Downtown and the Junction Bridge

I hate summers in Arkansas. It is hot and muggy, and the lack of rain dries up most of the waterfalls. Yesterday was the hottest day of the year - with a high of 101. Thanks to the high humidity, the heat index was somewhere around 2000 degrees (give or take). With weather like that, you just want to sit in air conditioning and not do anything at all.

So of course, my day on Saturday was spent helping a friend move. And yeah it wasn't great, I don't think I've ever sweated that much in my life. You could just stand outside and start to sweat - it sucked. Only three more months until fall!

It wasn't that bad when I went out Friday night to take some pictures along the Junction Bridge (probably only in the low 90s). Usually when I take pictures there I have some sort of bizarre encounter with a crazy person. But not that night, in fact people were actually very polite. One person walked by and said "how are you doing, sir?"

But this was the view of the Little Rock skyline, as the sun was setting:


And as it got darker, another view of the skyline from the bridge, along with the crescent moon.

A Big Dam Sunset

Made a quick trip over to the Big Dam Bridge a few nights ago. I was a bit surprised that these pictures turned out, especially since I wasn't expecting there to be a good sunset that night.

Scott

On Saturday I met my friend John and we drove out to the small town of Scott, located just a few miles east of North Little Rock. Scott is an old farming town, with many old silos and barns. Also, it's home to the Cotham's restaurant, which is where we started out our trip. Alas, I didn't order the famed Hubcap Burger, just a puny regular sized one (and I wasn't able to finish that, anyways).

We headed south and passed through miles of farmland on each side of the road. Along the way we passed by this old church, tucked away along a side road.


On the other side of the church was an old cemetery, which was nearly obscured in some parts by tall grass. It was a melancholy kind of place, it somehow seemed like the only recent visitors to these graves were grasshoppers. Some other parts of the small cemetery looked like it was more taken care of, at least.

This area was the home of several large plantations, and we passed by several groves of pecan trees that perhaps belonged to a former plantation. We stopped at this one spot, where a large barn had recently collapsed in on itself. All that is left now is the roof, which seemed to survive the fall ok.

I walked up to it and had a peak inside. There was still hay sitting in the barn's loft, which was now ground level.

We moved on and stopped at another old plantation building, which might have once been an old sharecropper's house. It was empty and abandoned now...


Or well it wasn't exactly abandoned. I was interested in the mailbox in front of the old house, and got a few pictures of it. I noticed that there was an old newspaper in the mailbox, and I began to reach in to see what the date was. I stopped before my hand got about halfway there, because I noticed that there was a big mud dauber's nest in the mail box, with a mean looking wasp hanging below it. It probably wouldn't have been wise to invade his territory too much.


That old plantation home is located along a neat stretch of road. There are rows of trees planted along this bit of highway, which seems to stretch on for a few miles. We stopped to get a good shot of the tree-lined road, but mine didn't really turn out. There wasn't much traffic out, so I hurried out to get this shot of the road, taken with the camera sitting right on the pavement.

Driving home...

It had been a long day. It started well before 7am, waking up to a foggy campground at Steele Creek. From there we drove through Boxley Valley, hiked the three mile trail to Hawksbill Crag, visited Triple Falls, then drove down to Falling Water Falls and Six Finger Falls. But it was one of the best photography days I've had in awhile.

We drove down Falling Water Road towards pavement and civilization. The camera battery was saying it was low, so there weren't too many stops after that. But along the road, past Falling Water Falls, we stopped at this abandoned house with a guard of wildflowers standing before it.

I tried to get a few shots with whatever juice was left in the battery.

We made it back onto Highway 7 and then onto the freeway, heading back to Conway. A nice sunset appeared in the sky behind us, and this was the view from the passenger seat of the car:

Six Finger Falls

From Falling Water Falls, we drove a few miles to the north to hit our last waterfall of the day. It had been a long day, and we had great timing at these falls. Again, we got there and had the falls all to ourselves. The last time I visited these falls there were some idiots camping on the rocks right on top of the waterfall.


These falls aren't very tall - only just about six feet high. The falls get their name because the creek has carved six channels into the rock here, which from above looks like a hand with six fingers. We walked around and dropped down by the creek, but the falls were blocked by these boulders. It is a very scenic little spot.




Six Finger Falls sit right at the edge of the Richland Creek Wilderness. From here, Falling Water Creek runs right into Richland Creek, which then flows into the Buffalo River. The Richland Creek Wilderness is an amazing area, with great (but hard to reach) waterfalls. Sadly, Falling Water Road is still blocked from a landslide that occurred last year. There's no telling how long it will be before the Forest Service manages to get it cleared out.


As I was taking the above shot, the camera flashed something that strikes fear into any photographer standing at a great spot like this - the "low battery" warning. Apparently the chilly night before and the day full of shooting took its toll on the poor battery. I changed formats in the hope of getting as much juice out of the battery, and then rushed around trying to get as many shots of the falls as I could.


I dropped down on this one flat rock right by the creek, which was flanked by this small baby bluff. Water was dripping off, creating some tiny waterfalls.


I wasn't sure how much power the battery had left, so I tried to get as many shots as I could at different spots. This is the view from the side of the falls, with three of the six fingers visible.




And the view from above the falls. There were two pools that were filled with tadpoles up there.


Zack's camera battery had also died, so it seemed like our photo day was drawing to a close...