December 11, 2011

Bigelow didn’t exist by its current name until 1911. It used to be called “Esau” — a community a few miles southwest of the present Toadsuck Ferry Bridge that grew to touch the edge of the small town of Fourche. In 1911, Fourche River Mill owner, N.P. Bigelow, built an elaborate white house of the best lumber on a hill above the town. He was elected mayor, and then gained permission from the state’s General Assembly to change the name of Esau to Bigelow. It was at one time the biggest town in the county; a vote was taken to move the county seat from Perryville to Bigelow, Bigelow won the vote, but the move was never made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow,_Arkansas

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December 11, 2011

11th December, cold morning

This morning after dropping Maegan off at work I decided to have a bit of an explore over the other side of the Arkansas river by Toad Suck park and beyond. It was chilly this morning, car needed to be left to heat up and defrost but the sky was pretty much completly clear, the air clean and crisp. Fantastic day to snap a few wintry photographs. Here are 4 photo-stitches taken today at Toad Suck Park and down in Bigalow.

Fisherman prepares his fishing rod on the Arkansas River.

Mist rises off of the Arkansas River.

Big old wonky saloon in Bigalow, Arkansas.

Saloon and old Barber Shop in Bigalow, Arkansas.

Filed under arkansas winter travel photography black and white mist river fishing bigalow conway toad suck

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November 3, 2011

Camp Robinson Drive Through Forest

Everyone knows that America is famous for its wide range of drive-in/through food. Here in Conway there is Burger King, Long John Silver’s, Sonic, Taco Bell, POpeyes Chicken, Dairy Queen, McDonalds, Subway and a lot of others. Besides food we have drive through banks with drive through ATMs, drive-through utility corporations for paying bills, drive-through pharmacies for getting your prescriptions, even saw a drive-through liquor store the other day!

Even Maegan was surprised, however, the other day when we stumbled across a whole different drive-through experience. The day before we had gone for a drive around so we could enjoy the Fall colours and see the country areas around Conway. We did a bit of Brown-Signing (seeing a sign indicating a Reserve or Attraction and following it) and a couple of the most promising State Park areas were currently being used for Field Trials for the Army or something. We ended up finding an access point and Jetty by Lake Conway and watching the sunset there.

The next day we go back to see if the parks have opened up and a few had. This is how we found the drive-through forest. Not far from a shooting range next to a big map and box containing leaflets was a mud and gravel trail. It was literally like a Woodland Walk but for cars. Along the way there were stops which told you about the plants (a lot of the land had been allowed to grow wild for years) birds and animals to be seen. There was a climb to the top of a high hill and another semi-perilous (in the non 4x4 automatic) descent.