Arkansas in May

Posted on May 20, 2012 by jwj

Missy and I loaded up the truck two weeks ago and headed south to Arkansas for a week`s stay on beautiful Lake Ouachita west of Hot Springs and east of Mount Ida….I was asked to photograph the scenery down there four times a year and this was our spring trip down there.

I stopped off in Waldron, on the way down, where my parents are both from and my Mom was raised there on the family farm. I have many fond memories of the family farm and my grandparents and many cousins and relatives in that area from several trips down there at various times of the years, and we still travel there for family reunions at the farm in November each year. My grandparents are buried nearby and my parents usually travel down there for Decoration Day at the cemetery, but were unable to do so this year, so I offered to take care of it for them. It was a beautiful drive out to Sehorn Cemetery, which sits up on a hillside overlooking a creek valley near Winfield, just west of Waldron.

Mom takes hanging baskets down each year and changes them out, I set the new ones on the grass and removed the older ones from the Shepherd`s hook and changed them out…

From there, we drove on south to Mount Ida and east on 270 to our turnoff, Mountain Harbor Road, at a wide spot in the road called Joplin. We were staying in a beautifully furnished condo in Harbor East, which was within sight of the lake waters…I photographed the condo and several others when there in November last fall and would mainly be concentrating on scenery around the lake and boating activities on this trip. I had intended to drive on down to Hot Springs and get a good steak dinner at Colton`s, and visit with one of my good friends Scott Effird, who works there, but found myself a little too tired after the long drive down today. We had alot of headwinds on the way down, and I was wore out, so we went over to the Harbor Dining Lodge instead and had a good dinner there. I really enjoy the atmosphere in the Harbor Lodge, very friendly people that work there and there is a great view of the lake there while eating. After dinner, we went down and looked at the big fireboat again, its a retired Coast Guard Cutter retrofitted to use as a fireboat….

…it was purchased by a resident of Mountain Harbor for the Harbor to use as a fireboat….it almost went to Alaska and would have if it hadnt been purchased, from what I understand. It sure is impressive looking and I was treated to a tour of it while there as well.

Missy and I wandered over to Micah`s Pointe after that and photographed some speedboats racing across the west side of the lake as the sun began to set….

…and a sailboat tied up in one of the many docks at Mountain Harbor….

…and then I spotted a couple of fishermen trying their luck from the waters near a beautiful wooden bridge near the Pointe….

..pretty soon after that, the sun began setting and I photographed it….

…this is a great place to shoot sunsets from, the Pointe sits atop a beautiful high bluff overlooking Lake Ouachita with a great expanse of water to the west right in front of you…there is a nice wooden platform built up on top of the bluff and nicely framed with beautiful pines and cedars…I know I`m using the word beautiful here quite a bit, but thats what this place consists of….alot of beauty….and as we stood there and watched, the sunset just kept getting better and better….

…and while we were there, a buzzard swooped down in front of me a few times so I photographed him as well…

…I then repositioned at the wooden bridge to get more water reflections in my images….…and while this sunset didnt fill the entire sky, the narrow cloudline in the middle sure did turn some nice colors as the sun finally dropped….

…and that blossomed into this….

and then this….

Well the next morning, I started photographing a few things around the condo for Sami….she has a very nice condo that she lets me stay in while there, and she runs a management service for other condo owners there…she goes above and beyond for pet owners like me….provides dog bowls so I dont have to bring Missy`s….

…her cleaning staff do a tremendous job as well, and always leave these cute characters on your bed to find when you arrive…neat greeters…..

…and even though she cant be there to greet everyone herself, on your arrival, Sami still makes you feel welcome as you walk through the door….

Missy walked in past the welcome sign, saw her reflection, and prob though Sami had arranged company for her visit…

…and once we got settled in, opened the fridge to stock my bottled water and Arizona Green Tea and found some treats inside waiting too….

Sami also thinks of your breakfast needs too….and she will also stock the fridge and kitchen for you if you have a shopping list, so its all there when you arrive…

I`m never sure if one can find what the basics I have to have…I drink a certain type of bottled water and Arizona Green Tea isnt found everywhere either…so I just take my own stuff when I travel.…but she was right on the mark with cereal for me. She also provides pet pillows for your pet to sleep on and treats…

…so if you ever want to stay there, give Sami a shout at Lake Ouachita Vacation Realty and she can make it happen.

After that, Missy and I got outside and took a walk around to re-acquaint ourselves with the layout of Harbor East, and get a good walk in as well….we were walking down a hill and I noticed in the ditchline and hillside that there were chunks of massive quartz sticking out of the dirt all over the place….

…I rarely see any crystals in the quartz in this area, found a few small ones, but I have heard that they can be found in the wooded areas surrounding Lake Ouachita and there are a few old abandoned mines along the trails outside this area as well. I talked to one of the maintenance men working that morning outside and he told me that he lives just a few miles west of Mtn Harbor toward Mt Ida and there are quartz crystal clusters that pop up on his property each spring during the spring thaw season…so they can be found in some areas in the woods for sure.

We walked on down and saw that the Harbor East pool was being prepared to open soon for the season….

…there is a nice pavilion on top and restrooms down below…there is a nice tennis court behind me and a basketball court to my left, right there with the pool…and the lake is right below the hill from the basketball court about 100 feet….as we were walking back to the condo, I saw some neat wind catchers in the form of hot air balloons….

…on returning to the condo, I got word that a buddy of mine couldnt make it down to visit, so Missy and I loaded up and headed to Bear Mountain Mine to look for quartz…as we got to the entrance to Harbor East, we saw a doe feeding in the grass…

We had a great time over at Bear Mtn Mine, for that story and photos visit my rock collecting site at http://jwjrocks.com

I was driving in a different route than I normally take, and we came across some deer on the very east side of the property along East Basin Road, and I understand they are there every day at various times…this one was standing up at the top of a road cut…its a little fuzzy, mainly because the truck was running and my arm was resting on the windowsill while shooting….

…I drove down to a different section for my sunset photos this time…down to a boat ramp in Harbor East, right below and just east of the pool and pavilion area…we found it during our morning walk and it looked like a great place to shoot some photos…and it was….

The next morning we got up bright and early and headed over to Miller Mountain Mine, on the northeast corner of Lake Ouachita and about 12 miles west of Jessieville off Hwy 298…another of my favorite quartz mines to go dig at…that story is also in my rock collecting site. I wore out there by 1 pm and then we headed down to Hot Springs to grab a pizza and headed back the condo to rest up the rest of the day. I think the heat must have worn me down two days in a row, it was early May and already hot and muggy down there. I didnt shoot the sunset this evening because there were no clouds in the sky and it was just not very pretty at all, which is highly unusual for Mtn Harbor cause its a very pretty place to shoot sunsets and this time of the year they are normally very nice.

Friday morning I waited for Sami to get back from some errands, and while waiting, I visited with Stu Schmidt, who is a rock collector and buyer, he used to have his own quartz mine near Mount Ida, and a wavellite mine near Avante, on the north side of Lake Ouachita, but recently sold both mines and now he just buys and sells rocks and minerals. I went to see what he had in green wavellite and wound up purchasing a few specimens from him that were covered in bubbles and cats eye. Pretty stuff.

When I returned to Harbor East, I stopped off to photograph a trailhead for Sami, located next to Turtle Spa….

Apparently its a nice trail to get a good cardio workout on…located next to Turtle Spa…

Friday afternoon, Sami picked me up and we went out on Lake Ouachita to shoot some boats and scenery…here are some friends of hers coming into port as we were going out on to the lake….

…we first motored over to the marina to get some gas and I met a few of the marina boys there…Connor is one of the marina boys and he showed me the fire boat up close, gave me a tour of it, and let me tell you, the interior storage room on it was like a sauna…it was quite impressive though. After filling the gas tank, we motored out into the middle of the lake and saw boats all over the place….

We went by the cove where my condo is located…you can see the corner of the roof, right above the lake side condos….

..the next photo shows an island where someone requested their ashes buried at because they loved this lake area so well…

…and here is what the north shoreline looks like in many areas….rugged beauty at its best….

We motored into another cove and found a guy had stretched out a big hammock and was sound asleep in it…

…and on the other side of the cove was an island that has a memorial bench placed up above the waterline…the son of a family well known in the area, an area the son really liked to visit and enjoyed during his time on earth…friends placed a concrete memorial bench here in his honor….

…very pretty place for it and well thought out and designed……and here you see the bench above and closeup below…

…and then we continued motoring across and east on the lake, seeing boats everywhere…

Sami then pointed out Brady Mountain Overlook, sits up above Lake Ouachita on the south side of the lake, we were planning to go up there the next day and get some photos of the lake from there…

…and here it is with a nice houseboat in the image….

…and another speedboat with flags flying as well….

…we then motored over to Micah`s Pointe…here is the pretty wooden bridge where I shot sunsets on Tuesday night….

…you can see the glass house at the top of the hill on the right side above the bridge…this house is owned by friends of Sami, and there is a tremendous view from there as well…I met them the next day at the Parking Lot, too…very nice people. The next photo shows Micah`s Pointe….

…and here is a close up view of the pretty wooden bridge and the marina behind it…

…we motored around a little more and on this island below, found another houseboat tied off…

…and saw some nice sunbeams as well….

…and then saw some friends of hers coming into port as we were finishing up as well…

We got back into the marina on the east side and returned the boat to the owner, a super nice guy who is the Subway District Manager for that area and we docked next to his houseboat there at the marina….

...it`s one hundred feet long folks…I never knew houseboats were that big, never seen one that long, never have seen any that big out on the water, but there were several tied up in the three marina`s there….and he gave me a grand tour of the inside and it was absolutely beautiful, very nicely furnished and just immaculate interior…six or seven bedrooms…we saw so many I lost count after four, each has its own bath, the master bath has a hot tub, there is another hot tub up on the roof, full size kitchen, dining room,and living room, and a full size deck outside the living room.

Sami dropped me off at the condo and after cleaning up, Missy and I headed to the lodge to get some supper…we then headed over to the east basin boat dock to see how well the sunset would look tonight…we were pleasantly surprised this evening….

…it was absolutely gorgeous !!! I walked down to the waters edge on the shoreline and started shooting immediately…there was a couple there taking a boat out of the water and a young lady snapping photos of the setting sun with her Canon camera…I gave her some tips on how to get some better sunset photos while her husband was placing their boat on the trailer…

…after snapping many photos of this beautiful setting sun, another truck showed up wanting to launch their boat and so she jumped in her truck and removed her boat and trailer from the ramp…as the new truck backed into the water on the ramp, a beautiful red Dodge pickup, I moved to the other side of the ramp and shot it as the foreground for the sunset…

Saturday morning, Sami picked me up and we went for a ride up to the top of Brady Mountain to the Hickory Nut Overlook, where there is a commanding view of the vastness of Lake Ouachita….

I was simply astounded at the view from up there, one could see for many miles and then some…I wished I had taken my haze filter with me as it was fairly thick up there…but here are more of the views…there were a couple of boats zipping around down there as well…

…we then came back down the mountain and as we entered the Harbor area, we came upon a doe feeding in the brush on the side of the road….

…and then as we made our way back to the condo, we came upon a doe and fawn on the east side near some homes……they crossed the road in front of us three times as we slowly made our way through the area, and the last time we saw them they were feasting on some azaleas roadside….

Sami picked me up Saturday afternoon and we went out with a friend of hers in his speedboat, so she could get some water skiing in and I could photograph her water skiing…he had a beautiful boat and we were soon out in the middle of the lake once again and Sami was in the water getting adjusted to the water temperature….

…and soon after that she was up on her waterski on the surface of the water….

…she did a great job considering she hadnt been out on the water for at least two years. We picked her up and headed over to the Parking Lot to meet up with her friends Julie and Joel, her neighbors across the street from her house in Harbor East…I had met them the day before and found them to be very nice. As we motored over to the island, we saw this guy zipping across the water in a pretty speedboat with a flag….

…we soon arrived at The Parking Lot and found Joel and Julie with Sami`s friends from the Glass House, relaxing in the water at the beach….

Joel came over and helped Sami and I make a safe transition from the speedboat to his houseboat, since we both had our hands full of stuff, and then after Sami`s speedboat friend took off to join up with some of his buddies on the other side of the lake, we sat down on the comfy boat seats and relaxed, waiting for Joe to arrive in his bass boat with Sami`s dogs….

Then after a grilled dinner on the island, DJ and his family headed back to their house in DJ`s beautiful sleek speedboat….

After another hour of relaxing on the beach, we finally loaded up Joe`s bass boat and headed back across the lake to Mountain Harbor…I shot this mid day setting sun across the lake….

…and then later that evening, I went down to the main marina at the dining lodge and tried to shoot the super moon, but folks, it looked like a normal moon to me….

…maybe just a little brighter, but thats the only difference I saw.

Well that wrapped up a nice six day stay in southern Arkansas in May, Missy and I loaded up the next morning and headed home.

Arkansas in the Fall…

Posted on November 20, 2010 by jwj

Well I traveled back down to the great state of Arkansas for my fall trip, last week, decided to stay in Hot Springs on Lake Hamilton this year, since Mountain Harbor was completely booked with two events…but after giving it a lot of thought, deciding I was going to do some more photo shoots down closer to Hot Springs and would only have time to work one dig in for quartz crystasl this trip….it must made more sense to stay in Hot Springs this time.

I started researching places to stay in Hot Springs, dog friendly places no less, and checked with Jessica at the Hot Springs Convention Center, on locations similar to Mountain Harbor since I was kind of spoiled staying there the last five fall seasons…and she was quite helpful in coming up with several locations to check out, most of them located right on Lake Hamilton…and I also checked out a few private residences and condos that were available for rent as vacation homes and time shares. My budget was a little tight this year so I finally opted to stay at the Staybridge Suites on the south shores of Lake Hamilton, off Hwy 7 south of Hwy 270. It was one of the few dog friendly hotels in the entire Hot Springs area, and after staying there three nights, I couldnt have made a better choice, let me tell you !

Mom and I took off about 7 am Thursday morning and had a good drive down, I was actually monitoring my gas mileage on my Colorado pickup and didnt have to stop and fill the tank til I arrived in Fort Smith and dropped mom off at the home of one of her brothers there. She always spends a few days there shopping with a couple of my aunts and cousins while I vacation down in the Hot Springs area. Then on Sunday we join up with several other relatives and many friends at my grandfathers farm in Scott County near Waldron and have a big dinner there before heading home.

I still had a quarter tank of gas but found a good price in Fort Smith so I stopped to fill up and after doing the math, determined that once again I was still getting 25 miles per gallon. After a 90 min shoot just west of Fort Smith in the Roland area, I then drove on down toward Hot Springs…crossing the Fouche River south of Waldron….

…and then I headed on down to Y City where I picked up Hwy 270 east to Mount Ida and Hot Springs….I decided to text Randy, one of my Hot Springs models, who was planning to go to Coltons Steakhouse as soon as I arrived, and let him know I was going to be running just a little bit behind on my schedule…and luckily he was okay with waiting for me…I was about to starve by the time I got into the hotel in Hot Springs an hour later…there was a nice sunset on the way down but I never could find a good place to shoot it from as I drove down through there…

I got checked in quickly and cleaned up and then Missy and I headed north on Central Avenue to Coltons Steakhouse…Randy was there ahead of us and had a booth and a big glass of sweet tea waiting on me…I found Randy down there a few years ago and he is the guy that took me to the waterfall back in July that I shot at several times while there then. He also told me about Gulpha Gorge last year but I didnt check it out til July this year, and kind of still kick myself for not checking it out last fall, talk about a beautiful place to just drive or hike thru…more on it later….had a great dinner and visit with Randy again and then headed back to the hotel to relax and unwind…talk about a very pretty suite hotel…four stories tall, sitting up on a hill above Lake Hamilton and we had been assigned to the third floor with a nice view of the lake to the north…nicely furnished and a beautiful walkin dark gray marble shower with glass doors and big king sized bed with a pillowtop mattress…knew I was going to sleep well. I checked out the treadmill in the fitness center and got a good run in before heading to bed the first night.

Missy and I slept in just a little bit and then headed to Miller Mountain the next morning…arriving shortly after 7:30 and finding out we were the first arrivals of the day….after talking to Faith and checking in while Bill was bringing up fresh dirt piles, I drove over to the parking area and let Missy out to stretch her legs as I prepared to find some nice quartz.

Well I didnt have to wait long to find something nice and big…soon after lacing up my boots and grabbing my rake and bags, I ambled behind the truck to the first pile and found a very large quartz chunk with crystals all over one end and both sides…so I backed my truck up and loaded it right up…then decided to do some surface collecting while I had the place to myself….I filled half a bag with smaller crystals laying around in sight and soon after, another couple of folks showed up to look for quartz too…they turned out to be a nice couple from Topeka, Kansas, and were like me, just looking for anything pretty to take home…I helped them locate some nice crystals while digging into a few of the piles near the parking lot…I was mainly still surface collecting but if I located something, I would dig down and see what else was nearby and usually there were quite a few small clusters and points nearby. I filled two bags pretty quickly….within the first hour I dug out a couple of smaller clusters of smokey colored crystals…and was quite happy with them…decided even if I found nothing else the rest of the day, my day was complete with them…but as it was, in the five hours I was there, I did find quite a few nice singles and clusters…

…here Missy is seen on one of her many jaunts around the tailing piles checking things out…with the beautiful fall foliage in full display near the entrance to Miller Mountain Mine…

…and a little closer up here….well I decided to take the rest of the day off and just do a little sightseeing, so we packed up the rocks after wrapping them up and headed to Gulpha Gorge….taking the scenic route…and for those that havent been to this area, GG is the hollow that runs through the middle of the Hot Springs National Park, where the campground is located on the east side of the city….

and…

I was scheduled to shoot Randy later Friday afternoon, but he got called into work so I opted to take a nap instead and then shot the pretty sunset from the dock for the Belle Cruise Ship nearby…

When I pulled into the parking lot, they had just closed the doors and the lot was empty save for a firefighter from Malvern…while chitchatting with him, he told me that he came up there to watch the sunsets and he photographs them with his phone camera…I was able to ask him about fall foliage in the area and he told me it was pretty everywhere and he had the phone camera pics to prove it, too. While I shot with my digital Nikon 35mm camera, he chose to shoot some video using his laptop…I walked down to the dock where these fishermen were trying their hand, then I saw a speedboat approaching and was able to shoot it as it crossed the lake…

..and then the sun started sinking lower and here are the last few photos I took before heading to McDonalds for a McRib and some fries…

Saturday morning, Missy and I got up early and headed west to Little Missouri River Falls…a waterfall in the US Forest and a very pretty place I had been to several fall seasons to photograph…I figured it wouldnt be as colorful as it was around the Hot Springs area, mainly because it sits in a deeper valley than the lakes area…I decided to take a different route this time, Hwy 70 which runs southwest to Glenwood, then I would drive north on Hwy 27 and up to Norman, where I would take Hwy 8 west to the Crooked Creek Road turnoff…I had never driven out Hwy 70 but could see from researching mapquest that it was a straighter road and traversed alot of valleys instead of mountain ranges…it was a much better drive than Hwy 270 just for those reasons.

I drove thru Glenwood, nice little town…I have a photographer friend that lives there, but I hadnt heard back from him lately so didnt try to call him…then we drove through Caddo Gap, a name I had heard of several times but had no idea what was there…found out shortly that there wasnt much there, wide spot in the road and almost non existent except for a large school on the north side of town and the river that runs thru there named after it….and on over to Norman and then west on Hwy 8…we found some decent color not too far from the turn off to the falls…a country road off Hwy 8 had a nice canopy of color…....and looking at that rugged area and thinking of the climb up and the care one would have to exercise going up or coming down, maybe even dragging a deer out of there…I thought…better you guys and not me….wow….and last year they were running all over the place down there on all terrain vehicles and four wheelers…this year we saw very few hunters down there…

Well we drove on down to the parking lot at Little Missouri Falls and walked down the trail, and then down the staircase to the first set of falls……nice set of wood steps all the way down to the foot of the hill, then they poured concrete steps and ramps down to the rocks…so one could easily step out to the shelf that the water actually runs down on…

..this is the first set of falls…and there are a few cascades below these and then the last fall is nicely framed from up on the trail….

…and then we walked on down the trail to see if there were any other cascades or falls below…

..but we didnt find anything half a mile down, and since it was gun deer season down there, I decided we shouldnt venture much further down…we were hearing gunshots all around us afterall…and it was quite cool down there too…so we headed back to the truck and back to Hot Springs…

I decided to stop at a little waterfall next to a campsite on the way out…it stairsteps down twice off this little bluff….

…we headed back to the hotel and waited for Randy to get back into town from work, and then met him over at Gulpha Gorge to shoot the pretty fall foliage and creek over in the campground area….he was in need of some new photos for his portfolio.

It warmed up a lot from that morning so Randy opted for just a little hoodie jacket and holie jeans…we started up by the highway bridge over the creek, which has a concrete arch underneath that makes for neat framing and reflections….and I`ll just post the highlights of the shoot below…

…and then we moved down the creek and shot some sections where the foliage was stunning….

…this section of the creek along the campsites is a series of cascades and pretty fall maples on the opposite bank….we moved on down to the section of the creek on the other side of the road and found some big rocks to work with and a long pool below the rocks….

…this was shot back in the direction of the campground…I then got on the other side of Randy and shot him toward the pool below and liked what I saw backlit by the afternoon sun better….

…I saw a set of rocks down in the middle of the pool and had him move down there instead and shot him in a few poses that came out looking like an oil painting….

…and then he got creative with his posing…

and then he smiled for me…

After finishing the shoot, Randy and I headed for New China and had a great supper there…talk about a great buffet lineup of tasty food…wow there were five buffet tables of food there and two more loaded with desserts alone…

The next morning, bright and early, Missy and I got up about 7 am and found a dense fog covering the lake…we were waiting for a model on his way down from Little Rock…Pierre was referred to me by photographer friend DJ and I figured I was going to have to shoot his portfolio photos inside the suite, which wouldnt be a problem as pretty as it was, but I was hoping to get some outside shots of him as well…Pierre is a bodybuilder….well by the time he arrived at 8 am to shoot with me, alot of the fog had burned off and so we shot inside for about 45 minutes and then headed south to the Cool Blue Pool Falls for a few pics…disovered someone had trimmed back the brush quite a bit at the entrance to the Hole, probably a right of way issue…but it just allowed more sunlight to hit the rocks which was just fine by me…but I can tell you, the angle in the fall is much different than the angle of light in the summer…took a little bit to adjust to.

I decided to start Pierre in the bunker pants that a friend had given me, and see how they would look on his muscular torso…

and as you can see, he actually looked pretty good in bunker pants at this location…and after this next arty shot….

…this one was fun…he had never done anything like this so it was a new experience for Pierre…one he prob wont soon forget, lol…we headed for Gulpha Gorge after this. We walked over to the bridge and found the angle of light wrong, turned around and saw this great reflection, so decided to try a few artsy type shots here…..it was stunning and so we shot a few here first….Pierre shed his shirt and walked out on the bridge and struck some art poses for me….

…as you can see, Pierre is quite an art hottie and the scenery around him was highly saturated with beautiful colors….cant go wrong with a location and model like this……well we decided to go downstream to the location I shot Randy at the evening before and see what color we could find there in the morning light…and found some nice color and light there too…

..and I`ll leave you one with just a bit more color than these…

..yet another painting of art….after working with Pierre, I headed up to Scott County to meet up with Mom and several relatives at my Grandpa`s farmplace now being cared for by my Uncle Joe and Uncle Harley, for a great reunion and dinner before Mom and I headed for home….

…Uncle Joe always caters a great dinner with everyone cooking and bringing a side dish of their own choosing, and if you go away hungry there is def something wrong with ya..great food and great fellowship, finishing off yet another great mini fall vacation in Arkansas.

Mountain Harbor Resort In September

Posted on September 28, 2010 by jwj

Well I had a chance to drive down to the Hot Springs area and do some more quartz collecting last weekend, was contacted by members of the MAGS Rock Club in Memphis who wanted some advice on where to collect quartz in the Mt Ida and Hot Springs area…some members wanted to go to a quartz mine and the diamond mine too…while I dont care to sit out in the open dirt field and bake while hunting for elusive diamonds in the rough, I do enjoy going to quartz mines where you can normally find a truck load to take home…which I consider to be a sure thing, as opposed to an iffy thing in relation to diamond hunting, but to each their own I suppose.

I contacted Jimmy E, a buddy of mine from Minnesota and asked if he wanted to go, when I found out later that MAGS intended to go to the diamond mine one day and a quartz mine the next, and he said sure, he would love to drive down before winter set in and he couldnt go for awhile…so I gave MAGS my recommendations and Jimmy and I decided to go to Bear Mountain Mine south of Mt Ida and Miller Mountain Coleman Mine as well.

We decided to stay at Mountain Harbor Resort on Lake Ouachita ten miles east of Mt Ida, this is where I normally go and stay at for my fall vacation, very pretty place to stay and dog friendly as well. They have cabins and rooms and studios to stay in, campgrounds for RV`s and all sizes of camping, rent houseboats and party barges and fishing boats as well, even have their own Subway restaurant on their main dock. They also have their own Fire Department and just last year took delivery on a retired Coast Guard Cutter that was retrofitted as a fire boat and boy does it look impressive out there on the lake.

and here it is at sunset Friday night last week…

We had great weather while there, we drove down on Thursday and discovered summer was still lingering there, first three days were mid 90`s and humid, and then a cool front went thru on Saturday evening and the bottom dropped out on Sunday, dropping the temps to the lower 50`s when we woke up to head home. We went to Bear Mtn Mine to find quartz crystals….

The rest of the story on the quartz crystal hunting is on my rockhunting site, http://www.jwjrocks.com

Jimmy started for home Saturday afternoon and I stayed an extra night to visit with friends and photograph a model as well as a stunning sunset Saturday night on the lake.

..this is what it looked like when I first saw it…

..then it became this…..while to the south the clouds looked like ….

…this…..and then it kept getting deeper and deeper….like the next one shows….

and looking the other way we saw this one below early on….

A very nice end to a nice weekend in Arkansas….more on what we found later…

Miller Mtn Mine and Fireworks over DeGray Lake…

Posted on July 21, 2010 by jwj

My third day of vacation started late, I slept in after the long day of driving and then fireworks the night before, so Missy and I got a slow start to Miller Mountain Mine north of Hot Springs, arriving mid morning instead of early morning…and on arrival found only about half a dozen diggers already there digging away.

….the guy in the middle of the photo here, is Mark from the Joplin area, he and his wife Carol, were digging in the small pile next to me most of the day there and removed several nice single points from their pile, while I took several small clusters and plates, including a few smokies, from my pile…here is one of Mark`s finds…

…and some of mine….

I only meant to dig about five hours at the most, as my parents were driving down and I knew they would arrive about 4 pm and want to go to dinner by 5 pm…but I began finding so much great stuff, I wound up sticking around til 5 pm…and as soon as I got down off the mountain, my cellphone rang and my parents told me they were headed to dinner. I was at least an hour drive away so told them to go ahead and I would catch up later, I hadn`t even switched over to the other hotel yet and would have to clean up as well. I was very happy though, having filled four bags full of quartz crystals.

I drove back to Arkadelphia and saw my parents as soon as I pulled into the Quality Inn by the interstate, to check in for the remainder of the week. My parents were spending one night only, they would be staying at the DeGray Lake Resort Park Lodge the rest of the week for the family reunion, and I would have too, except for the fact that the Lodge doesn`t like pets inside. I showed the Manager and my mom some of the quartz that I found, seems the Manager of the Hotel is a big fan of quartz crystals too and mentioned that he had found some in his native country of India as well. From the way he talked, I believe he felt that quartz has healing powers too, as many Arkansans do as well.

I got checked in and cleaned up and then went across the street to Mickey D`s and got some supper and then headed to DeGray Lake to find a spot to shoot the fireworks that evening. I stopped at the Corps of Engineers picnic area by the Highway 7 Support Dam/Bridge and decided to shoot from there. I prob should have driven over to the Lodge and shot it from their grounds, but hindsight is always 20/20.

As it was, the only real problem shooting from my spot was that it seemed that very few bursts gained any real elevation, and its likely that I wouldn`t have thought that if I had been shooting from the Lodge lawn.Here are the boaters gathering on DeGray Lake prior to the sunset and fireworks show….

and I set up on the end of the peninsula there, close to a houseboat pulled up to the shore, which became part of my next sunset photo….

and as I waited for the setting sun to fade out, I was talking to a Hispanic family who had driven up from Hope, Arkansas…we talked til the sunset finally faded from the skies….

and then the show began…this show is set off by hand by members of the Bismarck Fire Department and other neighboring fire departments from one of the small islands behind DeGray Lake Lodge…but it was a very pretty show too…

and

and this one came out nice, the blur on the bottom left is a big party barge houseboat that was moving back and forth across the water all during the show…

he didn`t show up in all of my photos, wouldn`t have bothered me tho, I like motion like that….

and this one shows quite clearly the elevation problem, the lower one looks like it went off right on top of the shooters….

and more for your enjoyment….

Fireworks in Hot Springs, Arkansas…

Posted on July 18, 2010 by jwj

Well I drove on down to Arkadelphia after my shoot with Derek and Nick at Jolly Mill and forgot what a long drive it is across Highway 40, plus I hit rain about the Missouri / Arkansas line and finally made it down there…being the 4th of July weekend, I had made reservations at the Super Eight Motel there, reserving a suite for six nights as I had a family reunion at DeGray Lake nearby and had Missy with me, so didn`t think anything about it. I arrived around 4 pm and stopped to check in..boy was I in for a rude surprise…I always call and make reservations and I always ask for a confirmation number when I make that call, had that when I walked into the motel office, and had problems right off the bat, trying to understand the guy behind the desk…when I made the reservations three weeks prior, I had talked to a young lady who spoke good english, and this guy did not speak it well at all.

I`m not a racist by any means and I have nothing against people from other countries coming to ours for a better life, thats originally how our country started out, but if you move here, learn the language and follow the rules ! Thats what we would have to do as Americans if we moved to your country, wherever it may be, so that should apply to anyone moving to the US.…plus he was talking very loud and excitedly, which made it even more difficult to understand him…another couple came in behind me and waited, prob putting pressure on him, but then he finally tells me that their outdated computer system crashed on them and they had cancelled all reservations and given my suite to someone else…about that time, the female I believe I spoke to, came in and told me the same thing, in better english though. I wasnt too happy at this point, and then she offers me a room, at a much higher rate than the suite I was quoted for, and I explained that to her and she said that was the best she could do, at which my reply was, your best isnt good enough….and out the door I went…luckily I had spent some time online the past few weeks looking at lodging in the area, so I had a good idea for motel choice two and three, but being as it was the 4th of July, I thought I might be sol too…but there is a lot of National Forest around there, figured if nothing else, just pull over and camp out in the truck, those Chevrolet Colorado Crew Cab pickups are nice and comfy on their own.

Took me about an hour, but after checking a few places and going thru some rude and pushy clerks, as well as one or two nice ones, I finally found a room, and had to pay extra for Missy, but also found a nice hotel that didnt have any rooms available that night, there also happened to be a baseball tournament in the area that weekend…but when I told the manager what had just occurred to me at the other hotel, he was very nice and understanding and offered me a great rate for the other five nights I would be there, so after looking at a room that he took the time to show me, I accepted his offer and told him I would be back the next day. He spoke good english and you could tell he ran a very clean business there, the Quality Inn.

As soon as Missy and I got cleaned up at the pricey Comfort Inn, we headed north to Hot Springs, and I called Randy, one of my Hot Springs models, to let him know I was headed up to scout a parking spot and shoot spot for the fireworks over Lake Hamilton that evening and then headed to Coltons Steakhouse for a good steak dinner. They are an excellent place to eat at and I usually try to eat there at least once or twice when down there, great food and great atmosphere !

As I drove through Hot Springs and across Lake Hamilton on Highway 7, I noticed there were already several people lining up along the bridge to wait for the fireworks, but still plenty of places to park at as well. The Clarion Hotel management had graciously given me permission to shoot from their parking lot, but I wasnt allowed to park there since I wasnt a guest there, and believe me, it looked like they needed all the parking space they could get, they had a band playing out by the pool by the lake and quite a crowd there…I wasnt worried, though, it was only about 6:30 pm and there were still a couple of hours before they would start the show…drove up to Coltons in the middle of town and left Missy in the truck with the ac on, yes I left the truck running and the ac on for her, and went inside to have a good steak dinner….they were a bit full inside, but the bar was wide open and since I was alone, they offered me my choice of seats and I stepped right up to the bar.

I hadn`t been in there ten minutes and some gal came up to me and asked me if I had the pretty Colorado pickup out in the parking lot…I said yes, and she said ” hey mister, do you know you left your truck running and locked ? “…I started laughing and she asked what was so funny… I asked her if she had bothered to look inside and she said, well I tried but your windows are kind of tinted dark ….then I told her there was a black Border Collie inside and I was doing my best to keep her cool on this hot, hot day…and then she gave me a hug and said ” bless you hun, I`m a dog lover myself. ”

I take my responsibilities seriously when it comes to my dog, she goes almost everywhere I do, and on hot days, I leave my truck running and the ac on full blast for her, I love her to death, she`s my buddy girl.

I met up with Randy after dinner, he was tied up and couldn`t join me, but he took me out south of town to show me a beautiful waterfall he had found, that he thought would make a great photo shoot location, and after arriving and looking it over, I thought he was right…

As you can see it stairsteps down twice…in the upper pool there are actually three waterfalls…and a four foot deep pool beneath them…then it runs down over the Navaculite ledge about thirty feet to the next drop and there are two falls there, and a ten food deep pool under them…then a three foot deep stretch to a little manmade dam…some of Randy`s friends were there and I shot a few pics of them having fun in the water…Randy showed me the benefits of this location on a hot summer day real quickly….

…and then I scooted quickly back to Hot Springs to set up for the fireworks show.

Got back to the Hwy 7 bridge and parked on a side street, there were police officers directing traffic and it looked like people were parking on the side streets now, so I joined them…pulled in next to some people and asked if it was alright to park there…talked to them a few minutes, they were up visiting from Mississippi and said they would watch my truck for me…I left it running and the ac on for Missy and took my tripod and walked over to the bridge…found an open spot and set up my tripod there…figured as full as the parking lot was at the Clarion Hotel, it would make more sense for me to shoot from the bridge, plus they had a boat dock that would have been in my way too….

Now I have shot the fireworks from the Eads Bridge at St Louis and my own city park in Sullivan, and during the lull and wait for skies to get dark enough to shoot the fireworks, one normally gets eaten alive by the mosquitos…and I had left my spray in the truck…but there in Hot Springs, not sure what it was, but not one time did I get bit or even notice one flying around…and no one around me complained either….I was amazed…talked to some nice people there on the bridge while waiting for the show to start, lots of people visiting from Mississippi and Alabama and Texas, no one near us was from Hot Springs except for the police officer directing traffic right behind us, who was very nice and had his hands full at a very busy intersection I might add. Here is the bay out in front of me…

…the dock area across and on the right side of the photo, is the Power Boats docks, where the fireworks were shot from…Power Boats puts on the show each year I am told…and in the past few weeks getting ready to drive down there, I had researched and tried to find photos of past fireworks shows and could only find one or two photos of fireworks there…totally blew my mind. I had contacted Jessica of the Hot Springs Convention Center, and she put me in touch with Power Boats and then they suggested I contact the Clarion Hotel for permission to shoot from their property…..and thats how I wound up down there that evening…I love shooting fireworks photos.

Well it started getting darker and darker…more boats showed up for the best seat in the house…

….as it got darker, I noticed how many boats were sitting out in the bay by the bridge in front of us…their lights made it easier to count the number of them…and boy were there a bunch of them out there…

Pretty soon they fired off a test burst and it went well, so shortly after that, they fired up this rocket volley that sounded like an automatic rifle and looked like waves of red, white, and blue….

and then the show really took off…there was music with it, and it sounded great, seemed to be a computerized show much like the Fair St Louis Show….

and saw some different color combinations at this show…

and green…

and even saw some deep purple colors…

and some reds and golds….

even had a shot of a massive fireball at the base of one burst… prob a good thing the Hot Springs Fire Department had a truck there…

but the red burst prob gave off the best color in the sky above the water, def gave me better reflections too…

and yet I still liked the rocket volleys they had that night, lots of them too throughout the entire show….

blue and gold rockets here, then bursts on top of the rockets….

and a few multi color bursts as well…don`t ask me how long the show lasted cause I couldn`t tell ya, I was having a blast photographing it, it was one great show that night…

After the show was over, it only took about 30 minutes to get out of there, which I didn`t think was too bad. Next night was the fireworks show over DeGray Lake, see the next story for that one.

Arkansas Family Reunion and Quartz…

Posted on July 12, 2010 by jwj

Hey All, just got back from a week in Arkansas near Hot Springs…drove down for the July 4th weekend for a family reunion and some hiking with my dog Missy, and took my family quartz crystal hunting as well. I had a few shoots along the way at some pretty waterfall…one of which was Grand Falls, seen here at sunset Friday the 2nd of July….the widest waterfall in the midwest and very pretty at anytime of year, fed by Shoal Creek on the west side of Joplin, Missouri.

I left Joplin the next morning and drove southeast to Jolly Mill, just west of Pierce City and south of Highway 60, and photographed the old building which has been restored by community members and the millrace dam and stream, which is now a trout stream popular with flyfishing enthusiasts. I like old mills too.

This mill is hard to photograph from the mill side of the stream, one almost would need to don waders and wade out to the middle of the stream or the far bank to get a really good shot of it, as the land on the opposite side of the stream is posted and private. There are also two old steel bridges on each side of the mill, one is part of the Jolly Mill Park and open to walk across and the other is privately owned and upstream from the mill. I decided to try to do some rockhunting on the way down Hwy 71 south of Neosho, stopping along the roadcuts near the Pineville exit to confirm reports of dolomite and calcite but I couldn`t locate anything on the west side of the cuts just south of the exit. I didn`t have time to turn around and check the east side cuts on the northbound side at the time, figured I would catch it on the way back, but that idea didn`t work out for me at all. I arrived in Arkadelphia, where I spent the week and drove over to meet some friends in Hot Springs for supper and they showed me a new waterfall south of town called the Cool Pool Falls…..

….and then I drove back to Hot Springs and prepared to photograph the fireworks over Lake Hamilton there. After checking the area, I decided to photograph the show from the Hwy 7 bridge on the south side by the Clarion Hotel, who had graciously given me permission to shoot the show from their parking lot and boy was it a nice and colorful show over the water. I set up on the side of the bridge among many tourists from all over the country, there for their first time and while it wasn`t my first time to visit Hot Springs, it was def my first time to photograph the fireworks there, as I usually photograph the fireworks at the St Louis VP Fair by the Arch. I set up my camera and tripod around 8 pm and waited with everyone else for darkness, and several people showed up on both sides of the bridge for the best seat in the house, in their boats.

….and eventually even more boaters showed up, and as darkness fell, it became apparent that there were hundreds of boats on either side of the bridge, lit up by their parking lights.

….and right before the show began, it became downright crowded on the water….

…...but as I said, they had the best seat in the house, as the fireworks were fired from the peninsula on the right side of my first photo showing the boats gathering, at the Power Boats of Lake Hamilton`s boat docks. I wasn`t really sure what to expect of this show, but I can tell you one thing, I was sure not disappointed at all, a very nice show to behold and observe and photograph. For more photos, take a look at the next blog post.

Sunday morning, Missy and I headed over to Miller Mountain Mine to scout it out and find some quartz crystals.

I paid my ten dollar fee and started digging in one of the fifteen new piles that the bucket driver brought up from the mines that morning and right away, started finding smokey colored crystals. I also found a couple of clusters nicely sized…

….and…

A couple next to me introduced themselves as Mark and Carol and turned out to be from the Joplin area. Mark took me over to his truck and showed me a nice large cluster he found in the clay in one of the piles that morning before I arrived, that had several large points sticking out of the clay…

….and a closer view of it…

They were pulling several nice single points and small clusters out of their pile all day long.

I originally intended to stay til about 2 pm, but had so much fun and found so much material, I stayed and dug til 5 pm. Finally around 4 pm, I got up and took my second walk around and found so much more small clusters and single points up on top of the pile than I had found digging in the pile all day. While there, a few families came up that had started their morning off digging at Ron Coleman`s mine and found only a few crystals after four hours of digging. Three people told us that in three days time, not one new load of dirt had been brought up out of that mine for anyone to dig through and one guy had been there all three days. He said he had found more in three afternoons at Miller Mountain and would return the next time to it instead. I filled four bags on Sunday, with high hopes for Tuesday. As I headed back to the hotel, and crossed De Gray Lake over the dam, I saw some very interesting looking clouds and a rainshower…it looked like an approaching storm, so I turned around to shoot it as it was coming in across the lake from the west….

I then put a filter on my lens to make the clouds stand out more….

On Monday, we took family reunion photos at the rear of the De Gray Lake State Park Lodge, which provides a very scenic area in which to shoot from and around in as you can tell from the following photos…..

this is most of my mom`s side of the family, with relatives from both her mother`s and father`s side there for a few days of visiting. The island in the background is where the fire departments there, shoot the fireworks display from on July 4th. All of the larger lakes down there host their own large fireworks display each year, shooting them on different nights so folks can travel around and enjoy them all. While we were out there shooting, we had to take a few breaks for speedboats and water surfers whizzing by….

This is my Mom with her sisters and brothers….

…and my Mom with my cousin Vanessa, and the reunion cake….

On Tuesday, twenty of my cousins loaded up with my parents and we caravanned to Miller Mountain Mine for a day of crystal collecting…Bill and Faith, the caretakers there, gave us a group discount on the adult price, with several from California and Wisconsin along this year that had traveled down for the reunion.

One of my California cousins is a water specialist for his city and he brought his Honda truck so he could load it down with quartz for the trip home. I helped him locate a few yard rocks for his rock gardens and he actually found some nice specimens as well while there.

The weather down there all week was hot and steamy, and Tuesday was no exception, it got hot real fast and several of our group tired of the heat and left by noon. One of my uncles is a retired geophysicist, who taught at Washington University in St Louis, he and his wife went with us and I helped him locate a few bigger boulders so he could trim a few crystal corners off to take home. Bill was a little more prepared for the heat and dug alittle and walked a little all day like I did, and found a bag full of crystals. Here he is seen putting on suntan lotion and wearing a big straw hat…

Joann, his wife, also found several nice crystals and clusters and filled half a bag herself. A lot of my cousins were first timers to quartz, having traveled down to the diamond mine state park three years ago on our reunion trip at DeGray Lake Park for the first time, and wasted their time, finding very little of anything there that day. They sure didnt waste their time on Tuesday and left very happy with their finds. After helping everyone find some nice goodies, making sure no one went home unhappy, I was able to find a few gems myself. While I was walking around on top, the dozer guy came up on top and started moving some piles around, so we backed off and let him rework the piles and then sifted thru afterwards. Thats when I found these nice ones…

and….

…and…

I then walked to the west end and turned a large rock over, as Docia has reminded me several times, turn the flat ugly side over to see whats on the dirt side, and this is what I found…

so now I have my hands full, digging tool and bag of rocks in one hand, scoop this baby up and start walking to the truck and then I look down and see this beauty sitting on the floor of the pile in just a little bit of clay dust….

and anyone that knows me, and knows that all I look for is pretty stuff, knows that I just couldn`t pass this one up either…so I stopped and re-positioned everything so that nothing got mashed, including my fingers…and toiled on toward the truck. Luckily I made it without any damage to anything or me. Before leaving, I purchased two baskets of uncleaned quartz crystals, one for me and one for my cousin from California…Bill helped me load the baskets and as we walked out of the cool office hut into the heat, we were both amazed to see a full size Chevy Suburban drive up the steep gravel road pulling a 35 foot long Holiday Rambler camping trailer…loaded down with a kayak on top of it and occupied by six rockhounds from Georgia no less…and no easy feat in itself at all…the road up Miller Mountain, for anyone who hasn`t been there, is up a very steep angle and no room to pass another vehicle, nor any place to turn around until you reach the top. I`m still wondering where he turned that rig around when they left. Wow…

On the way back to De Gray Lake, I came across this beautiful scene along Hwy 7 south of Hot Springs and stopped to photograph it…

Wednesday was a shopping day for those who wanted to go and Thursday was a free day for those that stayed that long. My California cousin John, went shopping with some of the others and visited a flea market in Hot Springs. John is also a collector of old fishing lures it turns out and he found several at one of the booths there. He also spotted a nice old cluster of large quartz crystals on the seller`s desk and was able to purchase it from the guy for thirty five bucks ! After he showed it to me that evening before dinner, he asked me what I thought it cost him and I estimated its worth at about one hundred fifty to two hundred, rock shop pricing wise, and then he told me what he bought it for. What a buy ! John and several of my cousins left early Thursday morning and about mid morning I stopped to visit a quartz crystal hunter and dealer friend of mine who lives in the area. I met Mike there three years ago when I was at the first family reunion at De Gray Lake and we became good friends..he gave me some great information on mines to visit and dig at in Mt Ida and some to avoid, and was able to steer me to come great locations to dig Arkansas Herkimers and green chloride quartz as well. Seems Mike had been digging and finding some very nice clusters of quartz crystals on Wednesday at one of the Mt Ida mines and showed me just a few of the eight, five gallon buckets of material he had found in one pocket. I was totally floored by the color and clarity of the crystals, and most of the clusters were medium to large in size, with a few smaller pristine clusters as well. While there, Mike told me he had a little problem…. he had too many crystals and asked me if I would help him by taking some home…..it only took me about five seconds to decide that I could make enough room in my pickup bed to accommodate his request. I was able to help him create some new room for his new conquests by clearing off one complete rack for him, about five buckets worth, and yes, Virgil, I wrapped them very carefully before I loaded them up in my truck. Mike even helped me wrap them.

Here is a sunset I shot from near the park Lodge Wed evening on my way to supper there….

I came home Friday evening… long drive from down there… with a few hundred pounds of quartz crystals, including one enhydro crystal that Mike gave me, and plans to return to a certain mine in the Mt Ida area in October and possibly even November when I return for my fall trips. If anyone is planning a trip down to the Hot Springs/Mount Ida areas for quartz crystal hunting, give me a shout and I`ll let you know some areas to go to for great material. I`m planning to photograph my finds tomorrow and post more pics here…so stay tuned…

Mountain Harbor Resort Nov 2009

Posted on November 26, 2009 by jwj

Had a great time at Mountain Harbor Resort this year once again. This year the weather was very warm, only one cloudy day with a bit of cool overcast, but even that morning started out warm and there was no rain while we were there this time. Krystin joined me for the first two days…she really needed a break from work….and Kyle joined me for the last two days of the four day stay, and several models and friends joined us along the way from Arkansas as well. I brought back two hundred pounds of quartz crystals and shot over 2500 pics while there, visited Garvan Gardens and saw some spotty color, met and worked with a good photographer friend, Randy Hardy, from the area and visited with a rock dealer friend, Johnny B, in Mt Ida as well. I also photographed several nice sunsets over Lake Ouachita and even saw and photographed the new fireboat for Joplin Fire Department, which is hosted and maintained by Mountain Harbor Resort. This is one great place to stay at, very friendly staff and a very dog friendly location to stay at as well. This was my fourth year staying here. I cant say enough good things about the staff at this beautiful location.

One of my local models to the area, Randy, met Krysten and I over at Garvan Gardens to help me as I photographed her in a wedding dress there…this is a beautiful outdoor garden, much like the Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis, except that this one sits on a large pointe of Lake Hamilton and features some nice waterfalls….

….and a Japanese Joy Moon Bridge like you have never seen before. Krysten looked stunning in the dress there, too…..

On the way back, Kyle and I stopped off at Y City along Highway 71 and explored the waterfalls there…..

…Kyle is a talented acrobat and tumbler and really gets into handstands, so naturally he performed a couple of them on the top of the waterfall there…

and then we drove on to Waldron, where most of my family is from…we drove in on Ross Creek Road, which is another way in, cause it gives you a different view of the farm across the fields….

….and out at the family farm we had a great dinner and visited with several family members and friends. It was the first weekend of deer season in Arkansas as well and my Uncle Joe cooks for family and friends at the farm where my mom and her brothers and sisters grew up. For many years my grandparents operated a large dairy farm and in the years since my grandfather passed on, my Uncle Joe took over the farmhouse and restored it for a summer house….

My grandfathers barn is still there and my Uncle Harley takes good care of it…

Uncle Joe built a new barn in the pasture across the road from the farmhouse….

Mid afternoon Kyle and my mom and I started for home, driving through hard rain and arriving later in the evening, tired but very happy after a nice four day vacation in south central Arkansas, as seen below….

The first two nights Krysten and I stayed in Cabin 18, closest to the water`s edge, and it has a great view of the marina from the back deck…

and I thought this sunset was gonna be a plain jane sunset, but boy was I in for a surprise a few minutes later….

…that`s why I shot it framed in the pines, figured it was going to need some help, but soon I could see some cotton candy effects popping up in the clouds above while the water just seemed to sizzle….

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