Monday, July 06, 2009

Nova did some filming in Nick's lab a couple months ago. The show is airing on July 14th. Below is a link to a brief video called "Aiding Aging Muscles." Nick appears briefly. Check it out!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0403/03.html

Sunday, July 05, 2009

We went for a hike at Cane Creek Lake at the end of May. It was an interesteing park, but the mosquitos were AWFUL!!! It was also very hot & muggy. Not the most comfortable day for a hike. I think I set a record pace just to get away from the bugs. The mosquitos were explained by the small slow creeks criss-crossing the trail. I think there were nine foot bridges to cross in the 2.5 mile trail.
See how far ahead of the family I was? They kept stopping to look at mushrooms, plants & bugs. I never slowed down except to take a couple pictures. Most of the trail looked like this:We finished our hike just ahead of the storm rolling in, & decided we had time to get a closer look at the lake from a little fishing pier. Cane Creek Lake is interesting to look at with all the dead trees sticking out of it.
There's a little cove on the other side of the pier. Not visible in this picture is a boat launch ramp and a pavilion with a sand volleyball court. The pavilions at this park are enclosed and have air conditioning! NICE! The park also has an RV camping area, including a permanent RV you can rent.Self-timer pic of the day... I should have set the flash to go off. In order to even see any features, I had to crop in close & radically change tinting, saturation and contrast... oh well.While we were enjoying the view from the pier and taking pictures, the storm arrived. It was a real frog strangler, and showed no signs of letting up. See that car off in the distance? Yep - that's ours.
Nick ran all the way over to get the car in the pouring rain & then came down to get Laedyn. Brandon and I made a run for it next. Luckily we had a couple towels in the car - I have no idea why. We don't usually have towels on hand but it sure was nice to have them that day! On the drive back to Little Rock, we saw a sign for a place called Tar Camp Park. It's an Army Corps campground, and according to the link above was voted one of the top 100 family campgrounds in the country! They sure did have a nice playground. When Brandon saw the rock wall he insisted that we stop so he could get out & play.Laedyn, who had been fast asleep in her carseat, must have sensed the fun to be had. She woke up and just had to check out the swings. We weren't there for more than 15 minute though before the rain we'd left behind at Cane Creek caught up to us and forced us to call it quits for the day.

Tar Camp Park is about 32 miles from our house in Little Rock - it takes about 45 minutes to get there.