The three main hobbies that I can take pictures of are hiking, exploring abandoned buildings and fossil collecting. I also enjoy baking and writing, but taking pictures of myself doing those always seemed weird. Arkansas is the Natural State, so naturally, it has a lot of hiking paths. The first two images are from around the Buffalo National River, while the last one is from Petit Jean State Park. I like hiking because I like looking at nature, and it makes me feel less out of shape. My feet always hurt after, so I only go about once a week.
Arkansas used to be a part of the Gulf of Mexico, meaning that millions of years of sea life are deposited right here. That is why Arkansas has so much clay. The soft silt and hard shells made it easy for dead oysters and clams to turn into stone. The picture shows Terre Noire, a nature reserve for Arkansas’ blackland prairies.
I mostly find bivalve oysters, crinoids and brachiopods. The conditions in Feaster Creek are perfect to find them, but no one ever wants to go down there and get them. That’s how I’ve got 200 specimens on my back porch.
Finally, I like exploring abandoned places. Most of these aren’t pretty enough to picture, but occasionally you find cool places. This one is an old 1950’s house looking over a cliff by my house. Apparently, two sisters used to live there, but they both died, and no one bought it. I can’t tell if teenagers come out to party, if homeless people sleep in it, or if wild animals use it for a den. Sure was cool to look at though.
I’ve been to plenty of places like this. There are dozens of abandoned houses in Clark County, but the coolest places are the urban ones. I went to a bottle factory out near Hot Springs, sitting in a deep valley. The place had pits down to aquifers two stories deep. There’s a mansion in Conway overlooking a 200-foot drop into the river. I’m a simple man, I got a lot of hobbies that I don’t take pictures of, but these are the ones I have.