Cotham’s in the City

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Roger

There used to be a Cotham’s not in the city. It was located in a century-old general store in the town of Scott and became known for its huge hamburgers. It became so popular that a second location opened in Little Rock near the state capitol. I was at the original one with my wife and daughter and my sister-in-law and her daughter years ago, but what I most remember about it is that the girls got in trouble. That original location burned down in 2017 and, so far as I can tell, isn’t going to be rebuilt.

Anyway, we went to the one downtown and enjoyed it tremendously and would go again if we found ourselves in that part of town around mealtime.

I didn’t get the famous Hubcap Burger, or if I did, it was a smallish hubcap.

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Old State House Museum

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Roger

The Old State House was the Arkansas State Capitol from 1842-1912. The vote to secede from the Union in 1861 happened here. After the new capitol was built, this building was used as a medical school and then turned into a museum.

This is at least the fourth time I’ve toured it. I first went with my parents when I was a kid, and for a long time I hung on to a brochure from that visit.  I visited once or twice during family visits in the 1980’s. I went again with a group of men from work when we were in Arkansas for a Baptist pastors conference. And I went on this day with my wife.

The old house of representatives has been restored. There are permanent displays on governors, first ladies’ gowns, and the building itself. Several rooms that usually contain special exhibits were empty this time because — or so we were told by the lonely lady behind the counter in the gift shop — things haven’t ramped back up since Covid. The only special exhibit this time was about the different bands and musicians that have performed in the local arena. It mostly consisted of album covers and so wasn’t all that interesting.

We only saw one other visitor while we were there. The lady in the gift shop made a huge fuss over us. I asked if things were always that slow during the week. She said yes, which explains why she was so very happy to see us. We had a hard time escaping from the conversation.

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The Cliff House Inn

Posted on August 31, 2022 by Roger

There aren’t a lot of tourist attractions along Scenic Route 7 any more. Dogpatch U.S.A. is closed, as is Booger Hollow. The Cliff House, which I’ve drive past many times, is still there but I’d never stopped — until today.

We drove up for lunch. We were also planning on visiting some stores in Jasper, but the town is closed on Wednesdays.

Anyway, there were people at only one other table when we arrived at the Cliff House, although a few others came later. We picked a table in the corner where we could get a good view out over the valley. A territorial hummingbird kept us company right outside the window.

From the rim of the “canyon” to the Buffalo River at the bottom, it’s 1,414 feet, making this the deepest canyon in the Ozark Mountains. Having moved here from Colorado, that doesn’t seem all that impressive, but it is pretty. The food was good and the view was impressive enough that we are considering making this a go-to place when we have out-of-state visitors. If we have out-of-state visitors.

We also stopped right up the road at Scenic Point where there is a tower on the canyon rim next to a mediocre gift shop. How mediocre? I went in with a itch to buy something and came out empty handed. But we still climbed the tower.

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Bird #596 — Swallow-tailed Kite

Posted on August 28, 2022 by Roger

elanoides forficatus

Kelso, Arkansas — Baxter Road

Sunday, August 28, 2022 — 11:14 am

I woke up late on this Sunday, expecting to spend another day sitting around the cabin in London, watching Magnum P.I. reruns and reading while we wait to take occupancy of our house. I saw that a few Swall0w-tailed Kites were being seen regularly in Desha County, almost three hours to the southeast. That’s a long drive, but it would be a lifer and a bird I’ve long wanted to see. And I had nothing but time.

I took off around 8:00 and arrived at the location in a storm. The rain came down fairly heavy for maybe 20 minutes, and then it got very humid. The eBird reports said that the birds had been seen over a soybean field at the corner of Routes 1 and 138. I stood at that corner and watched for maybe 20 minutes but saw no raptors of any kind. Then, above a row of trees off to the east, I saw … something. I got to wondering if perhaps the kites had chosen a different field to fly over today.

I found a narrow side road nearby and headed east. I’d gone maybe half a mile when I came to a large sign stating that, from that point on, it was a private road and violators would be prosecuted. I was about to turn around when I noticed a large bird flying off to the north. I grabbed my binoculars and knew immediately that I had my lifer. There were two Swallow-tailed Kites circling above the field and the row of trees. I had a hard time finding them in my camera but managed one shot that is barely good enough to prove I really saw them.

They seemed to be heading further north, so I drove back to Route 1 and looked for another road to drive down. I tried two, one of which ended in somebody’s driveway and another that kept getting muddier and muddier. I decided it would be wise not to go further. I got one last glimpse of the kites high up and further east — I’m guess they foraged near the Mississippi River this day. I hung around the area for another 45 minutes or so and saw several Mississippi Kites, but that was it for the Swallow-tails.

They were quite a bit bigger than Mississippi Kites, with long forked tails. They were pure white on the leading edge of the wings and on the belly and black on the trailing edge of the wings and on the tail. They were circling for altitude when I saw them, and tilting from side to side.

It certainly wasn’t the view I was hoping for, but I saw enough to know they are stunningly beautiful birds, and I want to see them better.

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Fort Smith

Posted on August 25, 2022 by Roger

In search of adventure, we headed to Fort Smith, just over an hour west of where we’re staying. Our first stop was the Fort Smith Museum of History. It’s a typical local history museum, with displays on things that happened in the city, but since Fort Smith actually is a city, there were some interesting things to see.

I thought the local TV studio that has been entirely rebuilt in the museum was fun.

And this massive camera which functioned essentially as a copy machine was interesting.

They had a lot of verbiage on Judge Parker, the “Hanging Jude” who ruled the town and sentenced 160 people to death in 21 years. Of those 160 people, 79 were hanged. The museum included this valuable information.

The museum was interesting enough to beguile a couple hours. For lunch we went to Blue Embers Smokehouse, which I found on the Internet. It was excellent, and if we find ourselves in Fort Smith in the future, we’ll probably go back.

And since we were in town, we swung by the Planter’s Peanuts factory and took some photos.

It was a hot day, so we skipped the National Historic Park — and anyway the federal morons would have made us wear masks even though nobody was wearing them anywhere else in town. But we had fun and pretty much exhausted the adventure opportunities in the city.

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