Hikers, bikers... they're all the same

My parents came up from Houston last Monday and we've been busy driving them all over creation. On Thursday, we drove them up to a friend's cabin near Jasper in the Ozarks. We've stayed there before and we LOVE this place. It's on the Buffalo River and it's gorgeous up there this time of year.

We planned to do some hiking, and my mom was determined to get my dad a walking stick. (Not the insect... an actual stick you walk with.) None of the usual country bumpkin-type places in our town (like Cracker Barrel) had any, so we decided to stop on the way up to the cabin. We passed a sign that we thought said "HIKERS OUTLET" so we stopped. Surely the Hikers Outlet would have a walking stick! It wasn't until we were all out of the car that we noticed the sign actually said "BIKERS OUTLET." The Confederate flags should have tipped us off. However, we did manage to secure a walking stick at a business adjacent to the Bikers Outlet, so mission accomplished.

After a couple hours of windy, hilly driving (in the backseat with a 9-year-old who is as prone to motion sickness as I am), we finally got there. The cabin comes complete with a resident elk (named "Elkie" by Jenna) who came to see us both mornings we were there.

Why, there she is now!

Julia and Jenna got to do lots of exploring on the land around the cabin. Here are my sweet girls actually being sweet to each other down by the creek.

We hiked Lost Valley trail and poked around in Beechwoods Cemetery, where graves go back to before the Civil War. In fact, if you know anyone whose last name is Villines and they live in Arkansas, just about everyone they're related to who's dead is buried in this cemetery.

Here's Jenna in the original Villines house, which was built in 1850. While we were in there, we looked up and noticed the whole place is being held up by a couple of thin cables. So we left. Rather quickly.

Then back to the cabin, where we walked down to the Buffalo River. My dad loved looking for arrowheads there...


...while my mom pretended to not be related to any of us.








This is the perfect place to find some lovely fall colors, which I tried to capture in this rather artsy photo I took:



We drove back to our house Saturday and my parents flew home today. My next much-anticipated outing: the Twilight movie on Nov. 21! Edward + Bella = love forever! (And I do mean FOREVER.)

Testament

Last night we went to see LRC youth group member Alex Philbrick play baseball. Because he's related to just about everyone who goes to our church, we got to hang out with quite a few of them at the game. Here's something cool about Alex's mom Ashley and me: We both have dads named Winston. How many of you can say that, huh? HUH??


Since we were in the area, and since I just finished "Turn Away Thy Son," Elizabeth Jacoway's book about the Little Rock desegregation crisis, we drove by the Arkansas State Capitol on the way home because I wanted to look at the sculptures depicting the Little Rock Nine. The sculptures show them as the teenagers they were almost fifty years ago taking the courageous walk to Central High School. It actually took them several tries to get in, and they finally entered the school on Sept. 24, 1957 -- several weeks after the school year had started. This was a monumental victory, but it was also the beginning of a traumatic year as all nine were subjected to all kinds of torment for the duration of the school year.

A couple of quotes that have stuck with me from the book:

"For the first time in my life, I felt like an American citizen." -- Minnijean Brown, one of The Nine, on walking into Central High School on Sept. 24, 1957.

"I hope that one of these days, when I put my hand over my heart for the Pledge of Allegiance and salute the flag for its promise of liberty and justice for all, I will be talking about a present reality and not just some future possibility." -- Terrence Roberts, one of The Nine, speaking in the Central High School auditorium in 2005 when a stamp commemorating the crisis was unveiled.

The story of the Little Rock Nine demonstrates so clearly something I've been kicking around in my head for a while now: That a country is not truly free unless it is free for all of its citizens. A seemingly simple concept, but one our country still struggles to grasp.

One side note: Hazel Bryan Massery, the yelling white girl in this famous picture (in all fairness, she immediately regretted her actions and eventually apologized to Elizabeth Eckford), was -- at the time this photo was taken -- a member of the Church of Christ right here in Little Rock.