A trip to Helena and Scouts & Forestry

Instead of showing y'all the first few pictures on my camera from the last blog posting (which were of an unpleasantry with a sewer pipe buried shallow in our front yard), I'm going to jump right into our trip to Helena, Arkansas.  The picture above shows Kenny and Stephen standing next to a grave marker for General Cleburne, who is one of several Confederate generals buried in the historic graveyard in Helena.  There are also anonymous markers for a number of other Confederate soldiers in this cemetery:

Helena sits on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, and was the scene of considerable military action during the Civil War.  The major battle fought here was overshadowed by a couple of larger engagements that were happening at the same time (you may have heard of them--Gettysburg and Vicksburg), but it was still a major action and like the other two battles, a Union victory.  The monuments in the Helena cemetery, like the one pictured below, were erected years after the battles:

The prominent location of Helena on the Mississippi River has long made it an important site, from prehistoric times right up to the present.  Although the town is declining due to a shrinking population, there are still quite a few impressive historic buildings, such as the current historical museum, pictured below:

This museum has quite an impressive collection of prehistoric and historic artifacts, such as the neat refundable deposit liquor bottle pictured below:

Helena also has played a major role in the development of the music industry, particularly in the "Delta Blues" sound, for which the kids enjoyed a museum with that in its theme:

Our host/guides for our Helena visit was our archeologist friend/neighbor Jessica Howe and her grandfather, Otis Howe, who posed with Bragg Family South on a new boardwalk overlooking the Mississippi River:

I also took some pictures of some neat baldcypress in an old oxbow lake that once used to be part of the Mississippi River:

Not far out of Helena is a small state park with a modest stone marker--in the middle of a gum/cypress swamp:

This stone marks the "initial" point that formed the basis of the land surveying done for most of a small land deal that y'all may have heard of--the Louisiana Purchase!  We also got to enjoy Beth's recent musical program (that's her in the top row, centered, in the green shirt):

Our big event this weekend was a scouting trip to our experimental forest near the Louisiana state line.  We actually camped in a pretty little Louisiana state park (Chemin-A-Haut State Park) located just a few miles away--here is our campsite:

This was in part one of my official duties--I was there to help teach about 25 Cub Scouts, Webelos, and Boy Scouts about forestry, the work of a US Forest Service scientist, and our Crossett Experimental Forest.  Below, some of the boys are pictured standing around one of the Arkansas Forestry Commission's fire plows housed on our experimental forest:

The weather cooperated, the boys seemed eager to learn, and most made it back home in one piece...I really enjoyed the experience.  Kenny and his fellow Webelos had fun, too, judging from this picture of a few of them:

Hope, being the Monticello Pack leader, worked hard to arrange almost all aspects of this weekend, including being a good campground "host" and preparing multiple meals for hungry campers:

Hope has done an excellent job arranging these kind of outings and programs for her pack--they'll sorely miss her when she steps down after next year (Kenny's moving up into Boy Scouts, and Stephen is too young for scouting yet...).