A hot July in Arkansas

Well, we're now sweating away an abnormally warm summer here in Arkansas--today as I drove home my truck's thermometer read 108 degrees...  No real way to escape the heat, so we plod along in our activities.  The picture above shows us killing some time before a minor league baseball game by taking advantage of a free admission day at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.  Below is a picture of one of the limos that President Clinton used:

A modern-day presidential library is as much about defining a presidency through their own terms, rather than through the less biased eye of history, but it is intriguing to see the materials on display here:

We had some time to burn while waiting for the Arkansas Travelers minor league baseball time to start their evening ballgame.  We still got to the park early, paid way too much for way too little food, and enjoyed the shaded side of the stadium:

We were here on the 4th of July, so the ball players had on patriotic (Stars & Stripes-themed) jerseys--not that you can see them in this picture, but you do get a nice view of downtown Little Rock from the new stadium built just across the Arkansas River in North Little Rock:

Even though the Travelers lost the game, we enjoyed our time here:

We didn't stay until the bitter end because the next morning I was off to help on an archeological dig at Parkin Archeological State Park (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/parkinarcheological/) not too far west of Memphis, Tennessee.  Below, Dr. Jeff Mitchem, Arkansas Archeological Survey station archeologist at Parkin explains what we were working on:

We were looking for the remains of the wooden palisade (wall made of logs) that is known to have been built around this Indian village.  While I was digging, we were staying at nearby Village Creek State Park (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/villagecreek/) on a landform known as Crowley's Ridge.  We've stayed here before, and have enjoyed this quiet, heavily wooded park.  Below, Kenny and I took advantage of the cool of the early morning to bike along one of their trails:

We had an enjoyable bike ride, but this baby raccoon we surprised was all too happy to see us pass him by:

Part of this bike trail runs along the old Military Road between Memphis and Little Rock.  These military roads were built in the 1800s to give the US government a means to protect its borders.  These old roads also were often the first improved roads into an area, and hence were important for civilian travel and trade.  This particular military road also has the dubious distinction of being one of the multiple routes followed by Indians along the Trail of Tears in the 1830s:

The deep cut of this part of the trail is a combination of heavy usage on the easily eroded soils found on Crowley's Ridge.  Once these start eroding, they are vulnerable to further impacts, as you can see from this tree whose roots are being gradually exposed by the elements:

One morning Bragg Family South hiked along the trails at Parkin to the main mound on this site:

Parkin State Park had also been the site in the more recent past of a sawmill community, so there is a historic graveyard located on the site, including several of the unique "Woodman of the World" grave markers:

I'll write more on those later.  Before I close, here is a picture of a friend of the family, Heidi Adams, and her 2-week-old daughter Mary Virginia:  

 

Lil' Mary, Heidi, and Heidi's husband Joshua (a forestry professor at UAM) recently joined us for dinner (and for Hope to spoil the baby).  Oh, and one final picture of our new yellow belt in karate, Kenny: