Whitaker Point / Hawksbill Crag

When wanting to venture to the most iconic landmark of Arkansas, the internet is not altogether helpful. It's not all the internet's fault though, because the trail head location is remote and does not come with an address for Google maps. This blog post is intended to hopefully fill in the gaps for future internet-browsers seeking information & directions to this trail.

Hawksbill Crag is in Boxley, Arkansas, but according to Google maps Boxley, AR does not exist. You can instead find driving directions to Boxley Baptist Church (directions here). The suggested route may take Hwy 16, but you want to choose the alternate route that takes Hwy 412 east--412 is four lanes all the way to Huntsville, 16 is curvy and hilly. You can also get directions to Kingston or Ponca; both nearby towns recognized by GPS and weather.com. Watch the mileage between the turns and you'll have no problems. Google maps directions can only take you so far, though. You'll go from 412 E to Hwy 21 S towards Kingston. (The road takes a 90 degree turn at little Kingston square but the hwy is clearly marked.) Watch for the junction of Hwy 21 & Hwy 43 -- it's about 17 miles past the 412 turnoff. When you pass this junction, your next turn onto an unmarked dirt road is 1.2 miles away. Boxley Baptist Church is about 0.5 mile away. This unmarked dirt road is on the right, just before a bridge labeled Buffalo River. Literally the guard rails of the bridge begin next to this road. It's actually very easy to find!

Now you go up a steep dirt road for 6 miles to meet the trail head. Other sites advised a four wheel drive vehicle to get up this dirt road. I think that is definitely necessary if you are traveling when the roads are wet. However, we passed many makes/models of sedans going up and down the hill without problem. Lots of people do it without SUV's/trucks, but you'll probably still feel safer if you can take one. The road is very narrow, but all cars are able to slowly/barely pass each other on the road. Leave the stick shift at home because you'll peel out. Along the way you'll pass a small unmarked church/cemetery on the right side of the road. The trail head is 0.6 miles past this landmark. You'll also see a road sign that says something like "Whitaker Point Trail Head 300 feet". The "parking lot" in front of the trail's information board only accommodates about 6 cars. We went on a Saturday afternoon and cars were parked along the road and backed up about 500 feet before the trail head. The trail starts across the road from the information board. It is marked by a large rock honoring Sen. Dale Bumpers. Expect the entire trip from Fayetteville to Whitaker Point to take about 2 hours, maybe less.

The trail itself is easy/moderate hiking level. We saw several kids and seniors hiking without a problem, even a couple girls in flip-flops and fashion boots. That being said, you'll probably still get winded on the return trip when you're hiking uphill. Lots of rocks/roots so watch your step. The trail is easy to follow and has lots of side-trails taking you to lookout points closer to the bluff ledge. Yes, you're hiking on a bluff but it doesn't feel like it because there's always lots of trees & boulders between you and the dropoffs. Leashed dogs are allowed on the trail. It's only 1.5 miles to the crag itself. I read other sites saying there was a clearing nearby for picnics, but I didn't find it so we ate our snacks on the crag.

 This hike is a must for all able Arkansans! Enjoy!

Here Comes the Bump

It's probably important to note on this blog that Bryan and I are expecting our first child this spring 2013. Not much else to say at this point, but here are some pics for posterity showing how we broke the news:

And then we were three!

29:42 5k on October 6th at 13 weeks.

he's cutting the chip timer off my shoe--not bowing to my awesomeness

Photo Scavenger Hunt in Scotland

Before leaving on our trip to Scotland to visit friends at the University of Glasgow, I asked my facebook friends to compile a photo scavenger hunt list for me. It was a varied list they produced, and I did my best to capture all the items during our Scotland travels. Unfortunately I couldn't get them all, but most were found and I had a blast doing it. Thanks to everyone who contributed! So without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the finds of my photo scavenger hunt in Scotland:

"Yellow"

"Arkansas"

"What Scared Me"

"Loch Ness"

"Bryan in a Kilt"

"Where I'd Stay Forever"

"Where I'd Never Return"

"Quaint"

"Chic"

"Inspired Singing"

"Familiar"

"Odd"

"Mysterious"

"Razorback"

"Delicious"

"Unusual Sign"

"Singing in the Rain Pose"

"American Flag"

"Purple Flower"

"McDonald's"

"Needs Bling"

"Something Plaid"

"Basketball Court"

(It's not Photoshop, just me holding a picture of Shane in front of the camera)

Those P:31 Girls

10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?
She is more precious than rubies.
11 Her husband can trust her, --not to cheat at Monopoly
and she will greatly enrich his life.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life. --Except that one day she accidentally shot a nail gun at his foot which was probably his fault anyway for standing so close...

13 She finds wool and flax
and busily spins it.
14 She is like a merchant’s ship, --wait, is he calling her fat??
bringing her food from afar. --oh...
15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household
and plan the day’s work for her servant girls. --Ahh, so that's the secret. God, if you want me to be a virtuous wife I'm going to need some servant girls, pronto. This is probably why we don't see any mention of the virtuous wife cleaning her house.

16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it;
with her earnings she plants a vineyard. --This girl is big on investments! When was the last time you bought something that could generate more income for you? Does a Mac and Adobe Suite count??
17 She is energetic and strong,
a hard worker. --"Energetic." Proof that the virtuous wife drinks coffee.
18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable;
her lamp burns late into the night. --Cutting coupons, no doubt.

19 Her hands are busy spinning thread,
her fingers twisting fiber. --crafty lady!
20 She extends a helping hand to the poor
and opens her arms to the needy.
21 She has no fear of winter for her household,
for everyone has warm clothes.

22 She makes her own bedspreads. --Note to self: make a bedspread.
She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. --Proof that God wants me to go shopping and buy pretty things! (It doesn't SAY that she spun & dyed the thread before hand-stitching the gown herself... she could've bought it!)
23 Her husband is well known at the city gates,
where he sits with the other civic leaders. --Is an awesome husband required to be a virtuous wife? I suppose she was first a virtuous girl with many offers of marriage who made a discerning decision. She don't want no scrubs.
24 She makes belted linen garments
and sashes to sell to the merchants. --Obviously a professional in her field. Probably sells on Etsy, too.

25 She is clothed with strength and dignity, --Where has all the dignity gone?
and she laughs without fear of the future. --Laughter required. Worrying banned.
26 When she speaks, her words are wise,
and she gives instructions with kindness. --With kindness, not shouts, rolling eyes, and exasperated sighs.
27 She carefully watches everything in her household
and suffers nothing from laziness. --Which reminds me of a project I need to finish...

28 Her children stand and bless her. --Do nieces/nephews count? Because those Borkert kids think I'm pretty cool.
Her husband praises her: --Bryan, are you getting this??
29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world,
but you surpass them all!”

30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; --and plastic surgery looks fake;
but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.
31 Reward her for all she has done.
Let her deeds publicly declare her praise. --Reward her? Ok, Bryan, I like gift cards, shopping sprees, date nights, flowers, Bliss cupcakes...

Snice Day

I woke up this morning at 5am to the tinkling of ice pellets outside. Though I'm notoriously not a morning person, I was coherent enough to reach for my phone and investigate school closings. No school. No work. I fell back asleep dreaming of what I'd do with my Snow/Ice Day...

Unfortunately I dreamed that I went into work anyways and got a few things done. That did not happen.

What did happen: I enjoyed a lazy morning. Ate a bagel, made coffee, lounged. At 9:30 it started really snowing and I went for a jog on the treadmill while watching reruns of America's Next Top Model. I ran longer than usual.

After jogging I got the bright idea to finally clean our oven. It's been a while since I've used a self-cleaning oven, and it quickly became apparent that this decision ranked up there with my neighbors' putting snowboobs on their snowman. Bad idea. Despite running all the vents and fans, the house was quickly filled with a smelly eye-burning fog. Bryan suggested that instead of canceling the cleaning, we could just shut ourselves inside the fume-free office and wait it out. Oh, and to complete the plan of course we would have to turn off the heat and open windows to vent the rest of the house. It made sense.

So that's why we have a 2" drift on our windowsill and some accumulating flurries in front of the screen door.

We've been well-entertained in the office though. Bryan is content with his MMO game and SportsCenter, and I have everything I need: a computer, a novel, and a phone with a charger. Add some Mt Dew and Sunchips and it's really not so bad. However, with 30 min left in the 4 hour cleaning cycle, even the office is starting to get cold now. But it will all be worth it when I'm not blasted with smoke the next time I take a pizza out of the oven. Surely...

With our quarantine almost over, I'm looking forward to rewarding my 2.5 miles this morning with some chili mac tonight. And thanks to the past few hours I'm almost halfway through Emma; so altogether it's looking to be a very snice day.

Don't Follow the Rabbit Trails

A phrase I love: There, but for the grace of God, go I. What an awesome, humbling statement to remember when looking on those who are lost, struggling, or less fortunate.

I saw an older mother/daughter couple in a clothing store the other day debating which top looked better. The green one or the tunic? And it made me hope that someday I'll have a daughter who loves shopping as much as me. We can furrow our brows in the fitting room together trying to decide which top has the better cuteness/value ratio...

I don't care what anybody says about technology making us less social. I am a MUCH more social person since I joined facebook six years ago. All those little status updates are an outlet for my wonderful one-liners (at least I think they're wonderful), and I get the luxury of writing a first draft, editing, and rewriting every comment before it is "out there"--a gift not given in verbal communication. On facebook I can be brave when otherwise I would be silent. Bryan said that channel 40/29 did a special on how technology harms relationships, and by their standards I have "a problem." Well... 40/29 anchors can't read a teleprompter (have you ever watched the morning news???) so I'm not going to let them judge my technology involvement. Facebook made me a better person.

So who's going to see The Social Network now that it won the Golden Globe for best picture? Put me on that list. Maybe. It's so hard to set aside time to watch movies. But hey, look at that, American Idol is on tonight. Maybe I'll tune in to see their strategy for jumping off the borderline of cancellation.

And who knew the Syfy channel could provide an evening of guilty entertainment? Oh, it must be SO HARD living as a vampire/werewolf/ghost in this modern society! I feel your pain and it makes me giggle...

There. Now I've said too much.

Double Negatives

When walking past the deli at Walmart today I overheard the lady restocking fresh corn dogs complain to her coworker holding a giant bowl of coleslaw, "This job is so stressful! I don't know how else I'm not gonna deal with it anymore!"

About a half hour later, the guy at the register numbly asked how I was doing, so I replied positively and returned the question. "Sometimes this job is the most annoying thing ever." This made me laugh. I told him that most jobs probably have that tendency, but they all have their upsides, too. "Yeah, like getting paid!"

I'm happy to have a job, but sometimes it can be stressful and annoying. However, after today's grocery shopping I have a new perspective. Jobs do not inherently come with stress or annoyances. People who do the jobs bring their own stress and annoyances. So your workplace is exactly as __________ as you let it be.

Joy to the World! (Sometimes)

Some people are ALWAYS cheerful.

I'm not one of those people, but I wish I was.

I wish I had that power to be happy and bouncy no matter the situation or company. I wish my smile was as quick as sunlight and lit up a room like the fourth of July. I'm not saying that I don't have my moments of spreading laughter and good cheer; I do. I just also have my moments of moping, brooding, sulking, and indifference. Joy is just not the core of my personality like it is for some lucky people.

I didn't really have a plan when I started typing this blog entry, and right now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to put a positive spin on it or create a spiritual lesson out of it.

I'm stumped.

The perpetually cheerful and their premature laughing wrinkles will always have my envy. But at least I know this: God created and used a lot of people who weren't so optimistic. Some were skeptical, some were burdened, and some were downright downers. So if I'm not ALWAYS cheerful, at least I'm in good company. High five, Job.

Did you catch that? I managed to turn it around and find a positive spin after all. I could have a future in writing sit-coms.

Belt Notches

"And if it were not a sin against charity, I should say that I hope Don Quixote may never be cured, for with his recovery we not only should lose his pleasantries but his squire Sancho Panza's as well; and either of them can turn melancholy itself to mirth."
-Don Antonio, as spoken in Don Quixote, Part II, Ch. LXV

Finally I can add one more novel to the list of classic literature I have read! Don Quixote is the not the longest book I've conquered (Les Mis holds that honor), but it WAS a close second and definitely took the longest for me to me to finish! I've been working my way through Don Quixote's misadventures for over two years. That paperback stayed with me through four houses, three states, and two beaches. It was not quite the tale that Wishbone made it out to be, but it was satisfying nonetheless. I'm happy to be done with it.

Unfortunately, the big finale of placing Don Quixote snugly back in the bookshelf is overshadowed by the nagging reminder that I am not yet at liberty to begin a new novel. There is another book that needs finishing before I can tickle my fingers down the library shelves again. I began reading The Pilgrim's Progress about a year ago during a particularly dull stretch of Don Quixote. I quickly realized that Pilgrim's Progress was not a book I could casually read on the side. So I put it in the drawer of my nightstand with the promise that I would not forget it there. This afternoon I pulled it out and replaced the pink post-it note on page 28 with my best bookmark (a segment cut out from the cover of a wall calendar). Although dripping with detailed symbolism, I am convinced this will be a much faster read for me. It has a third of the page count of Don Quixote and its font is twice as big. Maybe only one year? :)

Next on the list, I hope to complete the Jane Austen collection by reading Emma. Looking forward to it!

"This Hill, though high, I covet to ascend,
The Difficulty will not me offend.
For I perceive the Way to Life lies here:
Come pluck up Heart, let's neither faint nor fear;
Better, though difficult, the Right Way to go,
Than Wrong, though easy, where the End is Wo."
-The Pilgrim's Progress, Page 49

Thursday's Doodle

I've made digital art in Illustrator for years, but I've never tried doing it in Photoshop. My past few blog posts have been a progression of my attempts to create original art in Photoshop. My first attempt, the flowers, were drawn with Photoshop's pen tool. I'm happy with the results, but not the method since I basically created it exactly as I would in Illustrator. The pen tool is not Photoshop's forte, but being more familiar vector art, it was the tool I was most comfortable using. So this piece broke the ice for me, but I knew that on my next one I wanted to use more of the raster tools and techniques that are unique to Photoshop.

So before my next doodle I researched online samples of original art made in Photoshop. There are some stunning photo-realistic creations out there! So I found a photo reference and began drawing these leaves with variations of the brush tool. Creating art in raster-based Photoshop is a completely different practice from creating art in vector-based Illustrator. I had to change the way I approached and thought about digital art, but this was a good learning experience.

After achieving some familiarity and intuition with the tools used to create the leaves, I was ready to try something freehand again. Queue today's post: Thursday's doodle. I spent several hours drawing this girl in Photoshop using the brush tool, the smudge tool, and the dodge/burn tools. The entire piece was drawn on only two layers: one for the hair, and one for everything else. She lacks the texture and tones to look photo-realistic, but I'm happy with it looking like a pencil/charcoal drawing. My next attempt will be to try drawing a face from a photo and doing it in color.