Author: Aly

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The Tall Bike Project

Our friend Mitch got a welder for Christmas, and ever since then, we’ve been thinking about that welder.  He doesn’t know how to weld but he’s got a book.  Bryan doesn’t know how to weld but he’s been around his dad who can weld.  I don’t know how to weld, which makes no sense because all the guys in my family can, but they never taught me, which I’ve always been slightly offended about.

We’ve all been thinking about tall bikes for awhile.  And we have this lovely welder.  Welding can’t be that hard, right?  You just wear a funny hat, put pieces of metal near each other, and poke them with that stick thing.  Continue reading “The Tall Bike Project”

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National Bike Summit 2012

I’ve been doing a ton of work with Little Rock’s bike friendly community committee, so when they offered me a chance to represent LR at the National Bike Summit this month, I was eager to go.

At the last minute my flight from LR to Dallas was cancelled, and I was rescheduled on a flight the next day.  A day’s delay would have meant missing part of the conference, so somehow, with me standing at the ticket counter inside and Bryan in the truck looking up flights on his iPhone, I managed to get on a different airline’s flight to Chicago and then to Washington DC, right on time.

Continue reading “National Bike Summit 2012”

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Priorities

We’re done!  We’d been way behind on the blog again.  Our excuse is just that it was a busy autumn, and I just didn’t make telling stories and posting photos a big priority.  In many cases, we would have the photography but no story, or we’d have the story but the photos weren’t finished.  Or we’d be finished with one post but an earlier one wasn’t ready and we hate to publish things out of order.

We’d like to thank all our readers (yes, all three of you!) for your patience.  We’ve spent chunks of our holiday vacation finishing up posts from the last 5+ months.

And now we’re operating in real time. Everything that happens now, is happening now. We’re at now now.

–Bryan & Aly

Latest Posts:

  • Festivus (12/26)
  • Guest Bathroom (12/26)
  • Holiday Decorating 2011 (12/26)
  • Mandy’s 14th Birthday (12/26)
  • Jingle Bell Jubilee Parade (12/26)
  • NOLA Pukefest (12/26)
  • Ouachita Trail, Section 6 (12/26)
  • Caddo Valley Rail Line (12/26)
  • ASMSA Open House (12/26)
  • Ozark Highlands Trail, Section 2 (12/26)
  • Bike Fair 2011 (12/26)
  • Bikes Vs. Zombies (12/26)
  • USGS + MUC (12/26)
  • Obedience Class for Dogs (12/26)
  • Arky 100 2011 (12/26)
  • Clinton Park Bridge Opening (12/26)
  • Lake Catherine (12/26)
  • Traffic Safety 101 (12/26)
  • North Georgia (12/26)
  • Bike Commuting (12/26)
  • 2 Rivers Bridge Dedication (12/26)
  • Diamond Bear (12/25)
  • Goodbye, Fencing (12/24)
  • The Amazing Giant Cat Tree Palace Sniper Tower (12/24)
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Holiday Decorating 2011


When we pulled up in front of Bradbury’s Christmas Tree Farm, a boy in a red ball cap met us at the truck with a smile and a saw.   Bryan and Mandy choose our tree based on height, color and even-ness; I have veto power because I’m the one who notices when a tree’s trunk is so crooked it won’t fit well in the tree base.



Then it was home to put up the tree.  This year we recorded another time-lapse video (that’s it up top) of decorating the house.  And now we’re ready for the holiday season, full of music and food and naps and presents and friends

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Mandy’s 14th Birthday

Mandy’s fourteenth birthday’s come and gone.  For breakfast, she got homemade waffles with strawberry syrup and whipped cream.  Her presents were practical this year – some clothes and shoes and a new bag for school.

Fourteen years into this, I have to say she’s a good kid for the most part – a little disorganized, a little lazy, a little thoughtless.  But when we think about the other teenagers I see, with their skin-tight shirts and their sneery attitudes and their noses in their text-phones, we’re glad we have her. She’s smart and funny and wise and cheerful.

Happy birthday, Mandy.  Let’s make this next year a good one, too.

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Jingle Bell Jubilee Parade

Our Unicycle Support Group decided to ride in the Little Rock Christmas Parade this year.  Since we hadn’t thought to register separately, we just rode with the cyclists from BACA.  But we all wore green shirts and we made a sign.  (We forced the non-unicyling member of the Vire family to carry the sign, and he handled the task with aplomb and grace once we removed most of the tinsel.)

The parade was fun.  I rode a bike with panniers to hold the green and red beads (leftover from Mardi Gras 2010) we passed out to the people we rode past.  Mitch and his kids and Mandy and Luke did stars and hopped around and played tag and were just generally goofy.  Since we were between a float sponsored by a windshield company (complete with a grumpy-looking old lady in a plywood sleigh) and a handful of Quakers with “Peace on Earth” signs, people enjoyed having something funny to watch.  The parade was a success and we’ll do even better next year (when I can ride, too!)

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NOLA Pukefest

We always look forward to our visit with New Orleans family at Thanksgiving time, and we always enjoy our time there.  Almost always.  Maybe not so much this time.  But we’ll get to that.

We arrived in Metairie at our usual 2am on Thanksgiving morning, after the long after-work drive from central Arkansas.  Hayduke and I got up early on Thursday for beignets and a trip to the dog park while Bryan and Mandy slept in, and then Hayduke went down the street to stay at Kevin’s house while the family enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner.  It’s such a treat to spend the day with family. Continue reading “NOLA Pukefest”

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Ouachita Trail, Section 6

Ivy the Poodle has never gone backpacking, so we thought we should fix that problem.  Our unicycling friend Alyssa decided to make it her first backpacking trip as well.  We chose section six of the Ouachita Trail because it’s an easy hike with accessible water.  And on beginner trips, it’s nice to use a trail shelter and leave the tents at home.
What a pretty, pretty weekend!  It was warm and pleasant hiking; in fact, we had to stop along the way so that Jarion could adjust Kathy’s pants by cutting out the too-warm linings. Continue reading “Ouachita Trail, Section 6”

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Caddo Valley Rail Line

We’re a member of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and Bryan is one of their email lists that notifies interested people when a rail company files abandonment paperwork for a section of rail line.  Thousands of miles of rail have been abandoned in the last few decades, and most have seen their rails and crossties sold for scrap and their corridors sold piecemeal to adjacent landowners.  It’s handy for farmers and businessmen to have a little extra chunk of land, I suppose, but it means that the rail line can never be used again for anything of economic benefit to the whole community.

Rails to Trails aims to prevent this from happening.  They send out a notice, along with information on how to file paperwork to preserve the rail corridor for use as a trail.  It’s called “railbanking” and it’s a low-cost way for communities or organizations to preserve the corridor for a few months, so that they can make plans to use the space for a multi-use trail of some sort.  They can use the space for a trail, with the understanding that if it’s ever needed again for rail transport, it can be easily converted back to that use. Continue reading “Caddo Valley Rail Line”

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ASMSA Open House

by Guest Blogger Mandy

Most people, by the eighth grade, have thought of the daunting prospect of what to do with their edjumacation, and, hello, I’m there. And as higher academics goes, while kids often day dream about college, I’ve been thinking about high school and I have discovered something, too. Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts (ASMSA), to me, seems a little shinier than Benton High School. Continue reading “ASMSA Open House”