Rhys in Arkansas

"Bigelow didn’t exist by its current name until 1911. It used to be called “Esau”..."

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:18:00 +0000

“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

11th December, cold morning

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:11:46 +0000

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.

A second blog for my more mundane adventures

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:14:24 +0000

A second blog for my more mundane adventures

More photographs from the past few months, click here!

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:00:32 +0000

More photographs from the past few months, click here!

Camp Robinson Drive Through Forest

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:36:00 +0000

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.

It was beautiful, absolutely ludicrous and great fun. Here are some photographs we took on the way around.

Would you believe it though, a fair few of the roads out in the country are like this between the communities.

Fantastic.

-Rhys

Location of Camp Robinson:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=34.990207,-92.361159&hl=en&ll=34.985548,-92.363477&spn=0.009546,0.021136&num=1&t=h&vpsrc=0&z=16

Get onto Clinton Road either from near the Satillo Fire Station Or down on US-89. You’ll see the sign!

Wedding Speeches.Thank you to Anna Hunter,Finlay Nixon/ Conner...

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:29:57 +0100

Wedding Speeches.
Thank you to Anna Hunter,
Finlay Nixon/ Conner McMains

Video

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:04:20 +0100

Video

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:02:20 +0100

Phone call 3

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:54:59 +0100

HSBC: I'm sorry. Your telephone and internet banking security is now showing as failed.
Me:...
HSBC: This means that the ONLY way to access your funds or transfer money now is to go into your local branch back in the UK.
Me: No....
HSBC: There's nothing I can do. I'm really sorry Mr Lawson.
Me:...
HSBC: Have a good day Sir.

Phone call 2

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:13:46 +0100

HSBC: unfortunately you will have to come into a local branch in the UK...
Me: Ah.... aka: I will just have to starve.
HSBC:... Sorry about that.
Me: Can I still transfer money into another account?
HSBC: I'm sorry I cannot divulge any more information with you.
Me: Right...
HSBC: I'm really sorry.
Me: Right....
*Stomach grumble*
*hang up*
Me: Oh Bugger!

The joys of telephone banking...

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:09:04 +0100

Me: Hi there, I've come over to America, my debit card has locked.
HSBC: Yes there is a marker to prevent fraud.
Me: Could you please remove it?
HSBC: Certainly just walk into your local branch with Photo ID-
Me: My local branch is hundreds if not thousands of miles away...
HSBC: Ah... can I call you back?
Me: Quickly, please.

Photos so far!

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:50:20 +0100

Photos so far!

No more gun shots. All is well!

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 04:21:07 +0100

No more gun shots. All is well!

"We should get a gun..."

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:54:29 +0100

Heart rate is up slightly. watching a film and someone just fired off 6 shots not far outside the apartment! eeep!

Photo

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:12:59 +0100

Update 26/09/2011

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:47:00 +0100

It has been a while since I updated, internet has been foggy and I have been busy!
Its gotten a lot cooler since August. Some days are still hot and humid but a lot of the mornings now are pretty chilly (not so bad as to make it impossible to go outside in a t-shirt and shorts however).

We’ve had a few storms. Crazy loud thunder and lightning flashes every half a minute or so sometimes lasting for hours. It was great to feel the rain again. I’ve decided that the weather here is different. In the sense that the rain feels and smells different, the wind is still wind but it again feels different. As does the heat and what not. I think its because back home, a strong cold wind generally means it is going to start getting really cold for the next few days. Here it doesn’t mean anything. It could be overcast for a few days but that doesn’t stop it still being reasonably warm.

We’ve been planning like crazy recently to. For those of you who don’t know, I proposed to Maegan and she said yes. The photos from that are in the link to Flickr further down the blog.

We’ve set a date for October and we’ve been busy arranging a location and getting rentals for chairs and archway and whatnot. Been arranging a cake (we’ve decided on 25 white chocolate cupcakes, 25 dark chocolate cupcakes, and a plain cake topper) . The invitations we’ve printed ourselves using an invitation package Maegan bought on clearance. Days of designing and font-choosing, spell-checking, printing, folding, sticking. They should be getting sent out today and they look fantastic.

I sat in on a writing Workshop class recently at UCA. It was a 3 hour evening affair, interesting and amusing. I came to the conclusion by the end of the class however that some people had taken the opportunity to learn to write and to listen to critique, other people had learn’t to believe that they were writers and were just there to help out. Big difference, guess which group seemed to have more hope of doing something with their trade…

I had possibly the worst chinese take-away ever last night. I went for the combination offer. $6.99 for egg rolls, pork fried rice and pork with vegetables. The pork was a strange shape, I couldn’t figure out which part of a pig it had come from. The rice was dry, the vegetables were really just vegetables cooked in oil and mixed with the pork. The egg roll was reasonable. In the end we decided to give up on that and made something else instead. There are plenty of great chinese take-aways here but most don’t open on a Sunday.

I have managed to get a local phone with an international calling package. But it doesn’t let me call to UK mobiles so if I haven’t called you yet that’s why. I can call mobiles from my laptop but I need internet access for that. Here at the apartment I have 1 bar and it disconnects often. Not good enough for a Skype call unfortunately.

The plan for today is to get the invitations finished, send out the ones we need to send by post and hand out the rest in the local area. Perhaps visit Maegan’s Aunty who i met my first night here. That was a month ago now. I’ve been here for a month! Madness!

It hard to pick out highlights so far. I love the drives and the scenery. How far apart things are yet how built up places are. I both love and hate how commercial things are here. Billboards and car dealerships everywhere. It may be greedy and horrid but you get a real sense that this place is alive. People are starting businesses and making money despite the recession. There are entrepreneurs here like you wouldn’t find in Britain. At local branches of drive-through chains, if they receive positive feedback about their sweet tea they start selling it by the gallon. Over in Vilonia someone has converted a metal shipping container into and outdoor, automated Ice-machine/ shop. Banks have drive-throughs, people set up shops on bit of land by the road. There’s a place called the “Bike Warehouse” its a garden shed filled with cheap bicycles with a big hand-painted sign. People down this way like local peaches so stores selling mainly peaches and other local produce appear, I’ve seen houses with signs outside advertising things they’ve grown in the garden.

It’s brilliant, I love this country. There is a lot to hate, a lot to make it stupid. But at the same time as that, most of those things make it utterly brilliant too.
As “rude” as Americans are supposed to be, here you get a hell of a lot more service with a smile. And it has made me wonder, the same kind of friendly service you get in shops here, would get shop keepers verbally and physically assaulted back in the UK.

Love y’all,
Rhysx

9/9/11

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:13:18 +0100

I am so full of cold!! I’ve not had one as horrid as this before. I’m a little bit spaced out on Anti-histamines and pain-killers but not much is helping with it all. Very congested and a slightly sore throat. Generally just incredibly bunged up though which is frustrating.

Yesterday we went to visit Mae’s Mum again. We had lunch there, ham and cheese grilled sandwiches and corndogs. Delicious with some American mustard! It has been lovely weather recently, really low humidity and temperatures around the 25 - 30 degree C mark. The weather said we might get a few inches of rainfall at the weekend as Tropical Storm Lee looks to be heading back around and right over Arkansas.

Before visiting Mae’s Mum yesterday we went to see some of the worst tornado damade near Vilonia. It was out on a barely double lane back road, proper country area with trailers and whatnot). Although it has been a few months now since the tornados there was still lots of damage. Trees mangled, areas where there are foundations for houses but no houses. There was a big metal container half in a lake. Maegan tells me that during the storm 2 people took cover in there, it got lifted by the tornado and dropped into the lake, both drowned.

Fascinating to see however, I love the back roads around here.

I’m starting to get to know my way around and have had the opportunity to drive a few times now. Very strange sensation to be on the wrong side of the road.

Anyhow, hoping to make a few phone calls again in the next couple of days when I can get to reliable internet,

Cheers,

-Rhys

New photo album! - [CLICK HERE]

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:14:00 +0100

New photo album! - [CLICK HERE]

Photo

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:01:28 +0100

Cliff Jumping at Greer’s Ferry!

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:56:55 +0100

Cliff Jumping at Greer’s Ferry!