What does the above head pot have to do with our
Northwoods trip? We finally took the time to visit
Hampson Archeological Museum State Park (
http://arkansasstateparks.com/hampsonmuseum/) in northeastern Arkansas. For years, we have driven past this spot and thought to stop by, knowing that this was an important
archeological museum. After a quick visit to our friend and my co-worker Dr. Michael Shelton in Memphis, we headed northward. Rain in the Memphis area that day canceled our original plan of going to the Memphis Zoo, so finding that we had some more time on our hands, we finally decided to stop at
Hampson. This small museum was established around a local doctor (Dr.
Hampson) who decades ago had been an amateur
archeologist and had extensively excavated a large Mississippian-period village area, digging up a LOT of very impressive artifacts, including the head pot above. Dr.
Hampson donated most of his collection to the state of Arkansas, which made a museum out of it (the site has since been destroyed by further agricultural practices). The museum facility is small and unimpressive, even though the collection is large and very impressive. You can get a good feel of the artifacts by going to their online museum at:
http://hampsonmuseum.cast.uark.edu/nodena_3D.htm This site is full of 3-dimensional visualizations of the artifacts and a reconstruction of the original village site. Very cool!!
Our next big stop (the next day) was a visit with my sister Laurie and her husband Mark in Madison. We met for lunch at a nice little seafood restaurant, and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand of the volleyball court (note Lulu with her camera at the ready...). After a tasty lunch and a brief visit, we continued up north, stopping at a nice little cheese shop and spending a bunch on some fancy
cheddars (wait till this fall's wine and cheese party!). We arrived in
Rhinelander around supper time, and had a quick visit with Mom and Dad before Saturday's events. Mom and Dad headed to
Ladysmith on Saturday for Dad's high school reunion. We were headed to
Hodag Park for a reception for our friend Jim
Skubal's recent wedding. Here is Jim and his bride Laura:
Notice the coats
everyone is wearing in these pictures--high temps on this day only hit the mid-50s. This weekend, my three brothers showed up for a visit. Here John and Bill joined Hope and the kids on a walk in the pines:
A few years back, we posed Kenny and Beth on this pine stump--now we did it again, with Stephen added in:
Below is a picture of my brother Bob giving Kenny a quick ride in one of his old Mercury Cougars:
John and Bill headed home Sunday morning, but Bob stayed on another day to work on his cars, his "car barn", and to help me with my 1968 Dodge Charger. Sunday evening we joined our friends Brian and Michele Bennett and their son David at their home in
Rhinelander for a cook-out. On Monday, Hope and I took the kids to Buck Lake for some swimming (the water was definitely brisk):
Monday evening, we took the kids into town so they could watch the children of some of our friends compete in
BMX bike races. We got to watch David Bennett (Brian and Michele's son) race (that is him crossing the finish line):
We also got to see
Coty Skinner, son of our friend Kevin Skinner, win his age class (David Bennett ended up taking third). Turns out, another friend of mine has a daughter racing now--Dr. Brian
Sturtevant, a research scientist with the Northern Research Station of the US Forest Service stationed in
Rhinelander was also there with his wife. Brian and I got to know each other as graduate students at Utah State University back in the mid-1990s. Kenny was thrilled when my buddy Kevin, who is also the race announcer, asked him to call the number for the 50-50 fundraiser:
By the way, Brian Bennett won this draw... Below is a picture of David Bennett with his trophy:
Tuesday evening, my sister Lisa and her three kids arrived in
Rhinelander. On Wednesday, we decided to take the kids to the
Rhinelander Logging Museum at Pioneer Park. Here's Lisa and her youngest daughter, Leila:
In addition to the logging displays, they also had a building dedicated to outdoor boat motors, including this classy design, which Hope said she and her father had a similar motor on one of their old boats that they had worked on years ago:
Here's one of the old logging trains:
After our museum visit, we decided to go back to Buck Lake, where the kids had a blast playing in the mud and swimming:
Even with all the fun we had, apparently we missed the biggest excitement of the day. While we were at the lake, Mom called me on my cell phone. Seems that the neighbor's field was on fire! A small grass fire started, probably sparked by the neighbor's chainsaw, and burned less than an acre before Mom spotted it, called the fire department, and they extinguished it.
They had probably a half-dozen pieces of fire fighting equipment out there--more than needed, but given the dry weather they've had up here, better to be safe than sorry. The fire even got the NBC affiliate out there with a cameraman and a 60-second blurb on the local evening news (
http://www.wjfw.com/stories.html?sku=20090722175107):
Here's Mom showing her unhappiness with the day's events:
As you can see in the picture below, there wasn't much to this fire, just some burned grass and brush. Could have been a lot worse, though...
More postings to come soon...
What does the above head pot have to do with our Northwoods trip? We finally took the time to visit Hampson Archeological Museum State Park (http://arkansasstateparks.com/hampsonmuseum/) in northeastern Arkansas. For years, we have driven past this spot and thought to stop by, knowing that this was an important archeological museum. After a quick visit to our friend and my co-worker Dr. Michael Shelton in Memphis, we headed northward. Rain in the Memphis area that day canceled our original plan of going to the Memphis Zoo, so finding that we had some more time on our hands, we finally decided to stop at Hampson. This small museum was established around a local doctor (Dr. Hampson) who decades ago had been an amateur archeologist and had extensively excavated a large Mississippian-period village area, digging up a LOT of very impressive artifacts, including the head pot above. Dr. Hampson donated most of his collection to the state of Arkansas, which made a museum out of it (the site has since been destroyed by further agricultural practices). The museum facility is small and unimpressive, even though the collection is large and very impressive. You can get a good feel of the artifacts by going to their online museum at: http://hampsonmuseum.cast.uark.edu/nodena_3D.htm This site is full of 3-dimensional visualizations of the artifacts and a reconstruction of the original village site. Very cool!!
Our next big stop (the next day) was a visit with my sister Laurie and her husband Mark in Madison. We met for lunch at a nice little seafood restaurant, and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand of the volleyball court (note Lulu with her camera at the ready...). After a tasty lunch and a brief visit, we continued up north, stopping at a nice little cheese shop and spending a bunch on some fancy cheddars (wait till this fall's wine and cheese party!). We arrived in Rhinelander around supper time, and had a quick visit with Mom and Dad before Saturday's events. Mom and Dad headed to Ladysmith on Saturday for Dad's high school reunion. We were headed to Hodag Park for a reception for our friend Jim Skubal's recent wedding. Here is Jim and his bride Laura:
Notice the coats everyone is wearing in these pictures--high temps on this day only hit the mid-50s. This weekend, my three brothers showed up for a visit. Here John and Bill joined Hope and the kids on a walk in the pines:
A few years back, we posed Kenny and Beth on this pine stump--now we did it again, with Stephen added in:
Below is a picture of my brother Bob giving Kenny a quick ride in one of his old Mercury Cougars:
John and Bill headed home Sunday morning, but Bob stayed on another day to work on his cars, his "car barn", and to help me with my 1968 Dodge Charger. Sunday evening we joined our friends Brian and Michele Bennett and their son David at their home in Rhinelander for a cook-out. On Monday, Hope and I took the kids to Buck Lake for some swimming (the water was definitely brisk):
Monday evening, we took the kids into town so they could watch the children of some of our friends compete in BMX bike races. We got to watch David Bennett (Brian and Michele's son) race (that is him crossing the finish line):
We also got to see Coty Skinner, son of our friend Kevin Skinner, win his age class (David Bennett ended up taking third). Turns out, another friend of mine has a daughter racing now--Dr. Brian Sturtevant, a research scientist with the Northern Research Station of the US Forest Service stationed in Rhinelander was also there with his wife. Brian and I got to know each other as graduate students at Utah State University back in the mid-1990s. Kenny was thrilled when my buddy Kevin, who is also the race announcer, asked him to call the number for the 50-50 fundraiser:
By the way, Brian Bennett won this draw... Below is a picture of David Bennett with his trophy:
Tuesday evening, my sister Lisa and her three kids arrived in Rhinelander. On Wednesday, we decided to take the kids to the Rhinelander Logging Museum at Pioneer Park. Here's Lisa and her youngest daughter, Leila:
In addition to the logging displays, they also had a building dedicated to outdoor boat motors, including this classy design, which Hope said she and her father had a similar motor on one of their old boats that they had worked on years ago:
Here's one of the old logging trains:
After our museum visit, we decided to go back to Buck Lake, where the kids had a blast playing in the mud and swimming:
Even with all the fun we had, apparently we missed the biggest excitement of the day. While we were at the lake, Mom called me on my cell phone. Seems that the neighbor's field was on fire! A small grass fire started, probably sparked by the neighbor's chainsaw, and burned less than an acre before Mom spotted it, called the fire department, and they extinguished it.
They had probably a half-dozen pieces of fire fighting equipment out there--more than needed, but given the dry weather they've had up here, better to be safe than sorry. The fire even got the NBC affiliate out there with a cameraman and a 60-second blurb on the local evening news (http://www.wjfw.com/stories.html?sku=20090722175107):
Here's Mom showing her unhappiness with the day's events:
As you can see in the picture below, there wasn't much to this fire, just some burned grass and brush. Could have been a lot worse, though...
More postings to come soon...
Comments