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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.

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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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”

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Rockport

Mandy learned to roll her new XP9 before school let out. Then she left for six weeks in Tulsa. She was only back for a week or so before leaving on her New York trip. So really, she didn’t get to spend much time at all in a kayak until the first week of August.


Then, when she came back, she flung her whole 100 pounds into kayaking.  We expected her to take a few tries to roll again, maybe even needing another lesson or two.  Nope – she nailed the first roll she tried in the UALR pool.  She’s spent every available piece of August on the water, working hard on kayak skills.  Mid-month, we bought our friend Renee Hanshaw’s Dagger playboat for her. Continue reading “Rockport”

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Swiftwater Rescue Class

We just got into this whole paddling thing this summer and here we are deciding to sign up Mandy and I for a swiftwater rescue class. The class is taught by some very experienced locals who have received training and certifications over the years from a national paddling organization. They are trained not only in how to conduct a swiftwater rescue, but also how to teach the swiftwater rescue skills and how to train other teachers.

What is “swiftwater rescue?” And why would we noobs be signing up? And why isn’t mom getting trained too? Here’s the course overview for the 20 hour class we took: Continue reading “Swiftwater Rescue Class”