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Breakfast at the airport

Our first plane home

Landing eastward at LAX

Home

Ted was worried this would happen. While we were waiting for the fuel cap in Little Rock, a big winter storm system descended on the west coast. Perhaps you’ve heard of it:

Unfortunately, this means icing conditions and other weather-related nastiness between us and home, and with Very Big Mountains between here and there, flying in the little plane is really out of the question.

The system is supposed to last all weekend, so we need to find alternate transportation if we’re to make it back to work on Monday. We ended up scoring up some same-day tickets on US Air, so our current plan is to fly home commercial today, wait out the storm, and return to fly the plane home later in the week.

It’s easy to sit and second-guess the decisions made so far, whether we did the right things… (and let’s face it, it’s Ted who’s doing the second-guessing as pilot in command), but we’re going home so I’m a happy girl. If all goes as planned, we’ll be heading out shortly after noon by way of Phoenix. Keep your fingers crossed.

Now that we have two functioning fuel caps, we left Little Rock for a day of clear-weather flying. Our route should take us from Little Rock to Denton, TX to Midland, TX to El Paso, TX.

Downtown Little Rock

Outside Denton, TX

Denton tower

It’s clear we’re back in Texas…

It’s windy

Tofu scarf in progress

It’s Possum Kingdom Lake!

The nicest FBO bathroom: Avion FBO, Midland, TX

Back in El Paso

Rental car: $100
Extended hotel stay: $200
New fuel cap: $300
Keeping our fuel inside the tank: priceless

It finally arrived this morning, and works like a charm. The wings are dry, today’s weather is clear, and we’re heading westward for home.

We stopped in at River Market for a cup of something warm before heading back to the hotel. Before we left, we thought we’d look and see if we could actually see La Petite Roche – the little rock that is the city’s namesake.

It’s still chilly

La Petite Roche, behind construction barriers
(It’s that outcropping of rocks upon which the marker stones sit)

Outside the River Market

The next stop on the insides-of-Little-Rock-historical-sites was the Old State House, the “oldest surviving state capitol west of the Mississippi River.”

It has been chilly in Little Rock. The water in the fountain out front had a very solid layer of ice on top

Nifty entrance sign

Partially finished stocking – from the object label:

Annie Maurice Strong was knitting this when she died June 10, 1894

The Daughters of the American Revolution period room

Women’s suffrage trading cards

Virgie Baker, Priestess of the Stars

From “The United Daughters of the Confederacy” period room. This and the following quoted descriptions are from the Old State House Web site:

The box grand piano was made in New York in 1865 by Ernest Gables. It was presented as a wedding present to Mr. and Mrs. Fay Hempstead and donated by their daughter.

Intricately decorated standing clock

The large standing clock was one of the decorations in the Arkansas Building at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The inlaid design features 50,000 pieces of 27 varieties of Arkansas hardwoods applied to a base of southern pine. The clock was made by Charles Becker of Little Rock. Becker was born in Illinois, but was listed in the Little Rock census of 1890 as a painter and cabinet maker. At that time he lived with his family and two boarders on Gaines Street.

1836 House of Representatives Chamber

1885 House of Representatives Chamber

River view from the 1885 House of Representatives Chamber

1885 staircase

Artifact from the “Grandmother’s Cottage” display – any idea what this is? A pleating tool?

Decorative floor grate

Before we started our day’s adventures, we first saw the inside of Leo’s House of Gyros for the most important meal of the day. Leo’s was voted best Greek food in Arkansas for several years in a row. I don’t know that they had a lot of competition in this area, but I thoroughly enjoyed their falafel, served with a thick doughy pita and hummus. Their hummus was light on tahini so it tasted a little bland, and I would have loved a larger serving of the accompanying cucumber/tomato salad (it was a tiny dibble, about the size of one small falafel), but after weeks of rich heavy foods, this made my stomach very happy.

Fortified, we headed over to the Capitol Building to take the self-guided tour:

The state seal, in stained glass

The main rotunda and its amazing chandelier. It is approximately 12 feet in diameter, 18 feet high, weighs more than 4,000 pounds, and is suspended by a 73-foot chain. I took many pictures of this chandelier.

The Governor’s Reception Room

Rotunda from the 2nd floor

Rotunda chandelier, side view

Bill Clinton’s gubernatorial portrait

Rotunda chandelier, close up. See, I told you I took a lot of pictures of this…

Main entry bronze doors, purchased from Tiffany’s in 1910 for $10,000

We had a blast visiting the Treasurer’s Office.

One of the office staffers, Hap, invited us in to tour their beautiful vault. The vault is secured by four doors and three time locks, the main door weighing in at a hefty 11 tons.

Their office actually does payroll cashing so they keep a chunk of change on site at all times. Then he asked us if we wanted to see what holding $230,000 felt like.

What an odd and unexpected delight. He took Polaroid photos of us and presented them in commemorative sleeves emblazoned with the state seal. He gave us a stack of coins minted with the head of the Arkansas State Treasurer, Martha Shoffner. He was friendly and enthusiastic and just seemed delighted to show us around. In fact, everyone in the office was the same way, pointing out a rotating display of works by local artists, asking if we wanted some water before we headed on our way… It was really quite overwhelming.

And that stack of money? It isn’t as heavy as I would imagine. Maybe about the weight of a football.

Inner vault cabinet door

An olde tyme calendar

It was hard to top the glitz and glamor of the Treasurer’s Office, but there were still interesting things to be seen in the building:

The Old Supreme Court Chamber

The Senate Chamber

The House Chamber

And last, but not least, the 1st floor women’s restroom

The embroidered vanity bench celebrates Arkansas’ sesquicentennial

Fun!

Ah, lovely Little Rock; how we are loathe to leave thee!

OK, maybe not so much. But the airport doesn’t have a fuel cap in stock—neither do neighboring airports—so it needs to be ordered. And it won’t arrive until tomorrow morning.

So we’re here for another day. On the bright side, it’s now January 2nd and things are open, so we can spend some time looking at the insides of places.

So, things were looking up. We headed back to the FBO to settle up and head out. The nice folks at the last Supermarine fueled us up and sent us on our way.

Ted switched the leaky cap to the tank on the other wing to see if it was a problem with the cap or the fitting, and the problem got pointedly worse. This time, not only did the fuel leak more vigorously, the cap loosened a quarter turn sideways and was rattling in the wind. Yeek. We turned around and landed, heading to Central Aviation in hopes of finding a shop with Piper Archer parts.

Now here’s the thing. It’s New Year’s Day. Everything is closed, folks are on holiday, and to get the mechanic to just show up and look at the cap would cost us upward of $350.

>sigh<

We figured that even if we were able to get someone to look at the cap, we probably wouldn’t be able to order the replacement part until tomorrow, so we decided to save the money and just spend an extra day in lovely Little Rock. We extended our hotel another day, got a rental car and went out to see the sights.

Of course, it is New Year’s Day, and it was very cold and windy, so we mostly saw the outsides of buildings. Briefly. Still, it was a pleasant enough way to spend our time.

Outside the William J. Clinton Presidential Library

Funny thing: while we were at the library, another family of hearty tourists were braving the cold, looking at the outside of the building, taking pictures… we ended up seeing them two more times throughout the day, at similar landmarks. They probably thought we were just as crazy as them.

The River Market pig

Outside the Capitol Building

Outside Little Rock High School

Outside an old Mobil gas station

Outside the Governor’s Mansion

The Old Mill at T.R. Pugh Memorial Park

After a very full day, we went in search of dinner. Found Forbidden City, a Chinese restaurant in the basement of the local mall. I can’t say I was thrilled by the cuisine—my Lo Mein had a fairly watery sauce that was just packed with MSG—but it was hot and filling, indoors, and available on New Year’s Day. Can’t complain too much about that.

Neil Gaiman said it first, then again, and again once more — I agree, it certainly bears repeating.

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself

Have a lovely new year, all.