Took a quick trip to Petit-Jean, pronounced Petty-Jeen for those not in the know already, last weekend. The weather was great and it was a good opportunity to get outside. Jennifer and I also used it as an opportunity to test out several pieces of equipment.
The Honda Element we bought to replace our ailing GMC van has been just great so far. The Element really fits our lifestyle. High points are the nice sound system with XM radio, it is easy to clean, and gets better gas mileage than what we had before. The vehicle is much bigger on the inside than one expects looking at the exterior. As far as being versitile, the rear seats are easy to fold up against the side of the vehicle. They are also easy to remove completely. Much easier that removing full size bench seats for the van!
Petit Jean State Park is about 75 miles or so northwest of Little Rock. Check out this really cool Google Map. I wasn’t able to get exactly to my location using the search box, but you can see that Petit Jean State Park is marked on the map. As an aside, there are some cool hacks out there for Google Maps- more on that another time.
The trip there was just fine- I was in a bad mood because the dogs were hyper and Zoe was panting like crazy in my ear sporadically throughout the trip. Fortunately, thank God, my wife gives me some leeway when I am feeling and acting like a jerk. After a while, my mood cleared and we had smooth sailing.
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This is at the start of our trip. The pack on Jennifer’s back is deceiving. This is a very short hike- only about 3 miles round trip. Jennifer is wearing her pack so she can start breaking it in. That’s in preparation for our Grand Canyon trip in May! That is the second piece of equipment we were testing out. The camera used to take the pictures with is the third- it is a AIPTEK DV4500 model camera/video record/mp3 player. I have yet to master taking decent pictures indoors or using the zoom, but it performs well enough outdoors, as can be seen here. All of the pics here have been scaled down at least 50% from the original size. |
The hike is pleasant. There is a large red sign declaring the hike to be strenuous. Jennifer and I did not find the hike to be strenuous at all. I imagine that the warning is intened to discourage unhealthy people from the hike. It was steep here and there, but there are plenty of switchbacks and no part of the hike proved particularly taxing. The hardest part for me was keeping a handle of the two energetic dogs. It was wet in places and I was more concerned about the dogs pulling on their leash and causing me to slip and crack my head open.
The weather was good and the walk was refreshing. Spring foliage was not out yet, but the view was still pretty to see- click the thumbnails below to see bigger pictures:
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The trip is culminated upon arrival at Cedar Falls:
The falls are about 80′ to 100′ high. I added an inset picture to give a sense of scale. The band of green moss that the arrow is pointing towards is probably about 4′ or 5′ tall.
The falls were well worth the price of a pleasant hike. In spring, the falls must be absolutlely gorgeous. If you haven’t already, take a look at the front page of the Park website.
More photos- click on the thumbnail to see the larger image:
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That’s a good looking family you’ve got there. Who is the the new rascal in the pack? Did you do any cliff diving off those Cedar Falls?
The new rascal is Sarah. She is sweet and very energetic. She clearly has some pit bull in her- it comes out when she is play wrestling with other dogs- she always does a distinctive neck grappling move that is not Lab typical.
No cliff diving from those falls. We didn’t even really attempt to get up close to them too much. Too big a hassle to get the dogs around the base of the cliff.
ps- Sorry your post languished in limbo for so long. Spammers have broken through again, so comments get held in a queue awaiting moderation. So you get oppressed along with the drivel. The other side of the story is that I would otherwise have hundreds of comments per week advertising online poker and other such nonsense.
I have some upgrades and other spam trapping tools I can install, it is just low on the to-do list.