Aly & Bryan are always up to something…
In the back of my head, I’ve thought that mountain biking would be interesting to try but over the years I’ve never gotten closer than riding my Long Haul Trucker (LHT) touring bike on gravel roads near Lake Sylvia or in Newton County or riding my polo bike on a very flat beginner mountain bike trail while my daughter rode her mountain unicycle. My LHT is pretty nice on gravel roads because of Surly’s “fatties fit fine” policy that allows me to fit fenders and 50mm tires.
Our friend Vinny decided that we should have a tweed ride. He’d seen photos and stories from tweed rides in other cities, of people in old-timey woolen clothes smoking pipes and riding bikes, and he thought we should have one in Little Rock, too. Continue reading “Tweed Ride”
Hayduke has a pretty good life. That little stray puppy huddled in the tree roots, hungry and scared, has made a fine life for himself in the house across the street. He gets good dog food and an endless supply of toys and treats and belly scratches and long hikes in the woods. It’s his first winter here, and even though he sleeps inside at night, he needs a doghouse for the cold mornings and evenings he stays outside during the winter, or during the rainy parts of the year.
But will any old doghouse do? No, it will not. No doghouses we can buy locally are insulated. No doghouses we can order online review well. Most dogs in Arkansas do just fine with a non-insulated doghouse. Most dogs don’t read online reviews.
We’re BUILDING a doghouse. We ordered plans online from doghouseplans.com and gathered ideas from reviewing hundreds of doghouse photos. We’ve gone to Home Depot a half dozen times. We’ve spent good money and large parts of four days building this doghouse.
Happy New Year! The last supper of 2011 was Jarion’s excellent steak and veggies, eaten by the light of a camp lantern on a picnic table. We spent the last night of 2011 in a tent near the top of Mount Magazine. It’s a windy, windy place.
We were up early, in the cold. Jarion had lost the lighter the night before, so I loaded up the early risers to obtain a replacement (and coffee) at the Lodge. Then we drove back to camp for pancakes and eggs and sausage before loading up the dogs and the gear and driving back down the mountain.
Continue reading “New Years Hike”
This is our niece, Emma. What a sweet face! Who wouldn’t agree to a post-Christmas campout with these eyes?
Bryan’s brother Kevin, his wife Julie, and their little girl had plans to camp at Petit Jean State Park over the holiday break, so we joined them. We had short dayhikes, lazy afternoon naps in camp, and good Dutch oven food. It was a nice break from rougher weekend trips. Continue reading “Petit Jean Campout”
This year we added an official Festivus celebration to our holiday calendar. (Wikipedia has a well-written and comprehensive article about Festivus, and you should read it if you’re unfamiliar with this winter holiday.) Bryan made a Festivus pole for the house (under $10 DIY or you can buy one here –Bryan), and our friends Kathy and Jarion went with us to a movie (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol; worth the IMAX surcharge –Bryan). After the movie, we ate supper at our house and participated in an extended Airing of Grievances session (she’s holding a Grievance form against his chest, above.) We went to their house for carrot cake for dessert, and the dogs took care of the Feats of Strength portion of the customary Festivus celebration.
When we bought our house, we knew that our second bathroom was sort of terrible. The fixtures were nice, but the room was painted bright yellow with a sort of multi-layer brown/gold spongy finish. I suppose the previous owners had thought that the effect would be rich and elegant. I thought that the effect led one to believe that a large mammal had been smeared in its own poop and then had seizures in the room, blotting the excrement all over the walls.
A second problem involved the sink. It was a nice Kohler pedestal, but its lack of a cabinet meant that there was no storage at all in the small bathroom. This was a problem for our teenager – even a low-maintenance girl like Mandy needs a place to store a few bathroom things. Since the room doubles as a guest bathroom, there was no way for her to store her own lotions and potions that still allowed the room to be presentable for guests. It was getting more and more frustrating for all of us.
So this year, one of her holiday gifts will be a remodeled bathroom.
On the Saturday Mandy left for her annual winter trip to Tulsa, Bryan and I shopped for and bought a new vanity, counter, and sink for the bathroom. Sunday was spent removing the fixtures, repainting the room, reinstalling the toilet and adding the new vanity.
We all wanted a brighter orange wall color, but it would have clashed with the granite countertop. It’s actually turned out rather more classy and grown-up than we’d intended, but it’s very pretty and I suppose we’ll manage.
After years of budget problems and broken promises, the old Rock Island railroad bridge has been renovated and this weekend, it reopened as the Clinton Park Bridge. Continue reading “Clinton Park Bridge Opening”
Our friends Adam and Amy live in Georgia. We keep in touch online but hadn’t spent the weekend together since before Bryan and I were married, and before their daughter Maddie was born. Maddie’s three now, and another baby’s on the way. We decided it was time for another getaway weekend. Since it’s easier for us to travel, they chose a cabin in the north Georgia woods.
The boys worked on some minor photography projects, though since Amy spent part of the weekend feeling yucky, we didn’t do the family pictures we’d been planning. We made a few side trips to visit hiking areas and waterfalls nearby. I think the biggest accomplishment of the weekend may have been figuring out how to drive AROUND (rather than through) the horrible tourist trap town of Helen, GA.
Predictably, all the tourist areas were mobbed with people on a three-day holiday weekend. The viewing deck at this pretty waterfall was so crammed with people we could barely get onto it. Bryan’s magical postprocessing mashup* of several exposures makes it look like a peaceful scene.
We also hiked to the top of Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. It was a wide, pleasant trail with a great view from the visitors’ center built at the top.
We enjoyed spending a weekend in a comfy cabin in the woods catching up with Adam, Amy, and Maddie. Thanks, friends!
* Take lots of photos, layer them in Photoshop, mask out the people so they disappear and VOILA! Serenity in memory if not in the moment. –Bryan
Mandy and I met up with our friend Kathy this weekend for a quick bike trip to Leola. Forty-five miles or so one-way, camping next to a lake, a trip to a catfish restaurant for dinner… should be a good weekend.
Our route was nice, mostly rural highways with a usable shoulder. The roads weren’t flat but the hills were mostly doable. Of course, even though the three of us rode up nearly every hill we came to, I have to post the one photo I have of Mandy and Kathy walking up a hill. Continue reading “Bike Tour to Leola”