forgotten to bring a rain jacket or an umbrella. So I was completely soaked by the time we reached the waterfall. Luckily there was a nice shelter under the bluff, so we could get pictures of the falls without getting drenched again.

#16:

March 24: Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee.
This river might be called little, but it ranks large in terms of scenic beauty. Someone was even kind enough to build a road alongside the creek, and it's nearly impossible to not stop at every single pull-off to take a few pictures.

#15:

November 23: Roosevelt Island, New York City, New York.
Roosevelt Island is worth visiting if you are going to New York. It provides great views of Manhattan and of the Queensboro Bridge. And you can also ride across the river in a really fun little tram!

#14:

February 5: Big Dam Bridge, Little Rock, Arkansas.
This was taken on a really foggy night, and the lights on the Murray Lock and Dam seemed to disappear into the misty expanse of the Arkansas River.

#13:

April 26: Big Creek Cave Falls, Ozark National Forest, Arkansas.
This spot, where a 30 foot-tall waterfall drops out of a small cave on the side of a bluff, might easily rank as one of the coolest waterfalls in the state.

#12:

April 27: Hammerschmidt Falls, Buffalo National River, Arkansas.
I was really glad I decided to do this hike, since it ended up combining two of my favorite things to take pictures of (fog and waterfalls).

#11:

November 20: Grand Central Terminal, New York City, New York.
The Main Hall of Grand Central Terminal is so immense that you can't capture the whole thing in one photograph. I carried a fisheye lens with me all the way from Arkansas just so I could try to capture as much of the cavernous space as possible.

#10:

June 26: Chicago, Illinois.
I woke up before dawn and walked over to the Michigan Avenue Bridge to get a few pictures. I had to kinda zoom in some on the buildings from this angle, since there is an ugly and tacky logo on one of the buildings that I was trying to avoid getting in the shot too much.

#9:

October 25: Roark Bluff, Buffalo National River, Arkansas.
I've probably taken hundreds of pictures from this exact spot along the Buffalo River, but I can't resist. It's such a beautiful spot, especially with a little bit of fall color.

#8:

November 21: Manhattan Bridge, New York City, New York.
The Manhattan Bridge is a great place to take pictures. People have cut convenient holes in the fencing that are just large enough for a camera lens to poke through. The only downside are the subway trains that rumble by every few minutes, shaking the bridge like an earthquake and messing up long exposure photos.

#7:

October 25: Buffalo National River, Arkansas.
I was standing in the river to get this photo (and the water was pretty cold). Luckily I didn't drop my camera in the water.

#6:

June 27: Hancock Tower, Chicago, Illinois.
The views from the observation deck at the Hancock Tower are great, but it is incredibly hard to get pictures from there. The windows are covered with a thick coat of smudges and fingerprints. And as it got dark, the glass was so full of reflections that it was like looking in a mirror. But I managed to find a little box by one of the windows, which could be used as a temporary tripod so I could attempt a few long exposure photos.

#5:

November 1: Near the Mulberry River, Ozark Mountains, Arkansas.
This old blacksmith shop sits along a quiet dirt road in the Ozarks. It's a bit of a hassle to get there (the road is muddy and steep), but it's worth the effort.

#4:

April 4: The Old Mill, North Little Rock, Arkansas.
It had stormed that day, and the little waterfall by the mill was roaring. As a native of NLR/Dogtown, I've been to the Old Mill many times, but I've never seen it with this much water.

#3:

November 19: Central Park, New York City, New York.
The view of Midtown Manhattan from the Gapstow Bridge in Central Park is pretty spectacular. But I was a little disappointed that I didn't bump into the Pigeon Lady from Home Alone 2 there.

#2:

June 30: Mt. Baldy, Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana.
Indiana Dunes is often unfairly ranked as one of the worst National Parks in the country. But we had a great visit, and we were treated to an amazing sunset there on the last night of our visit. It's pretty amazing how you can see the Chicago skyline from the park, over 50 miles away on the other side of Lake Michigan.

#1:

November 12: Faulkner County, Arkansas.
Getting to see the Northern Lights in person was one of the most memorable experiences of the year, especially since it’s so rare that they are visible this far  south. And I was extremely grateful to share it with Jonah, and grateful that the pictures were in focus too!

And finally, a big thanks to anyone who is reading this. I truly do appreciate anyone who stumbles on this little blog, which will actually be celebrating it's 20th anniversary this year! Happy New Year, let's hope that 2026 is a good one.