Spring Break 2017

Why start a blog post on spring break with pictures of pasties?  Why not?  We took advantage of a brief spell of cool weather this spring to test out a new crust recipe for this meat- and vegetable-filled handheld pie, and it worked out very well!  The kids and I have been experimenting with some baking this last year, and this was one of the experiments.  Today we made some pretty good naan (and Indian flatbread).

I recently attended a business meeting in Blacksburg, Virginia...which should be much warmer than this picture shows!  We actually caught the bottom end of that big Nor'easter that just went up the east coast...Didn't get as much snow as New England did, but we did get some, and several days of cold (sub 20 degree) temperatures.  In fact, I think the windchill the morning I took the picture below of a World War I and II memorial on the Virginia Tech campus was in the low teens:

My return trip from Virginia was largely uneventful, if slightly delayed.  Below is a neat view of the cloud formations I flew over en route back to Arkansas--notice how the clouds look like large waves on the ocean:

The day after I returned to Arkansas, Bragg Family South headed up to Petit Jean Mountain in central Arkansas.  Hope was attending a one-day workshop on teaching archeology to 5th graders, and the kids and I took advantage of the gorgeous (and warm) weather to do some hiking:

Beth, ever the ham, had to pose, while the boys were more stoic:

One of our destinations was this 50 or 60 foot tall waterfall on Cedar Creek:

We also visited a number of rock shelters and caves along the various trails at this state park:

Some of the hiking trails passed through narrow "slot canyons":

Another favorite destination is this large rock shelter:

It may be hard to get a sense for the size of this rock shelter from the panoramic picture above...Below is another view, with a lot more people in the picture for perspective:

The people in the foreground are a combination of archeologists and teachers from Arkansas that participated in the same workshop as Hope did... The gentleman in the gray outfit and ballcap is Dr. George Sabo, Director of the Arkansas Archeological Survey.  Archeologists like Dr. Sabo are interested in these rock shelters for numerous reasons, including the presence of some pretty amazing (if increasingly faded) rock art.  The pictures below are of some of this rock art (pictographs, technically, because they have been "painted" onto the rocks--petroglyphs, another type of rock art, are carved into the stone).  Note how faded the top picture is:

I have some image processing software that applies filters to allow details of the pigments to stand out...The picture on the bottom is the same as the top, only image processed.  Note the large paddlefish (part of its paddle-like nose is missing); below is believed to be a "fish trap" that may have been used to catch fish like this, and the other images are less obvious in their meaning...

There are hundreds of these rock art images on Petit Jean Mountain at this bluff shelter and others, problem hundreds to even thousands of years old.  Hopefully, curious tourists and malicious vandals don't cause these amazing resources further degradation!