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….

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.