Petit Jean

As I was driving home on Easter Sunday, I made a quick detour over to Petit Jean Mountain. It was a nice Spring day - with the trees starting to pop out with leaves and splashes of white from dogwood and bradford pear trees. I didn't think that I would have enough time to do the trail to Cedar Falls - or enough time to do those falls any justice. So I opted instead to take the Cedar Creek trail, which runs along the creek above the falls.

I like this trail, but it doesn't seem to get many visitors. It doesn't have a 95-foot tall waterfall on it, but the trail does pass by some other small falls. I hardly ever see any other hikers out there, it seems like this trail is a bit under-appreciated.

The trail is a loop, which drops down a hillside by the old pioneer cabin. I went down one part of the trail, crossing over the creek by a bridge and quickly finding this waterfall.


The water of the creek shoots over some boulders and then zig zags through a rocky course.


The flow of the creek as it moves downstream:


I kinda cheated on the trail that day, from here I turned around and headed back up the hill to the parking area. Then I went and took the other part of the loop, which heads back down the hill by a small stream that is filled with several waterfalls.








This was actually the new camera's first-ever trip out to get waterfall pictures. I think that it made it through with flying colors (which were then promptly over-saturated in Photoshop).

Dallas

The soccer game was played in the afternoon, which left the evening free to pursue some photography in Dallas. Usually when we go to the games, we rarely stray far from the stadium. So I headed south, and ended up in downtown just before sunset.

I kinda know my way around downtown Dallas, but I still got lost and turned around by one-way streets. But I eventually ended up at the Main Street Garden Park.

The park is brand-new, it was dedicated just last November. The neon sign here used to apparently hang over a parking garage on the site of the park, and was refurbished and placed here instead.

The Dallas skyline from the park:


I walked around some, attempting to get some shots looking up at the tall buildings. I wasn't the only one out there...


I had a car pull up next to me and the driver ask for directions to American Airlines Arena. I had to admit that I didn't know the way, and she gave me a suspicious look like I was being deliberately unhelpful. I realized that they must have taken me for a local, since I was wearing a FC Dallas jersey at the time. After saying I was also a tourist, I tried my best to help by offering a vague "it's somewhere over there." I don't think it helped.

The sun was setting and casting some neat light in the sky, which was reflecting off of the glass sides of the Bank of America building. By the time I got close enough for a shot, however, the good light had vanished.


Before the trip I tried to scout possible shooting locations (which was comprised of searching for "Dallas skyline" photos on Flickr and then seeing if I could figure out where they were taken at). I found this spot, located across the freeway from the Dallas Museum of Art. I even looked this up on Google Streetview, and picked out the spot I wanted to stand to get a picture.

But as I got there, the spot I wanted was blocked off for some construction. Dang. So I went over and tried to get a shot from further down the road, as the sky turned to night.

And the curve on the building on the right isn't casued by lens distortion, it's actually shaped like that.

The nearby Arts District is also home to a cool old church that I've been wanting to get a picture of for years. So I crossed the freeway and stopped for a few shots...


The church is the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe. Construction on this neat old church started in 1898 and finished in 1902. The church has the second largest Catholic church membership in the country.


I had been looking forward to getting shots of downtown Dallas at night for a few weeks now. But of course, the typical Cormack family luck would raise its ugly head once again. The one night that I was able to get pictures downtown just also happened to be the same night as "Earth Hour." Now Earth Hour is where cities across the world switch off the lights on major buildings and landmarks, in an effort to raise awareness for environmental causes.

Downtown Dallas also participated in Earth Hour, much to my dismay. At 8:30, the bright city lights that I had driven down there to photograph were promptly switched off. Oh well, I drove around and stopped for a few more shots. This one is the old Dallas County Courthouse, located by Dealey Plaza. In the distance is the dimly-lit Bank Of America Building.


I drove a few blocks over and went to the top of a parking deck that had some good views of the skyline.

I guess the Dallas World Aquarium, in the foreground, didn't get the memo that they were supposed to switch off the lights.

FC Dallas vs. Houston

The 2010 MLS season finally kicked off last week, after a long pre-season and threats of a possible player strike. I headed down to Dallas for another soccer pilgrimage, visiting the Holy Land of Pizza Hut Park in the suburb of Frisco. Saturday was a beautiful and sunny day, except for the wind. Gusts up to 40 mph would race through the stadium, picking up any paper you had and sending it over to the other side of the stadium.

The game was played during the day, which meant that it would be easier to get decent pictures. So before the game I got a seat in the corner, close to one of the goals and hoped for the best. It is frustrating to make the 5 hour drive into Texas to see your favorite team lose.

Dallas was playing their biggest rival, the hated Houston Dynamo.


My seat was a good one, with clear views of the field and the players as they worked their way towards goal.




Houston forward (and former Dallas player) Dominic Oduro taking a shot - which missed, luckily. I liked that guy when he played for Dallas, so it kinda breaks my heart to see him playing for Houston.




Now I hate to post this next picture, taken in the 36th minute. This was taken right after Houston player Mike Chabala took a shot, which would go in for the first goal of the game.


But just a few minutes later Dallas would even the score with a goal from Atiba Harris. That goal happened on the other side of the field, so I didn't get a good shot of it. But here is a shot of Harris (#16), taken a few minutes later.


Soccer is perhaps one of the more difficult sports to get decent pictures of. The action is so spread-out over the course of the large field. It helps when the players decide to do something right in front of you. Dallas player David Ferreira fought to control the ball against two Houston players, just a few feet away from my seat.




In the middle of the second half, the Dallas bench players went by while they were warming up. This is Dallas midfielder Eric Avila, who would go into the game a sub about 15 minutes later.

The first 5000 fans at the game got a FC Dallas captain's armband. The friend I met at the game got there too late to get an armband, so I gave his young son my armband. After the game he got it autographed by Avila. I was jealous...

Dallas was getting more and more shots in the second half. Here is Jeff Cunningham, the league's top goal scorer last year and the person an Arkansas waterfall is named after, taking a shot (which missed, dangit Jeff!).




And a few more of Jeff Cunningham:


And just before taking another shot:

That one didn't go in, and the game would end in a 1-1 draw.



And one last shot from the game:


And the video highlights:

Union Station

I had several relatives come into town this weekend, so I spent my weekend acting like a tourist in Little Rock. We made two visits to the Historic Arkansas Museum to show off my photo show (which will only be up for a few more weeks). Then we visited the River Market and rode the trolley on a day when downtown was surprisingly busy.

On Saturday night I travelled out into a storm - the same one that was dumping several inches of snow in the Ozarks. It was just a cold rain in Little Rock, but I had my rickety but trustworthy umbrella with me. I ended up stopping at Union Station, the old train station downtown. The station was built in 1921, and at the time was the largest train station in the country that only served one rail carrier.


I really like the idea of rail travel, and wish we had a better rail system in this country. Right now, Amtrak is just too inefficient to actually be any good. You can still catch an Amtrak train at Union Station, heading off towards either Dallas or Chicago. To head down to Dallas, you have to be there at 3:10 am. And for Chicago, the stop is at 11:40 at night. Not all that convenient, is it?

The problem with Amtrak is that it is set up wrong. What we really need are shorter connections, between closer cities. How cool would it be to be able to take the train to Hot Springs for the day, or to Fayetteville for a football game? The closest major city to us is Memphis, and if you wanted to take a train there it would involve leaving Little Rock and travelling to Dallas, and then San Antonio. Then you go to Houston, then New Orleans, and then north to Memphis. A trip that takes maybe 2 hours by car would end up taking over 2 days by train.

To fix our rail system would take a lot of money and investment, and would be expensive. But then again so is the interstate highway system. It's not practical to take a trans-continental rail journey anymore, but shorter trips between cities would make more sense. I've given this a lot of thought actually, so if President Obama is reading this, please feel free to email me and ask me about my ideas - I'd be happy to help!

St. Patrick's Day

I headed out after dusk tonight for a quick visit to the Big Dam Bridge. The lights on the bridge were green, in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Since the city isn't willing to dye the Arkansas River green, like they do in Chicago, I guess this is the next best thing.


And here are a few random other shots, taken the past week or so. On Saturday, I wanted to go visit some sort of waterfall but didn't have much time. So instead I ended up driving around Lake Conway...






And the other day I headed out after work for a quick visit to the Ouachita National Forest near Williams Junction. I had heard a few vague mentions of a waterfall out there, so I went to investigate. I never did find a waterfall, so the trip was a bit of a waste. But at least I did stop for some barn pictures...