Arkansas and Texas (October 2008)

Written by ceddammit

Howdy, folks! And I do mean “howdy” because this week’s ThrowBack Thursday finds us in Texas. But mostly Arkansas. I also have a special treat for you, or at least those of you named Beavis: I tried my hand at photographing FIRE! Y’see, this was a trip to visit my father at his home in southern Arkansas. He owns a few acres out in the country with enough trees to provide a never-ending supply of pine needles, downed limbs, and other such detritus. And how does one dispose of such vast amounts of yard waste? By lightin’ it up! Howdy, folks! And I do mean “howdy” because this week’s ThrowBack Thursday finds us in Texas. But mostly Arkansas. I also have a special treat for you, or at least those of you named Beavis: I tried my hand at photographing FIRE! Y’see, this was a trip to visit my father at his home in southern Arkansas. He owns a few acres out in the country with enough trees to provide a never-ending supply of pine needles, downed limbs, and other such detritus. And how does one dispose of such vast amounts of yard waste? Well, sometimes ya just gotta say,

“I am the god of Hell fire, and I bring you…“

This fire erupted quickly…
…but then settled down a bit…
…to a more reasonable size.
It didn’t take long to get some glowing coals established at the base of the fire.
A human for perspective
Stoking the fire, causing sparks / cinders
Oh, no. I think we set the sky on fire.
Stoking the fire, causing sparks / cinders to take flight

Over the past several years, my father has done a lot of genealogy research, which has included visiting several cemeteries in eastern Texas. We spent the next day visiting some of those cemeteries. I won’t bore you all with pictures of my ancestors’ tombstones; however, I will bore you with pictures of a dead building next to the Justiss Cemetary:

On the way back from east Texas to south Arkansas, we stopped at the cities of Texarkana, where I got a couple decent pictures of the sunset:

Wanna see more FIRE? Well, it so happens that the fire above was only one of two huge brush piles. Let’s check out the second fire, shall we? Yes. Yes, we shall:

The 2nd brush pile before immolation
So, that’s what I looked like 16 years ago. Yeesh!
It began as multiple small fires around the perimeter…
…and quickly grew into one big fire.
Big.
More cinders / sparks against the night sky.
All that remained of the second brush pile the next morning

At this point, I had gotten my fire fix, and it was time to head home to northern Colorado. This trip was far from finished, as I planned to drive back via a couple of canyons in north Texas and the city of Trinidad, Colorado. But I’ll leave all that for next week. Hasta luego!

Leave a comment