Out and About in Arkansas, Part II

AKA the State and Federal Parks edition. 

In addition to the obvious national park, the one that's the easiest to get to*, the incredibly photogenic one from the view point of a former architectural historian (see photo above), we've visited a couple other parks in the past couple of weeks. 

First up was the William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site (WICL), the place Clinton and his mom called home for the first four years of his life. The park was a first for me: I took zero photos. Maybe it was just too gray a day. The photo of the house I'm using in this post is courtesy of the National Park Service.

The park was interesting, but probably not in the way that supporters of the park would appreciate. Before I saw it, I'd been thinking "Why?" As in "why is it a National Park Service site?" And I'm still thinking that. I don't buy the argument that just because someone was President that automatically makes places that person lived historically significant. And even if the places associated with a past President merit preservation and interpretation, not every one of them requires National Park Service management. The Clinton early childhood home could have easily remained in private nonprofit organization hands or become a state park, but, nope, the NPS got stuck with another money pit. (The house has foundation issues. Work that would cost a private homeowner or a local nonprofit maybe  $20,000 will end up in an NPS budget as $2,000,000.)

I will say WICL has done a decent job of having the house more or less accurate to its period of significance (late 1940s). The furniture fits the time period, there's nothing notably out of place. I did have a few minor quibbles -- the medicine cabinet, for example, could have used some editing. Everything in it might have been accurate to the pre-Korean War era, but having similar products from different retailers struck me as anachronistic. You know, how many rolls of adhesive tape does a person need and, if you want more than one, why get multiple brands? 

On the other hand, the Hopalong Cassidy bedspread on Bill Clinton's bed was a nice touch. Clinton reportedly was a huge Hopalong Cassidy fan as a child. He did like Westerns -- Louis L'Amour was (is?) a favorite author. Whether or not he ever actually had such a bedspread as a child is unknown, but it does tie in with things he has said he liked. The only item in the house that did actually belong to Clinton is a child's picture book; everything else in the house is just stuff that's the right age and kind of matches the few family photographs that show the interior. According to the interpretive ranger leading the tour, Clinton himself thought some of the furniture had actually belonged to his grandparents when he visited the home after it became a museum.

From the town of Hope we ambled a few miles down highway US-278 to Historic Washington State Park. Washington is one of the oldest towns in Arkansas and has two claims to fame: it is where the Bowie knife first saw the light of day (a local blacksmith is credited with its invention) and it served as the Arkansas Confederate state capitol for two years during the Civil War. It is also known for the remarkable number of really old (by U.S. standards) houses and other buildings that have survived. We had lunch at the sort of historic Williams Tavern before checking out the park. I say "sort of historic" because although the building is pushing 200 years in age, it's not on its original site. Arkansas State Parks moved it approximately 7 miles in 1985 and rehabbed it as a restaurant. 

We did enjoy checking out the exhibits in the courthouse (pictured above; it stopped being the county courthouse when the town of Hope won a local election that moved the county seat) and then ambling around town admiring 19th century architecture. There is a replica blacksmith shop commemorating the invention of the Bowie knife, although to be honest I'm not sure just what would make a Bowie knife much different than any other knife available at the time. I did some googling and it appears the blacksmith (James Black) celebrated in Washington did make a knife for Jim Bowie that incorporated some improvements on previous versions of a common type of hunting and/or fighting knife, which isn't exactly inventing the knife, but close enough for the super short sound bites common on signage at state parks. Whatever Black did or did not do, he developed a reputation for good quality work and built a successful business producing knives better than the usual ones available in the 1830s. 

There is a memorial to James Black, although it's a bit odd looking. The blacksmith's shop does have an actual blacksmith doing demonstrations, although we happened to hit a day when the smith wasn't there. The park sells wrought iron items made by the resident smith, e.g., plant hangers. Reasonably priced but I was in full spend-no-money mode thanks to our truck still sitting at the garage in Missouri. 

The park has an event planned for March, a jonquil festival, that sounded like it might be fun. Washington is less than an hour's drive from Hot Springs so we may check that out. Assuming, of course, we have our truck back by then and I'm no longer afraid to spend any money.

The following weekend we decided to head for the southeastern corner of the state, get down into the Arkansas/Mississippi delta country, and visit Arkansas Post National Memorial and Arkansas Post State Museum, but I think I'll do a Part III instead of making this post even longer. 

 

*Photo is a shot down Bathhouse Row at Hot Springs National Park. The nifty dome graces the Quapaw Bathhouse, one of the 8 historic bathhouses along the Row. Seven are open to the public: one is the park visitor center, one is still a functioning bathhouse with traditional thermal baths, one's a brew pub/restaurant, . . .back when I worked for the Park Service 16 years ago most of the bathhouses were mothballed, but NPS management has done a good job of finding tenants.

And the travelogue continues: Waimea Canyon, Koke'e, and Napali Coast Wilderness State Parks

Waimea Canyon

Okay. I know the Electoral College behaved more or less exactly as we realists knew they would and maybe I should be doing an "I told you so" post, but I figure that it makes more sense to go to a happy place right now. I'll do the equivalent of telling visitors to sit, enjoy a cup of hot chocolate while ignoring the blizzard about to destroy us all, and oh, by the way, do you mind if I set up the Carousel projector and bore you with more slides from the Hawaiian vacation? Just ignore the Cossacks kicking in
 the door.

Kaua'i isn't a very big island, but it does have a fair amount of variety and an amazing amount of jaw-dropping scenery. The Waimea Canyon is known as the "Grand Canyon of Hawaii." It's not very long (it is a small island), but, wow, it's deep and dramatic. To get to the overlooks, you get to drive up -- and up some more -- and still more up -- a two-lane blacktop road that has more than its fair share of hairpin turns. As you're going up and kind of wishing for some dramamine, the thought may cross your mind that at some point you're going to have to go back down. Try not to think about it. Take my word for it -- the views of Waimea and the leeward side of the island will make the faint hint of car sickness worth it.

There are a number of places where you can pull over to admire the view on the way up (or down) as well as two larger overlooks that come complete with restrooms. The first overlook also includes a food vendor: a fruit stand that also sells some cooked foods like pork dumplings and lumpia with a banana filling. And there were chickens, of course.

The second overlook seems to be more or less at the head of the canyon. It was interesting. It was high enough up on the island that in one direction you could look down the canyon; from another overlook a couple hundred feet away you could see Ni'ihau, aka "The Forbidden Island," an island that is privately owned and was closed to most outsiders for generations. Or maybe I should say theoretically you could see Ni'ihau. Rain over the ocean meant visibility wasn't the greatest. You could something was out there, but you couldn't see it real clearly.

The same family has owned Ni'ihau since 1864. At one point, the owners were so secretive they didn't even allow relatives of the workers on the island to visit. In recent decades, though, the owners have figured out significant revenue can be generated by catering to visitors with fat checkbooks. Among things, a person can go on "safari" to hunt feral pigs and sheep. The cost for a few hours of helping to control what have become nuisance animals on the island? $1750 per person plus $120 for the rental rifle. To be fair, that price includes the opportunity to take both a sheep and a pig, lunch, the services of someone else to do the actual gutting, skinning, etc., and packing everything neatly for shipment to the taxidermist. And when you're hunting on an island that doesn't get much traffic, at least you don't have to worry about some other hunter shooting you instead of a sheep.

But, as usual, I digress. The winding, twisting road continues to climb to Koke'e State Park. This park, like many others in the Islands (and the U.S. in general) was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. It actually still has wooden buildings used by the CCC, which is surprising considering what a major problem termites can be in Hawai'i. No photos of the buildings, though, as it was pouring rain at that point. The weather was pretty typical for what we experienced while we were on Kaua'i:  it would be raining like crazy for about half a mile, then there'd be brilliant sunshine, then more rain, maybe some fog, more sunshine. We kept going on the road to where it eventually ended, an overlook of the Napali coast. A major portion of the north end of Kaua'i is protected as a wilderness park.

I have been told by various people that the Kalalau trail in the Napali wilderness park is one of the most amazing trails on the planet. It is described as "difficult, but worth it." The original trail was another CCC project in the 1930s. From the descriptions I've heard and photos I've seen, I've no doubt it is indeed amazing. It is also not a trail that a person who gets nervous about heights just stepping on to a step stool is likely to ever attempt. Breathtaking vistas aren't particularly enjoyable when you're trying to figure out how to negotiate a trail without having to open your eyes. I have seen the trailhead by Ke'e Beach; I've looked down on the coast from the overlook. That's going to have to do it. I like to hike, but I recognize the limitations imposed by age and spinal stenosis.

I do regret not walking any of the trail, but the portion right by the trailhead was a steep grade up and super slick (it had rained even more than usual for the island with the wettest spot on earth), we didn't have hiking staffs with us, and the grips on the Tevas aren't what they used to be. I wimped out. Life is too short to spend any of it being the reason a SARS team with a stretcher gets called out to carry an idiot  hiker off a mountain.

We hit a few other state parks in our amblings, most of which were fairly small, like Spouting Horn. It's more like a point of interest. Waves force water up through an old lava tube; end result is something that looks kind of like a geyser. It is absolutely amazing how many humans are willing to stop and stare at water and rocks. Spouting Horn is supposedly the second most visited site on the island (the Kilauea lighthouse being number one). Once again, I wonder how "they" know. Granted, the parking lot was full, but even so. . . I find it hard to believe that this particular attraction draws more gawkers than some of the easily accessible waterfalls.

Then again, we didn't bother to go look at any of the waterfalls, not even the one the tourist brochures say was used in the opening scenes of "Fantasy Island." The waterfalls we saw were all by accident, like the ones shown above in Waimea Canyon. Spouting Horn, like the Waimea overlook, had vendors. There's a long, L-shaped pavilion where various purveyors of souvenirs and tchotkes have booths. Some of the stuff was really neat, some was remarkably overpriced, and some was just plain odd. Typical tourist offerings, in other words.

 There were also chickens wandering around, of course, and there were signs up admonishing visitors to not feed either the feral chickens or the feral cats. Only saw one cat in our one week on Kaua'i, but we definitely saw chickens. There were chickens in downtown Waimea wandering around by the Captain Cook memorial (Waimea is where Cook allegedly landed first in the islands before proceeding to another island -- Oahu? -- where, IIRC, he ticked the Hawaiians off enough that they killed him).

And there were chickens at the Fort Eliabeth historic site just across the river from Waimea. The fort was built by the Russians. When you see the plans, you can tell the Russians expected any trouble to arrive on the seaward side. When you see the fort (or what remains of it), it's a little harder to get a sense of what it looked like when built. Lots of jumbled rock walls in what was obviously a strategic location, but without the interpretive signs you'd have trouble telling what had been what.

It was in Waimea, incidentally, that I noticed something I've never seen in any other state in the U.S. We drove past the post office, and all the boxes were on the exterior walls, similar to the ones pictured below. That made me curious so I started looking -- and sure enough. Every post office I saw was set up the same way. The photo below is from Princeville.

There's an overhanging roof to protect the boxes from rain, but other than that they're totally accessible 24 hours a day every day of the year. Fascinating. I know there are social problems in the Islands, but obviously no one worries a whole lot about thieves breaking into mailboxes there.