Author: Aly

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The OHT Project: Section 3

One of our favorite long-term projects is the goal of  hiking the whole Ozark Highlands Trail with our friends Britt and Debbie.  We figure that if we do one section each spring and one section each autumn, we’ll be finished by the time Mandy graduates from high school.  We missed last spring, so we’re one chunk behind, but we’ll try to make it up soon.  This fall, we hiked Section 3, from Cherry Bend (on the Pig Trail) over Hare Mountain through Indian Creek, to Lick Branch.

2012 11 08 OHT Section 3 Map

It had been a busy week, so we decided to stay home on Friday night and just leave bright and early Saturday morning for the trail.  We picked up the apparently obligatory giant sandwiches at the Turner Bend store before dropping Mandy, Debbie, Hayduke and I off at the trailhead so that Bryan and Britt could run shuttle.  We picked up trash and cut up old yucky orange vests to pin to our packs.  (It’s the first week of gun season here in Arkansas, a fact that we somehow overlooked when choosing this particular weekend to hike.)

Continue reading “The OHT Project: Section 3”

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Smoke and Suds Cyclocross

2012 11 03 Cyclocross Race Poster

Mandy wanted to go to Fayetteville this past weekend to ride in a couple of cyclocross races.  Bryan already had something planned for the weekend, but our friends Joe and Lisa from Arkansas Outside offered to take her – their family was planning to camp, and they promised to put her to work helping with cooking and dog-minding duties.  She was eager to go, and we couldn’t think of a good reason not to send her. Continue reading “Smoke and Suds Cyclocross”

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Still Water

We spent the summer learning about whitewater kayaking, but the drought in Arkansas has continued into the autumn and we’ve branched out a bit into doing things in calmer water. In the very first chapter of The Wind In The Willows, Water Rat told Mole “believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING–absolute nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” We’re finding that we really like messing around in boats, too, whether in challenging whitewater or quieter streams.

In September, part of the Caddo River was high enough to float, so we joined a group of friends to do a little section of that waterway. The river was calm and easy, but we were ill-prepared for the trip because we’d assumed that the group would float the short section straight through. While they ate fried chicken and big thick sandwiches for lunch, we played in the water. Next time we’ll understand that they mean to spend the whole day paddling, and we’ll pack a big complicated lunch as well! Continue reading “Still Water”

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Sylamore Trail

After a disappointingly short and rainy backpack trip on Buckeye Mountain, our young friend Monkey was eager to try another, more pleasant backpacking trip.  We wiggled our schedule around a bit and worked in a weekend trip to the Sylamore Trail, one of my most favorite autumn hikes in Arkansas.

The stretch of the Sylamore between Barkshed and Gunner Pool is about five miles of really neat hiking.  For the most part, the trail runs along the bluff well above the creek.  In the spring and fall it’s a nice hike, but when the leaves are down there are some really great views through the bare trees down to the pools and ripples of Sylamore Creek.  Some of the trail runs under overhanging limestone bluffs and through big weathered breakdown chunks. Continue reading “Sylamore Trail”

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‘Cross Dresser

Cyclocross is a kind of bicycle racing popular in Europe and in the more interesting parts of the US. Arkansas cyclocross is  just getting started – last year’s fall/winter series was sort of ragtag, I’ve heard, but there’s more momentum and organization behind this year’s races. Racers do several laps around a closed course, on a mix of surfaces – usually some pavement, some gravel, and some grass or dirt or mud. There are obstacles to ride or jump over, like tree limbs and boards, ditches, and sometimes even stairs to run down while carrying a bike. The course is taped off in such a way that there are often sharp turns to navigate as well. Racers ride as hard as they can to do as many laps as possible in a certain period of time – 40 or 50 minutes seems to be the usual length of a cyclocross race.

[vimeo clip_id=”56535957″]

Mandy was a little bit interested in cyclocross last year, but we never actually got around to watching a race. This summer, when her bike was wrecked, the replacement we bought was a cyclocross bike. We thought it was a good choice because it was set up more or less as a road bike, but the frame and fork were broad enough to accommodate wider tires when we wanted to ride on gravel roads or smooth trails. Having a cyclocross bike, though, made her think that maybe she wanted to race cyclocross this season. Continue reading “‘Cross Dresser”

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Oxygen, My Friend

For years and years, I’ve had weird ‘groups’ of what I thought were migraine headaches.  I thought that all horrible headaches were migraines.

But these were strange.  For one thing, they happened in groups – I’d be fine for a year or two, and then I’d be hit with an awful headache every other day for a month and a half.  And then they’d be gone, just like that.  They didn’t really act like regular migraines – I never had auras and didn’t feel nauseated and didn’t throw up.  I wasn’t particularly sensitive to light or sound.  I didn’t respond very well to migraine medicine.  And while I understood that migraines hurt a lot, these headaches seemed worse.  People would say “oh, I have a terrible migraine” but they’d often still be able to drive, or talk – when I had one, I couldn’t do anything but pace and bang my head on the wall.  And when the headache was finally over, hours later, I’d need to sleep for a couple of hours before being able to function again.  Even then, I’d be exhausted and sore for at least another day, just from my body’s reaction to the pain. Continue reading “Oxygen, My Friend”

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Water Dawg

Hayduke loves water, so when when we decided to buy boats early this year, it seemed unkind to consider getting into a hobby he’d love, in a way that excluded him.  So I chose my boat with the intention of paddling with Hayduke.  We brought him with us to the lake when we tested boats.  I only looked at buying boats that his wet doggy body would fit in, and that he could get in and out of while out on the water.  We practiced.  I chose the Native because it seemed to work well for this, and once home, I put the boat in the living room floor and taught him to get in and out of it, and encouraged him to lie down inside.

A fat lot of good THAT did – the dog more or less totally refuses to get into the boat on the water.  I’ve tried and tried to teach him to ride with me.  I’ve put soft things in the bottom so that it would be less slippery.  I’ve tried using a tab on his pinch collar to hold him.  I’ve tried bribing him with snacks. I’ve given up. Continue reading “Water Dawg”

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Ocoee Trip

Yeah… Mandy and I are punting on this post… here are a few photos and a video. Suffice to say, we had a great time and will be back.

[vimeo 50865613]

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Rendezvous!

I’ve been sick, sick, sick.  But the Arkansas Canoe Club’s big annual camp out and get-together was this past weekend, and Bryan and Mandy wanted to go.

Rendezvous is held every year at Camp Couchdale, the state FFA organization’s big event center on Lake Catherine.  The facilities are pretty nice (though bathrooms seem a little slim) and there are bunkhouses for those who want them, and  there’s plenty of room to camp between buildings.  I arrived first and chose a campsite between the buildings and the very edge of the lake, sure that it would be dark and quiet. Continue reading “Rendezvous!”

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Goodbye, BFCC

I’ve been on the Little Rock mayor’s Bike Friendly Community Committee for the past year.  The committee itself was formed several years ago to provide review of the city’s infrastructure and policies alongside a sort of list of ideal practices one would find in a city friendly to cyclists of all kinds.  Little Rock can’t become Portland overnight, but by choosing things that would be simple and low-cost, we could make real progress toward treating cyclists and pedestrians well and providing safe space for all road users.  Sounds good, right?

It was useful and worthwhile work, I’d thought.  I was aware that there were problems – that the specific structure of LR’s city government made progress of this kind difficult, and that there were people on the committee itself who were happy with the status quo, who would be difficult for me to work with.  I knew it would be time consuming, and that I’d have to go to a lot of meetings.  (I hate meetings.) Continue reading “Goodbye, BFCC”