Tag: US-Arkansas

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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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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”

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Ozark Highlands Trail, Section 2

Last weekend we hiked the second section of the Ozark Highlands Trail, from White Rock Mountain to Cherry Bend, with our good friends Britt and Debbie.

The timing was perfect to celebrate Britt’s retirement.   After a long career caring for elephants in several states, and one last sad and frustrating year at the Little Rock zoo, he said good-bye to the animals on Thursday.  We hiked a few miles together on Friday, and then set up camp near a pretty stream. We made cherry cheesecakes and hung a makeshift “Happy Retirement” banner near the campfire and drank wine together in the dark.

Congratulations, friend.  You chose a career in something you loved, something that allowed you to work hard and keep learning.   You chose family over money and you chose moving forward over standing still.  You made animals’ lives better and you made people smile.  We’re looking forward to your next adventures, and we hope you’ll share some of them with us.

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Bike Fair 2011

So somehow, somebody got the Mayor of Little Rock to agree to leave his car at home for a week and get around by bus and bike.  He said he’d do some media stuff and really encourage people to join him in a car-free week.  Great, said the Bike Friendly Community Committee.

Somehow, somebody (I really don’t think it was me) suggested that we hold a kind of educational event to teach practical skills so that people would feel more comfortable using their bikes for transportation.  Somehow, I made suggestions about this event.  And somehow I got put in charge of it.  A Car-Free Learning Day.  A Bike Fair.  With three weeks to plan.

I made a list of twelve problems people might have when planning to ride a bike to work.  I listed things like “Won’t People Think I’m Wierd?” and  “How do I carry my stuff?” and “How do I Plan a Safe Route?” Continue reading “Bike Fair 2011”

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USGS + MUC

Four riders from the Memphis Unicycle Club joined us for a playdate in Little Rock.  We rode the Clinton Park bridge and played near the Clinton Library before heading to the Rivermarket for lunch.  From there we went to the Junction Bridge and the Peabody Park for a little trials riding.  The good riders had fun jumping on rocks (and over Mandy) and the bad-rider group had fun watching.

We made a trip to the North Little Rock skateboard park, then ate supper at Vino’s before heading west again to ride across the Big Dam Bridge and the Two Rivers Bridge.  Woodrow and Pete didn’t head back to Memphis until after ten.  Thanks for coming to play, guys!  We had tons of fun, and we hope you’ll come back soon.

 

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Arky 100 2011

We try to support the Arkansas Bicycle Club’s annual fundraising ride, the Joe Weber Arky 100, either by riding or volunteering to help.  It starts and ends in Sheridan, which is about a half hour from our house.  As we’ve done in the past, we drove down the night before, ate with cycling friends, and spent the night in tents behind the small-town community center.

Up early, we helped around the registration a bit and got Mandy started – she’d decided to ride the metric century with our friend Kathy.  Her husband left in his ‘sag wagon’ with their dog and ours.  And Bryan and I loaded up the supplies for Rest Stop 2 and headed for Poyen.

We arrived at our spot just after eight, set up to feed and provide drinks for nearly two hundred riders – fruit, cereal bars, hot and cold drinks, oatmeal, and – the crowd favorite – tiny pbj sandwiches.  By eleven we’d fed everyone, cheered up the stragglers, reloaded the Subaru, and arrived at Rest Stop 5 to visit with friends before heading to the finish line to wait for Mandy.

She bailed at the 50 mile mark and caught the sag wagon in with Jim Britt.  It was disappointing, but not too bad considering that she hadn’t ridden much at all since our summer vacation.  After a couple of finish-line hot dogs, she felt better enough to get her unicycle out of the car to entertain the people still left in the picnic shelter.

Kathy finished the 62 mile course feeling good and decided, after a bite to eat, that she’d just ride home.  The extra afternoon mileage meant that she met one of her big goals today – her first “century”, or 100-mile ride. Congratulations my friend and thanks for sending “photographic proof” as shown below!

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Lake Catherine

Sometimes the best places are the ones close by.  We wanted a quick, low-mileage weekend camp-out and hike, so we drove to Lake Catherine, near Hot Springs.  Why haven’t we been there before?  Probably because it’s only thirty minutes away.

It was a pleasant campground with some walk-in sites, so that we didn’t have to cope with neighbors close by.  We enjoyed walking around the camping area early the next morning and and exploring the short dayhiking trails later in the day.

Funny that such a pleasant state park’s practically in our backyard, but we’d never been there before.  There’s no doubt we’ll be back soon, though, for another visit.

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2 Rivers Bridge Dedication

The bike infrastructure and culture here is very strange.  Lopsided.  Great, and also terrible.

Cycling for recreation has become an accepted thing in the Little Rock area, I think.  Mountain bikers have lots of great trails in Little Rock and the surrounding counties.  Lycra-clad pavement cyclists whiz up and down the much-celebrated River Trail,but even it isn’t really finished – the signage is unclear, and parts of the trail have cyclists traveling on busy streets, or on narrow shoulders.  Years-long calls to “close the loop” are still being met with opposition from taxpayers and businesses in the city.

Cycling for transportation and utility is viewed as the province of the drunken and/or homeless.  Not many people care about interconnected trail networks or even safe bike lanes for people who actually want to GO SOMEWHERE on bicycles. Little Rock has yet to adopt a real ‘complete streets’ policy.In a city like this, would you expect to see THREE DIFFERENT dedicated bike/pedestrian bridges?  No, you would not.  But the county government supports cycling, even if the city government is halfhearted.  And so we have the Big Dam Bridge, the longest purpose-built bike/ped bridge in the US.  After much foot-dragging, the Rock Island bridge (AKA the stupidly named “Clinton Park Bridge”) is now being repaired and adapted for dedicated bike/ped use by the Clinton Foundation, as part of the park surrounding the museum.

And this week, we attended the dedication of the Two Rivers Park Bridge, spanning the Little Maumelle River to connect the west LR River Trail to Two Rivers Park.  It’s full of deer and other wildlife, and for years has been a community garden spot as well.  From the park, cyclists can ride low-traffic, paved county roads out past Maumelle Park, Pinnacle Mountain, and the quiet highways around the lake and up into the Ouachitas.

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Diamond Bear

Diamond Bear Brewery doesn’t have more than three or four employees, so when it’s time to bottle they call in their part-timers and put out an email asking for volunteers to help with the bottling line.  I’ve been on the email list for about a year, but they almost always bottle on weekday afternoons, which makes it hard for us to participate.

But this week they put out a call for volunteers for Friday evening, and Bryan and I snapped up the first two spots.  The bottling was rescheduled for Sunday afternoon at one, which was also fine. Continue reading “Diamond Bear”