Space Invaders

For about ten minutes yesterday, both the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle could be seen traveling across the night sky. The Space Shuttle had recently just undocked from the Space Station, so they both appeared as two dots traveling quickly across the horizon.

I met my friend John Blakney in downtown Little Rock to try to get some shots of the ISS and the Space Shuttle. We set up on the stage of the Riverfront Amphitheater, which provided a good view of the Junction Bridge. The plan was to get a shot of the ISS and the Shuttle as they streaked across the sky high above the bridge. We waited as it got dark, enjoying a cool night (though the mosquitoes were a bit bad).


Around 8:13pm, the ISS and Space Shuttle appeared in the sky. They were as bright as stars, and moving quickly to the northwest. They soon moved above the Junction Bridge, but they were higher in the sky than what I had planned, so I tried to change my shot in the hopes of being able to capture them. I couldn't see the lights in the viewfinder, so I just guessed at where they would be at and tried to get a few shots. This is really the best of what I got.


The ISS and the Space Shuttle were moving fast - about 18,000 mph - so they quickly moved beyond the bridge to the north. After a few minutes, they faded back into the night sky.

After that I walked around the Junction Bridge and got a few more shots (and provided dinner for a few more mosquitoes).

FC Dallas vs. D.C. United

Over Labor Day weekend, we made another trip down to Dallas for a soccer game. I wasn't sure about going at first, since it's a five hour drive and we'd have to get tickets, a tank or three of gas and a hotel room. But the season is almost over, and there are just a few home games left. And since Dallas has managed to eliminate themselves from the playoffs already, the season is going to be even shorter.

Also Dallas was playing D.C. United. Ever since my very first MLS game (Dallas vs. Chicago, on March 18,2000), I've seen nearly every single MLS team play. But I had somehow missed seeing D.C. play, so I was ready to cross them off the list. Now the only teams I haven't seen play are the newest ones - Toronto and Seattle.

It was a perfect night for watching the game - it wasn't very hot outside. It's a shame more people weren't at the game, since it was also a lot of fun to watch. We got seats that weren't close to the field, which was good for watching the game but not so great for getting pictures. Most of my shots were blurry.

I'm not really sure what's going on here...



In the 18th minute, Dallas would score on a goal from forward Jeff Cunningham (seen below). It was Cunningham's tenth goal of the season, which ties him for second in all-time MLS goals with 114. He would nearly get another goal just two minutes later, but it bounced off the crossbar.





Not really sure what's going on in this one either...

D.C. United scored a goal in the 38th minute, and the game was tied 1-1 at halftime. Also at halftime, a nice little sunset developed over Pizza Hut Park. I tried to get some shots to turn into a panoramic view, but they didn't turn out right. It didn't help that there wasn't a good crowd at the stadium and that the soccer pitch had faint football lines painted on it (gross!). But this was our view at halftime:


Just five minutes into the second half, Dallas would score again thanks to midfielder David Ferreria. But it would be for nothing, after a controversial call six minutes later led to a red card against a Dallas defender and a penalty kick to D.C. United. The PK and red card were given because a D.C. player, Santino Quaranta tumbled to the ground in the penalty box. That call is being disputed since it looks like Quaranta dove and wasn't actually fouled. He didn't help things by saying in an interview later that: “He hit me, man. I should have scored, I was just waiting for him to hit me. You know [Moreno] is going to score the penalty so, I thought it was a penalty. . . . He was behind me, he wasn’t in front of me, so it was a penalty, right? I mean that’s the obvious rule here, right? If he’s behind me and I’m in front of him and he touches me, I’m going down.”

I'm sure no one really cares, but this is a link to a video that shows what happened:
http://www.3rddegree.net/2009/09/08/one-more-angle/

But the PK was taken, which was converted and gave D.C. the tying goal.


The red card meant that Dallas would finish out the game with only ten players. With 30 minutes left in the game, it was nerve-wracking to see if they would manage to hold onto a tie.






But the game did end in a tie, with Dallas putting a lot of pressure on D.C. It was a good game, at least they tied. It does suck to drive all the way to Dallas to watch them lose!

After that we went back to our hotel in Frisco, which was this fancy new New York style loft hotel. All the rooms were designed to look like a loft, which meant that it was small and was wackily laid-out. The weird part was the bathroom, which featured a door that didn't close all the way, so that you could peek in and see what someone was doing. I guess that makes it trendy?

Downtown

Instead of my typical after-work nap, yesterday I drove to downtown Little Rock and attempted some cityscape shots. I wanted to get a different view of the skyline, so I searched for some conveniently located parking decks. The goal was to get a good view from the top of the deck, hopefully one with an interesting mixture of downtown buildings.

Now parking decks are both a curse and a blessing. The blessing is that it provides a unique view of the city, something that you would only be able to get from standing on a roof somewhere. The curse part is simple - they're ugly. And some really cool old buildings were probably torn down to be replaced by the concrete dullness of the parking deck.

I've managed to sneak my way into a few parking decks downtown, but I went into three last night that I'd never been to before. The first was by the Regions Building. I was able to actually drive up all the way to the top, but the view there wasn't all that great. It did look interesting looking north towards the Pulaski County Courthouse, but the view was marred by another parking deck and vast empty parking lots. But I did manage to get this shot, of downtown reflected in the Regions Building.


I drove off to another nearby parking deck and wasn't impressed with the view there either. So I went off to another, next to the Bank of America Building. Now the third time was a charm. The view was decent, and provided at least a different view of the city. The parking deck isn't the most smartly laid out, and felt way too narrow and claustrophobic to drive through. But it would have to do anyways, there wasn't much light left in the day. The sunset was developing behind me, causing some awesome light in the sky.


The parking deck provided a good view of the Union Bank Building, which was reflecting in it the sunset, the Bank of America Building and the Metropolitan Bank Building. The condo tower to the left is lit up by the sunset, and the full moon hangs over to the right.


And one last shot of the Union Bank Building, looking towards the south and Capitol Avenue.


The other side of the parking deck has some good views looking west towards the Metropolitan Bank Building and the Regions Bank Building.


And last but not least, one more shot of the Metropolitan Bank Building.


I always feel like I'm trespassing while going up on these parking decks. But all of them were almost empty anyways, so hopefully the owners won't mind too much.

Collier Homestead

The Collier Homestead is an old homesteader’s place that sits tucked away in the woods at Tyler Bend. From the parking area it is a very short hike through the woods to the clearing where the homestead sits. An old fence surrounds the main building and a small out building, all of which sat in the silence of the early morning light.


The Collier family moved to this spot on a hill overlooking the Buffalo River in 1928. The family lived there for about fifty years, but it was abandoned and nearly lost to the woods by the time the National Park Service purchased the buildings in 1987.

The buildings are in good shape considering their age. On the inside you can even spot patches of newspaper along the walls, which was used as a make-shift insulation. The windows are open now to the elements – this was taken looking out from the dark interior of the main building.


There is a trail that continues on and leads to an overlook of the Buffalo River . We didn’t make it that far, but did walk down to this other old building (some sort of shed?). I stood in some poison ivy to get this one shot…

Buffalo River

I managed to somehow hurt my back last week, which left me hobbling and limping around like an old man. So what’s the best thing to do when your back is hurt? I don’t know, but going camping probably isn’t the best idea. The whole “sleeping on the ground” aspect didn’t help things out with the back, and the fact that I accidentally left my pillow at home just made things worse.

But it was worth it, since we were making another camping trip up to the Buffalo National River. It would be like the camping trip we took in June, except this time we would camp at Tyler Bend on Friday night, and then float the river on Saturday. I was camping again with Zack Andrews and two other friends, both of whom are in college at UCA. College students? I already felt old, and my hurt back didn’t help matters. I figured I’d spend most of the weekend sitting in front of the tent yelling at those kids to keep off my lawn.

When we went camping in June, we reached Steele Creek to find the campground full. On Friday we wanted to quickly make our way up to the Buffalo River in order to secure a camping spot. There was no need to rush, the campground was nearly deserted. We would be the only people camping in the walk-in campsites, and we would have the whole area to ourselves (except at night, more about that later).

After dinner, it started to get dark and a neat sunset began to develop across the sky. I ran out to a nearby field that had a nice collection of hay bales, sitting below the low hills that were beginning to be put in shadow from the setting sun.


From there we drove down to the river, as the clouds above us lit up.


And that cloud reflected in the waters of the Buffalo River.


It was a perfect night, it felt like autumn. A cold front had just passed through, clearing out the haze and opening up the sky to millions of stars. I have lived in the city for so long that I am still amazed to see a lot of stars in the sky, especially without having to compete with any light pollution. The skies over Tyler Bend were clear, and filled with stars.

So we decided to head back out to the same field as before, and attempted some light painting with those hay bales. This was a 60 second exposure, and I walked around the hay bales with a flashlight casting some light on them. The moon must have been lurking behind the hill because of the light hitting the clouds.

A fair warning, there are about to be a ton of hay pictures. I guess I had hay-fever out there.

I moved the camera around towards a part of the sky with no clouds and therefore many more stars. This was another 60 second exposure, with a flashlight pointed at the hay bales and then randomly shining along the ground. I’m sure it would have looked pretty bizarre to anyone driving past.

If you look closely, there is faint trail from a shooting star (on the lower left of the sky).

After that it was time to try to get some sleep, which I didn’t get much of. I could never get comfortable, and my make-shift pillow (two t-shirts) wasn’t helping much. And then our little campground was besieged by raccoons. For most of the night, you could hear them trotting by the tents, fighting and trying their hardest to steal every scrap of our food. Even after being scared off a few times, they would relentlessly return. The eventually made off with about half of our food, even though we followed all the directions of proper food storage. We hung the food on a pole, a good seven feet off the ground. But somehow the raccoons managed to tear into the bag and make off with what should have been Saturday’s lunch. I have no clue how they managed to get into something that far off the ground. My theory is that they know acrobatics.

The damage could have been much worse; they actually tried to get into the cooler. There were muddy raccoon paw prints along the top, as if they were trying to open it up to steal the beer inside. Makes sense though, after you steal the food, you need to wash it down with something.

At dawn, our campsite was covered in a thick layer of fog. I got out of the tent and inspected some of the raccoon damage, and then drove back to the same field we were at the night before. It was a cold morning, especially considering that it’s August in Arkansas. The thermometer in the car said it was a chilly 59 degrees outside.

Fog had engulfed most of the field, and the hay bales stood out like lonely sentries.




We got into the car and drove to the river, which wasn’t as foggy as I had hoped. I wasn’t too impressed with this picture, but I’m going to post it because it almost looks like the Loch Ness Monster was spotted in the waters of the Buffalo. Or maybe the Buffalo River has its own sort of fabled water creature lurking in the deep fathoms below the surface….


And it was also a good spot to get some shots of the new Vibe out in the elements. I need to get more pictures of it before it's all dinted and dinged up.


While it wasn’t as foggy as I hoped, there was still some fog rising off the still waters of the river…


We got back in the car and drove down a dirt road that went through a field surrounded by hay bales (of course). The road cut through the field before finally ending back at the river. By now the sun had risen high enough that it was beginning to shine through the fog, casting the area in a nice soft glow.


Tall flowers grew alongside the road, and I stopped to get a few shots. I was a bit surprised to see this grasshopper just hanging out on one of the flowers.


Turning around, this was the view looking back down the road. The sun was brilliantly lighting up the fog.


And one more shot of flower and grasshopper, with some foggy hay bales in the background.


About this time I realized that I was standing near one of the most scenic rivers in the country, and here I was taking a ton of pictures of hay bales. So we hurried down to the river, which already had some canoes out and waiting to be used that day. Actually when we started our canoe trip later that day, we’d put-in at this very same spot.


The sun was nearly up, and it was quickly burning off the fog.


Walking back towards the car, I stopped and got this shot looking down at the ground. These rocks line the river banks, placed here by the river and eroded over time. It’s crazy how they are perfectly placed, like the pieces of a puzzle.


And one last shot, looking back down the dirt road heading down to the river.


Just a few hours later we’d be floating the river, while the raccoons were no doubt plotting their revenge for not getting to drink our beer.