The picture above is of a Gardenia in flower in our backyard. This relative of the coffee plant produces a number of large, pretty, and very pleasantly aromatic white flowers. After several weeks of continuous and heavy rain, we have finally strung together a number of really nice days, with relatively pleasant temperatures and humidity levels (at least for the South) and lots of sunshine. We have tried to take advantage of this as much as we can. Last weekend (Memorial Day weekend) we went to Arkansas Post National Memorial located about an hour east of Monticello. We've taken a number of you there over the years--it is the site of Arkansas's first permanent European settlement, and was occupied into the mid-1800s when the shifting Arkansas River and other events led to its gradual
abandonment. It did serve as a Confederate fort during the early years of the Civil War before an overwhelming Union force conquered it in a battle. Nowadays, it is a nice little national park with a lot of history--and alligators! You may recall our pictures from last year, where we spotted a number of small gators in a series of river backwaters en route to the park. None were as big as this fellow, though:
Sorry if the picture doesn't do it justice--it was facing away from us, and a long distance off. Kenny spotted this big gator first--I'd estimate it went between 10 and 12 feet long, and probably weighed several hundred pounds! We don't have nearly the number of alligators as Florida or Louisiana do, but they can grow quite large here in Arkansas. We personally know a guy who harvested a gator in the eastern part of this county in 2007 that was estimated to go more than 500 pounds (
http://www.monticellolive.com/alligator-on-display-at-union-bank/).
Most of the gators we saw last Monday were decidedly smaller--several feet long. The picture above is of one sunning, and here is Kenny pointing to another one in the background:
Here is a close-up of the gator Kenny's pointing to:
In addition to watching the gators for a while, we hiked on the trails around Arkansas Post for a bit, and I posed Beth and Stephen on a replica cannon:
Kenny also started participating in a junior ranger program that the National Park System sponsors--here he is pledging to be a good park visitor:
I was in Oklahoma most of this week helping out a University of Arkansas-
Fayetteville graduate student who's graduate committee I am on. We were setting up his project studying an old oak-pine stand near Henryetta, Oklahoma--a town whose major claim to fame is being the hometown of Troy
Aikman, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys... When I returned on Friday, we went and watched Kenny's last baseball game of the year, followed by a post-game pizza party. Here's Kenny posing with his version of a trophy all of the team got:
Kenny ended up doing quite well this season, and his coach thanked him specially for his efforts. While his team didn't win a game all year long, they had fun, and Kenny improved quite a bit. Plus, he got pizza and a trophy at the end!!
This weekend had beautiful weather as well, so yesterday (Saturday) we drove to western Arkansas. We stopped at Poison Springs State Park, which was another Civil War battle site. This battle was a decided Confederate victory, with hundreds of Union casualties and just a few dozen Confederate losses. There is a nice little hiking trail that leads down a steep ravine past some small springs that we hiked:
We then continued our drive westward to Crater of Diamonds State Park (
http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/). This innocuous-looking dirt field is the only park (in the world, I think) that allows people to dig for diamonds that they can keep. Arkansas is known for producing many different types of minerals (e.g., aluminum, vanadium, magnetite,
novaculite) and crystals (e.g., quartz), but few people outside of this state know that there is a diamond producing area here.
The picture above shows Kenny and Beth starting to walk into the diamond mine area; the sign below marks where one of the more substantial diamonds was found:
We didn't really do much diamond exploration--it was hot (in the upper 80s), very sunny, and we didn't bring any digging equipment with us. So, we just let the kids play in the dirt a bit (there is an admission fee to the mine area, so we felt we had to do something):
As you can see from the pictures above, there were a lot of people digging around even in the hot sun--they aren't kidding when they say you can find diamonds! While we were there, a person found a 1.1 carat white diamond (they announce this over the loudspeaker). Most of the diamonds found at this park are small, but many of them are high quality and very valuable. Our main goal was to enjoy a different aspect of this park on this hot day--they have a nice little water park for kids, complete with a large, shallow pool area, many fountains and sprinklers, and three small
waterslides. We ponied up a few bucks per person and let the kids splash to their heart's content for about an hour and a half. Stephen didn't seem too interested (too many strangers and too much splashing, I suppose), and Beth decided she didn't like the
waterslides after taking a dunking at the end of the one she tried, but Kenny was in heaven--we lost track of how many times he went down the
waterslides. I tried them out, too, but spent most of my time watching the kids and hunting for my glasses, which ended up at the bottom of the fortunately shallow pool once. We'll definitely come back to this state park later! Today, Hope to Kenny and Beth to see an animated movie (Up!), while I watched Stephen. Later this evening, our friends the
Kuttenkulers are coming over for dinner with their boys, and we'll continue to enjoy the day.
The picture above is of a Gardenia in flower in our backyard. This relative of the coffee plant produces a number of large, pretty, and very pleasantly aromatic white flowers. After several weeks of continuous and heavy rain, we have finally strung together a number of really nice days, with relatively pleasant temperatures and humidity levels (at least for the South) and lots of sunshine. We have tried to take advantage of this as much as we can. Last weekend (Memorial Day weekend) we went to Arkansas Post National Memorial located about an hour east of Monticello. We've taken a number of you there over the years--it is the site of Arkansas's first permanent European settlement, and was occupied into the mid-1800s when the shifting Arkansas River and other events led to its gradual abandonment. It did serve as a Confederate fort during the early years of the Civil War before an overwhelming Union force conquered it in a battle. Nowadays, it is a nice little national park with a lot of history--and alligators! You may recall our pictures from last year, where we spotted a number of small gators in a series of river backwaters en route to the park. None were as big as this fellow, though:
Sorry if the picture doesn't do it justice--it was facing away from us, and a long distance off. Kenny spotted this big gator first--I'd estimate it went between 10 and 12 feet long, and probably weighed several hundred pounds! We don't have nearly the number of alligators as Florida or Louisiana do, but they can grow quite large here in Arkansas. We personally know a guy who harvested a gator in the eastern part of this county in 2007 that was estimated to go more than 500 pounds (http://www.monticellolive.com/alligator-on-display-at-union-bank/).
Most of the gators we saw last Monday were decidedly smaller--several feet long. The picture above is of one sunning, and here is Kenny pointing to another one in the background:
Here is a close-up of the gator Kenny's pointing to:
In addition to watching the gators for a while, we hiked on the trails around Arkansas Post for a bit, and I posed Beth and Stephen on a replica cannon:
Kenny also started participating in a junior ranger program that the National Park System sponsors--here he is pledging to be a good park visitor:
I was in Oklahoma most of this week helping out a University of Arkansas-Fayetteville graduate student who's graduate committee I am on. We were setting up his project studying an old oak-pine stand near Henryetta, Oklahoma--a town whose major claim to fame is being the hometown of Troy Aikman, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys... When I returned on Friday, we went and watched Kenny's last baseball game of the year, followed by a post-game pizza party. Here's Kenny posing with his version of a trophy all of the team got:
Kenny ended up doing quite well this season, and his coach thanked him specially for his efforts. While his team didn't win a game all year long, they had fun, and Kenny improved quite a bit. Plus, he got pizza and a trophy at the end!!
This weekend had beautiful weather as well, so yesterday (Saturday) we drove to western Arkansas. We stopped at Poison Springs State Park, which was another Civil War battle site. This battle was a decided Confederate victory, with hundreds of Union casualties and just a few dozen Confederate losses. There is a nice little hiking trail that leads down a steep ravine past some small springs that we hiked:
We then continued our drive westward to Crater of Diamonds State Park (http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/). This innocuous-looking dirt field is the only park (in the world, I think) that allows people to dig for diamonds that they can keep. Arkansas is known for producing many different types of minerals (e.g., aluminum, vanadium, magnetite, novaculite) and crystals (e.g., quartz), but few people outside of this state know that there is a diamond producing area here.
The picture above shows Kenny and Beth starting to walk into the diamond mine area; the sign below marks where one of the more substantial diamonds was found:
We didn't really do much diamond exploration--it was hot (in the upper 80s), very sunny, and we didn't bring any digging equipment with us. So, we just let the kids play in the dirt a bit (there is an admission fee to the mine area, so we felt we had to do something):
As you can see from the pictures above, there were a lot of people digging around even in the hot sun--they aren't kidding when they say you can find diamonds! While we were there, a person found a 1.1 carat white diamond (they announce this over the loudspeaker). Most of the diamonds found at this park are small, but many of them are high quality and very valuable. Our main goal was to enjoy a different aspect of this park on this hot day--they have a nice little water park for kids, complete with a large, shallow pool area, many fountains and sprinklers, and three small waterslides. We ponied up a few bucks per person and let the kids splash to their heart's content for about an hour and a half. Stephen didn't seem too interested (too many strangers and too much splashing, I suppose), and Beth decided she didn't like the waterslides after taking a dunking at the end of the one she tried, but Kenny was in heaven--we lost track of how many times he went down the waterslides. I tried them out, too, but spent most of my time watching the kids and hunting for my glasses, which ended up at the bottom of the fortunately shallow pool once. We'll definitely come back to this state park later! Today, Hope to Kenny and Beth to see an animated movie (Up!), while I watched Stephen. Later this evening, our friends the Kuttenkulers are coming over for dinner with their boys, and we'll continue to enjoy the day.
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