A visit from Brother Bill and the Arkansas Historical Association meeting

If you remembered in the last Bragg Family South blog, Beth posed with our state trooper neighbor Liz and her Powerpuff Derby car...well, she won her class!  Pictured above is a proud little girl and her trophy!  We've been working on our front and side yards as of late.  Our current big project is the repair and extension of our driveway.  In the pictures below you can see the sad shape it has gotten near the culverts, which have been crushed over the years:

We have also had a fair amount of the concrete on this edge erode away, making for a sharp drop off.  So, I dug out this area for new concrete, opened up the old culvert (in part by cutting away the crushed section), and inserted a smaller but capable plastic pipe:

The culvert repair was followed by the addition of quite a bit of new concrete (about 30 bags) and the extension of the sod/lawn, resulting in the triangular repair/extension you see below:

This extension will help vehicles using our driveway to avoid falling unpleasantly into our ditch.  Our efforts are now concentrating on the other side, which is going to be extended to give us a "double-wide" driveway, as you can see in the picture below:

We have also started sprucing up our side yard, with the addition of some mulch and new flowering shrubs:

We will also be moving a lot of the turf we're going to cut out from the driveway work to this side yard, which has relatively poor soil and doesn't grow grass well.  We're also going to be putting in a field stone path along this yard between our driveway and the gate into the backyard.  All this effort leaves lil' Stephen smiling:

Some of you may have heard that we had a visit from my youngest brother Bill and his friend Scott over Easter weekend.  They arrived from Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Bill works at the University of Alabama right now) on Friday night.  On Saturday morning, we went on a picnic visit to Arkansas Post National Memorial, which is about an hour from our home.  You may remember from previous years that we've kind of started a springtime tradition of going here on the first really nice weekend for a picnic lunch and some sight-seeing, including looking for alligators like the one pictured below:

This gator was about 5-6 feet long, and was sunning himself along the entrance to Arkansas Post.  Below, Bill recreates the first time he met Hope--when he was about 7 or 8, Hope came down to our house in Rhinelander to help me shuttle one of my vehicles from Michigan Tech.  Dad was getting ready to put on a wildlife program for the Wisconsin DNR at some school, and he had a number of animal hides to show people.  Bill had the unfortunate task of showing Hope how a coyote hide looked when draped over him:

Well, you get the picture...  We also hiked one of the trails at this historic site.  Below, Bill inspects one of the replica cannons at this former French/Spanish/American/Confederate outpost:

And here we are enjoying our picnic lunch:

When we returned later that day, Uncle Bill helped the kids decorate eggs:

and then everyone posed for a picture the next morning before Easter mass:

Hi, Scott!!

This last weekend we went up to Fayetteville, in northwestern Arkansas, so I could attend the Arkansas Historical Association meeting.  Below is a picture of the antebellum (pre-Civil War) home we had an evening reception at:

Which also involved some local reenactors dressed in period costumes dancing for us:

The hotel we stayed at was also hosting a group of antique car collectors at the same time, so fittingly for a historical meeting, we got to enjoy seeing a couple dozen Model Ts:

I gave a talk at this meeting on Saturday morning.  The meeting was held in downtown Fayetteville, right next to the town square, which already has a farmers' market going:

We took advantage of this market to buy a bunch of fresh, locally grown produce (some of which was even organic--what a bunch of greenies we've become!!).  While I gave my talk, Hope took the kids to two different Civil War battlefields in the Fayetteville area.  The first one they went to was at Pea Ridge.  Below, Stephen hikes one of the trails at this national battlefield:

You may note the sign behind Stephen says "Trail of Tears"--Arkansas also has the dubious distinction of having numerous routes followed by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole Indians as they were removed from other parts of the southeast to Indian Territory (today, known as Oklahoma).  Below, Beth in her cute little bonnet is working hard to earn her junior ranger badge at Pea Ridge:

And below the boys inspect a Civil War-period musket with a reenactor:

Next, Hope took the kids west of Fayetteville to another battle site at Prairie Grove.  This battle, which was pretty bloody for the Civil War action west of the Mississippi, is preserved in a state park.  TV movie buffs may remember the mini-series The Blue and The Gray--much of one of the main battle scenes was filmed at Prairie Grove, including the historic house that was partially blown up by artillery.  This park, too, had a group of reenactors there, and below a man is showing the kids how a general would use his sword to help direct troops:

They also let the kids hold the replica (and very dull and unloaded, I may add) weapons--even little Stephen got his turn with the sabre:

Below, Kenny stands at attention with a musket and bayonet:

Beth didn't like the bigger weapons, but seemed to handle this small revolver well:

Tired but happy, the kids rest after a day of history lessons:

This morning we left Fayetteville for Monticello, taking a slightly different route through the Boston Mountains in the Ozark National Forest.  As you can see from this picture at an overlook, the weather was starting to turn grim:

We had enough time and dry weather to stop at a few spots, including a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp.  Camp Ozone was open from the early 1930s until 1942, when World War II drained their manpower.  During these years, the CCC crews built a lot of neat stone structures, including the fish pond below at their camp designed with the outline of the state of Arkansas:

Very little remains of this CCC camp except a few of their stone and concrete structures, such as the remains of their bath house pictured below:

Another fun adventure, but (as always) we'll be glad to sleep in our own beds tonight!