Category: Bow Ties

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The Bigly And The Not-so-bigly

At the end of our Blanchard Springs Caverns tour, we had to be taken by bus back to the entrance and visitor’s center parking lot. Our tour guide and the bus driver told us we MUST visit the nearby waterfall. We didn’t even know the waterfall existed. They assured us it would be worth our time to drive there because it was spectacular. They let us know we could even swim and walk under and behind the waterfall. They had me wishing I had worn my stripey, old-timey swimming suit that day. We listened carefully to the detailed directions they gave us, and we left the parking lot determined to find this scenic, watery wonder.

We found the ‘fall, as shown by the photo. The waterfall’s not-so-bigliness is not a trick of photography. We are standing about 20 feet from it. Even magnetic, wood polka dot Bow Tie o’ the Day was disappointed. Suzanne and I just kind of stood there for a few minutes, stunned. We knew we were at the right waterfall, cuz other tourists were there gawking at the thing, but… I have a difficult time thinking folks in the Ozarks– or tourists to the Ozarks– think this is a breathtaking waterfall, so I’m mystified about what makes it visit-worthy. Is it just the ONLY waterfall in the Ozarks? Well, I know that can’t possibly be the case. We left that sight pretty quickly, then drove to Mountain View to grab some lunch, and window-shop before heading back to our condo in Fairfield Bay.

[Mountain View ended up being an unexpectedly memorable place for me. It’s where Suzanne found a cowboy boot place she thought I’d be interested in. She wrangled me in through its door, and I found my cowboy boots. More on the boots, in a future post.]

The lawn chairs photo shows the entrance to the resort where we stayed in Arkansas. The chairs are as oversized as the waterfall was puny. In fact, I think the chairs are taller than the waterfall. I’m estimating the chairs are around 9 feet tall. I should have placed bow ties on them, or sat on one myself before taking the pic. That way you would have a more accurate idea of the chairs’ size. I’ll be honest with you though: when I stopped to take this snapshot, I was grouchy. It had been a long day, and I was hungry, tired, and needed to pee. All I wanted to do was get back to the condo. I slept like a baby that night, but I ran out of vacay time to go back and stage me and the bow ties on the chairs for proper photos. I guess I’ll have to go back so I can get those shots for y’all. Arkansas is a do-over for me.

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And We Saw Bats, Too

Magnetic, polka dot Bow Tie o’ the Day went along with us to the Ozark – St. Francis National Forests, where we did a somewhat touristy thing. We went on a tour of Blanchard Springs Caverns– a bigly cave with bigly “rooms.” Up and down, we went. 700 stairs, according to our tour guide.

I have only visited one other cave in my many-adventure life– Lehman Caves near Baker, NV– so I don’t have a plethora o’ caves with which to compare it, but I can attest Blanchard Springs Caverns was nowhere near as “tight” as Lehman Caves. It was spacious. In fact, the cave was cavernous! It was also nice to be out of the South’s humidity for a couple of hours, despite the 700 stairs.

Based on the only two caves I’ve toured, my verdict is that if you’ve seen one cave, you have NOT seen them all. I believe I have a cave or two left in my travel itinerary before I and my bones are too decrepit to spelunk.

BTW Do you know what Suzanne wanted from the gift shop at Blanchard Springs Caverns? A whetstone with which to sharpen our kitchen knives. She can be as unusual in her purchases as I am. But, as far as I know, she does not intend to start a whetstone collection as I have done with my neckwear. There’s simply no more space in The Tie Room anyway.

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The Photos That Never Were

This post answers a question I have no doubt you’ve lost sleep over: “Does Helen E. wear a bow tie when she swims?” Bow Tie o’ the Swimming-in-Arkansas reveals the obvious answer. Why, yes. Yes, I do.

Have I said I love my old-timey swimming suit lately? Love it, I do. I really could have worn it the entire vacation because of the high humidity. I was practically doggy-paddling through the water-logged air everywhere we went.

These pool photos aren’t all that exciting, although I did a whole program of entertaining swimming pool moves. It’s Suzanne’s fault there are no photos capturing my award-worthy, watery feats. Suzanne and I were bobbin’ around in the pool, and when she got out, I said it was time for her to take my TIE O’ THE DAY pix. I saw her sit on her lounger and pick up her phone. It was pointed in my direction. That was my cue. I popped up and out of the water like a porpoise a couple of times. I did a few bodybuilder poses while standing in the shallow end of the pool. I sang a wet YMCA and spelled it out with my arms exactly how you’re supposed to do it. I walked like an Egyptian. Suzanne’s phone was still pointing straight at me in the water.

However, when Suzanne grabbed her phone, she noticed a bigly bunch of text messages had come through. She promptly forgot about taking pix of me and my hijinks. Of course, I was unaware she was distracted by people who weren’t even in Arkansas. I assumed the phone in front of her face was snapping shots of my poses for all to see.

But no. Nope. No way. It turns out I spent a speshul twenty minutes in the pool being wacky and pleasantly buoyant, and I have no photographic evidence to show for it. When I got out of the pool to lounge on my lounger, Suzanne told me about the debacle. I headed back into the water and attempted to re-create my show. Suzanne was right there shooting pix of me this time, but our efforts were to no avail. I had worn myself out with my first performance. I had no obnoxious water-posing left in me, as you can plainly see.

Thinking about the no-photo session when Suzanne didn’t take pictures of me made me do something I rarely do. I got slightly embarrassed. I had been clowning around and splashing, and I was doing it in front of a crowd full of everyone’s attention but Suzanne’s, and she is always my target audience. Doh!

Oh well. My embarrassment did not last long. I feel bad Suzanne missed my Esther Williams-style production, but I most likely amused at least some of the other pool-goers. They’ll have stories to tell when they go back home. And, above all, I got to wear my stripey, old-timey swimming suit and swim in Bow Tie o’ the Swimming-in-Arkansas. Once again, I live a bigly life.

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Adventures In Bipolarity And Guitars

I must apologize for the irregular posting this week. I have more Arkansas posts to write but I’ve had odd bipolar spells since I got home from our Ozarks vacation. My storyteller has gone kaput, temporarily I’m sure.

I tried to explain to Suzanne what my brain is doing, and the best I could come up with is this: it seems as if I can feel each and every one of my blood cells race through me, while simultaneously feeling the kind of exhaustion that will drag me to sleep if I sit down and close my eyelids for more than four seconds. It’s the worst of both poles. But this too shall pass, and so I’m fine.

Anyhoo… I’ll get back to sharing tidbits from our mountain redneck trip as soon as I can. But for right now, here are some pix from last night’s BAND OF HORSES concert at The Union, in SLC. Yeah, we saw them in April in Las Vegas, but we had to get another listen. Yeehaw! Solid performance, once again. The opening act was Nikki Lane, who twanged Suzanne into a tizzy. Suzanne does not do twang. Personally, I would have preferred to listen to the clever Kacey Musgraves, but I can’t complain. BAND OF HORSES speaks to me.

Horseshoe Bow Tie o’ the Concert made sure I brought along my Saddle Purse, which Suzanne was good enough to hold for our snapshots. The photo of me being blurry is a telling illustration of my agitated state of mind and body, with my manic blood cells doing their jigs and all.

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Church Shirts

Yesterday afternoon’s post told you Bow Tie o’ the Day and I were blown away by the number of churches we kept bumping into on our Arkansas travels. I would describe the density of the churches there as follows: I saw more churches per acre than I saw acres per acre. That’s a slew o’ churches.

At a boutique in Pickle’s Gap Village, these two Christian t-shirts caught my attention. Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are pleased to share the message of love, as well as the exasperated cackle of being human.

And yes, I was raised in a barn, so now you can all quit asking me if I was.

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Can’t See The Trees For The Forest

Bow Tie o’ the Day shines right along with my Hat o’ the Day, which I found in the AR store where I bought my cowboy boots. They were both good travel companions on that particular day trip.

The itineraries for my vacations have consistently morphed into shorter and shorter “must do” lists, no matter where I visit. Oddly, we travel more often now, but we find ourselves seeking out fewer of the “sights” the guide books tell us we must see.

To gander at a place’s churches is always on my travel “must do” list. I can say without a doubt that the Arkansas landscape is replete with churches– mostly Baptist, but it’s well-peppered with plenty of Methodist churches hither and yon too. The churches are in shopping malls, deserted convenience stores, empty farm machinery buildings, etc., as well as their own buildings. From the speeding car, I even saw a storage unit which was being used as a church. The motto on this Conway, AR church wall in the photo is both bigly and true. Ya gotta have good roots if you wanna yield a good crop. Simple as that.

I am a fan of church buildings. I make it a point to appreciate the skillful architecture of church buildings of all denominations. Because I was born into Mormondom, I especially have watched the development of modern LDS churches over time and places. I mean no disrespect, but LDS ward buildings are not breathtaking. They are functional. Their beauty lies almost solely in their functionality. If you have seen only a few LDS ward building designs, you have sort of seen them all. In central Arkansas, it wasn’t difficult for me to easily identify Mormon churches from the proverbial mile away. They are iconic sights, with a mostly singular artistic gist.

Seeing so many churches everywhere we went in AR got me thinking about my kidhood church. Permit me to say I miss my old, long-demolished, not-up-to-code Delta Second Ward church building, which had been built by the ward members’ themselves– not just with their money, but also with their very hands. It was an original, one-of-a-kind ward building, which reflected its people.

The chapel had an entire wall of tall windows, through which you could watch the beauty of the farming community– while you learned about the beauty of the spiritual world within it. Some basement classrooms had exposed pipes a kid could climb on and swing from until your teacher wrangled you down and got you in bigly trouble with your parents. There were nooks and crannies and dead ends for playing Primary hide-and-seek in winter. And the long, dark basement hall was perfect for a kid’s illegal running. Even a toddler-age Bishop Travis donned his Batman/Superman reversible cape and flew through the basement halls of the Delta Second Ward church to save the world from the bad guys.

Heck, I can remember when the Delta Second Ward building still had tiny spittoons and ash trays attached to the backs of a couple of pews. On those same pew backs, next to them and the hymn books, you could plug in your hearing aid to listen to the speakers give their edifying lessons. Somehow, of course, my kid-logic brain connected losing your hearing to the use of tobacco.

For the record, I’ve had to wear a hearing aid for just over a year now, but I have never been a user o’ the tobacky leaf. My kid-logic brain would be so confused.

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I Got My Wings, After Whining To The Flight Attendant

The day we flew away to Arkansas, whose nickname is apparently The Natural State, was also Suzanne’s birthday. She joins me in the double nickels of 55-dom. The photo here of Suzanne and her birthday “cake” is from two birthdays ago, in Delta– our last summer there. I am proud of the potato chip cake I made her. Suzanne and potato chips are tight. I’m betting this cake’s one of her fave birthday cakes ever. Hint: Don’t ask her to share her potato chips with you. You will lose an arm or two. If you wanna eat chips, it’s strictly BYOC.

Because we were in planes and airports on her birthday this year, it wasn’t possible for me to throw Suzanne a party. But as I sat on the plane, I suddenly remembered the potato chip cake from 2017, so I bought Suzanne the teeny, teeny, teeny can of Pringles they sell on the plane for bigly dollars. The it’s-Suzanne’s-birthday-so-she-must-be-presented-with-potato-chips tradition lives!

For her birthday, I gave Suzanne something she deserves. I gave her peace and quiet from me. I can be tiring, and she needed a break– especially before a bigly dose of vacation with me. On the flight from SLC to Atlanta, we watched different movies. On the flight from Atlanta to Little Rock, our seats weren’t near each other, and I didn’t do what I’ve done before on the rare occasions when that’s happened: I didn’t persuade other people to switch seats so Suzanne and I could sit together. Nope, I sat in my assigned seat four rows behind her. I gave her an intermission from the variety show I seem to have been born to be. I gave her all the stillness one can get in a commercial jet plane filled to its gills with passengers.

BTW I also knew she would find “birthday” jewelry in Arkansas. I was exactly right about that.

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Traveling Home In Style

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I just flew in from Arkansas– and boy, are my new cowboy boots tired! Yup, Suzanne dragged me into a boot store in Mountain View, AR– where this pair o’ boots found me. They didn’t fit in my suitcase, so I had to wear them with my shorts through the Little Rock, Atlanta, and SLC airports, as well as on the planes home. The shorts-and-boots combo is a snappy one I’ll repeat.

I’ll post about the Arkansas adventure, starting tomorrow. Now I’m gonna snore, unpack, do laundry, then snore some more.

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Sing Along: Saturday Is A Special Day! It’s The Day We Get Ready For Va-cay!

Skitter and I switched our “same” Ties o’ the Day, and we still like the look.

I’m usually full of clash fashion ideas, but I’m stumped today. What does one wear to Arkansas? And, more importantly, what does one wear for a week in Arkansas? We head there tomorrow, and I’m not sure what to expect. Of course, I usually wear whatever the heck I want anyway, no matter where I go– so I probably don’t need to stress too much about it. But an actual, paid model once told me I am “a fashion genius,” so I do fret about maintaining my bigly loud style. Otherwise, people are disappointed. And you know how my entire life’s goal is to please other people by living up to their expectations of what they think I should be. NOT!

As far as what neckwear to choose for our trip, I have found neckties tend to get in the way of vacay exploring and adventuring, so a stash of bow ties is usually the best choice for daily vacation attire. I pack the pieces carefully because they crush easily. Ain’t nobody wanna be seein’ no crushed bow ties!

I put each bow tie in its own tiny box. Hauling them in a carry-on requires expert packing skills because the boxes simply take up extra room. Think of it: We’ll be gone 6 days, so at 2 posts/photos per day (which is my goal), I must pack a minimum of 12 bow ties. And let’s not forget that I have to take along a few “stunt” bow ties on the trip, for posing in extreme vacay scenarios for TIE O’ THE DAY posts.

By the time I pack the necessities (i. e., neckwear), I hardly have room for my old timey, stripey swimming suit, socks, and bras. If we were staying in an Ozarks nudist camp for the week, I wouldn’t have to make tough packing decisions about what goes in the carry-on. And yes, if we were staying in an Ozarks nudist camp, you can bet I’d still be wearing a bow tie. I can’t even conceive of a nude-neck camp. That is the kind of sketchy place where you would never catch me walking around.

I’m sad to say that, so far, I am not planning to take The Saddle Purse with me to Arkansas. Suzanne and I try our best to fly completely “carry-on.” Aside from my carry-on suitcase, I can take one personal item on the plane, and I need it to be my computer bag. Alas, while packing for this first trip since buying my purse, I have finally discovered one thing “wrong” with The Saddle Purse: It’s not bigly enough to carry my laptop. I am devastated to not be able to take my purse with us. At least Skitter and The Saddle Purse will have each other to entertain and to comfort while we are away.

And they’ll have Marjorie, Suzanne’s sister, who will once again be Skitter’s chaperone at our house for the week. We all know what that means: The cops will be here regularly to give citations for noise disturbance complaints from the neighbors. Let the all-night parties begin!

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Triple-A Baseball, Hot Dogs, And Fireworks

But first there was a rain delay at the Salt Lake Bees game last night. Like the good Boy Scout she is, Suzanne is always prepared. Here we are under her frog umbrella, during the rain delay before the bigly game. Baseball Bow Tie o’ the 4th was also glad we took a blanket to the ballpark.

I think pro baseball games run too long, unless you’re playing in one. And I never have. Of course, I can’t say that to anyone I’m related to because baseball has been good to a boatload of people in my family. Baseball has put a bunch of my family members through college, and one of my nephews spent a decade playing pro baseball. And yet… half-way through a pro baseball game, it is downright painful to me to watch the field. Crickets, I tell ya. Painful crickets!

I like the experience of the stadium. I like watching the spectators. I don’t mind paying $5 for a naked hot dog. I like watching the game’s dozen plays where something actually happens on the field. I can appreciate baseball’s complexities, skills, and strategies: they just don’t speak to me. Well, I guess they do speak to me. They say things like, “Only seven more OUT’s and we can go home!” Inevitably, I end up cheering for even my own team to accrue 3 OUT’s ASAP, so the game will pass more quickly.

Here’s how last night went: We played the game of finding a safe parking space by the stadium. The baseball game’s starting time was delayed almost an hour, cuz of rain. The game started, and then played and played and played and played and played. Between innings, people who were dressed up as produce ran a race (the ear of corn won); two women batted water balloons (they tied); kids stood on the bases as some kind of reward for something; a kid ran a race against himself; and other such things of interest occurred. The Bees won. We watched the stupendous fireworks from our stadium seats. (They weren’t as exciting as Delta’s fireworks, but nothing can be.) Then we made our way through alleys and vacant lots to find Suzanne’s car, which had made it safely through its sketchy parking space evening. And then it took us home to rescue Skitter from her crate. She seemed unfazed by any fireworks she might have heard in our absence.

Over all, we had a rip-roarin’ good time. We can have a blast anywhere. Why did I attend an event which doesn’t thrill me? First, Suzanne asked if I wanted to go. I do not say NO to Suzanne. And second, I sometimes like to re-try things I’ve decided aren’t for me, so I can know if I’ve changed my mind about not liking them. Last night I learned that although baseball changes (WTHeck is an OPS?), and although I change, neither of us has yet changed in ways that make us enjoy each other. Maybe next year.