This Old House

There is this one old house (abandoned, I think?) in the small town of England that I've been wanting to get pictures of for a long time. I was passing through the other day and did some "drive-by shooting" - as in this was literally taken while sticking the camera out the window of the car from the street. Luckily traffic was light that morning. I would love to know more about this history of this place and its current status.

Neowise

It took two tries, but we finally got some pictures of the Comet Neowise. The first night there were too many clouds off in the distance which blocked the view of the northwestern sky. But the next night conditions were much better (there was even a nice breeze which cooled things off a bit). I met my friend John at the Two Rivers Park Bridge, which we had hoped would provide a good view of the bridge. As a bonus, it also provided a good view of the sunset and Pinnacle Mountain.





Finally the sky darkened enough so that the stars appeared, but the comet wasn't actually visible with a naked eye (I'm guessing because of too much city light). But the comet appeared in long exposures on the camera, shining above the waters of the Little Maumelle River.



I'm going to assume that the comet is named after Keanu's character from The Matrix, and it is the brightest comet that we've been able to see here since Comet Hale–Bopp in the 1990s. This was my reaction when I saw the comet on the camera:

Keanu Reeves Whoa GIF from Keanureeves GIFs

And a wider shot of the comet, including a distant view of Pinnacle Mountain.



And then the view from the other side of the Two Rivers Park Bridge, looking across the Arkansas River towards the I-430 Bridge and the Big Dam Bridge. It's amazing that you can see so many stars even with all the conflicting city lights.

All Ears

We weren't blessed with green thumbs here, so usually the stuff we plant in the front yard doesn't often survive the Summer. But we planted an Elephant Ear bulb and it is somehow thriving. The leaves are massive, the size of books. They are big enough that they hide all the dead flowers in the pots behind them on the porch. But one day I grabbed the camera and got a few pictures of the leaves (the things you do when you work from home). It was bright and sunny outside, but the afternoon sun backlit the leaves and helped show off some of the detail.

Buice

As you head west from downtown you eventually reach the intersection of Markham Street and Kavanaugh Blvd, a spot that is known as Stifft Station. The area was developed back in the early 1900s back when this was the far edge of the Little Rock city limits. Stifft Station got its name because it used to be a stop on the old streetcar line, which is long gone. But one lasting piece of the area's history is an old neon sign for the Buice Drug Store. So here is a shot of the sign, reflected in the window of the real estate office that is now in the same building that once housed the drug store.

At The Capitol

The other night looked like there might be a good sunset, so I hurried off to try to get a few pictures. I ended up driving by the State Capitol, but the sunset there didn't really pan out. So I walked around the grounds and went by the memorial to the Little Rock Nine. The memorial features life-size statues of the Nine, who helped end segregation in Arkansas by bravely walking into Little Rock Central High in 1957. The statue at the front of the group is of Elizabeth Eckford, and it looks very similar to the iconic photograph of her stoically walking to the school while being pursued by a crazed-looking mob.



The memorial is titled Testament and was placed on the Capitol grounds in 2005, nearly 50 years after the students made history. The sculptures were created by John Deering, who is also the editorial cartoonist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.



The statues are placed off to the side of the Capitol, but are defiantly facing the windows of the Governor's office - "very seat of power that fueled the conflict and forged their remarkable futures."



I headed back over to the front of the Capitol, which was fairly quiet. Besides a family taking pictures on the steps, there wasn't anyone else around (besides security, which drove by about every 15 minutes). This is a big change from a few months ago, when there were nightly protests in front of the Capitol. Now you can't see much evidence of that - there are still some boarded-up windows on some of the buildings along Capitol Avenue that haven't been fixed yet for some reason. And it looks like there are some big and bright spotlights now shining down onto the two confederate monuments that stand on the Capitol grounds (to help protect them from vandalism, maybe?). These two monuments are now the only monuments to the confederacy still standing in Little Rock, and our Governor has stated that he is open to having them moved. Which I fully support, I think there are much better things about our state that we can showcase and memorialize.

Anyways, here's one last shot from the Capitol as it was starting to get dark...