Saturday, August 26, 2017

Lake Fort Smith State Park

Sunday, August 26 we traveled to Lake Fort Smith State Park with plans to join the eclipse watch party at the park. On Monday the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse was to occur. A total eclipse stretching from Oregon to South Carolina with about 90 percent obscured in northern Arkansas. We took campsite #19 for four nights. This was our second trip to Lake Fort Smith and as with the first the park was quiet and very clean. There were only about six or seven other campers in the campground until Tuesday when a few more arrived.

Monday we gathered up with a small crowd of other eclipse watchers at the visitor center. The Arkansas Oklahoma Astronomical Society (AOAS.ORG) organized the event with the Arkansas Park Service. AOAS brought three large reflector telescopes with solar filters for all to enjoy. They also had other gadgets like pinhole camera boxes to share. I had already made a pinhole camera out of some poster board and aluminum foil. We were not able to buy solar eclipse glasses due to the massive run on stores. Although a lady in the crowd was more than happy to let us borrow her's for a look. I did have the lens from my arc welding hood which worked pretty well as a camera filter and for a short look.

Pinhole Camera

Pinhole Camera View

Looking down at the tree shadows made crescents eclipses on the sidewalk like the pinhole camera.

I used my arc welding #10 shade lens as a filter to capture the eclipse with my Nikon SLR. The photos below were the result (some reflections in the lens / filter but you can see the progression to about 90%).

Tuesday we went for a back roads adventure to National Forest Service campground on White Rock Mountain. We took Shepard Spring road northeast out of the park and other forest service roads to White Rock Mountain. Just out of the park Shepard Spring road turned to gravel and we rode gravel/dirt all the way back to White Rock on national forest road 1700, 1707 and county road 79. Along the way we crossed the Frog Bayou then continued on what would be best described as unimproved roads. We returned on county road 76, national forest road 76 and highway 348 to Mountainburg, AR.

Frog Bayou from NFR-1007

Overlook at White Mountain Campground

Memorial Bench at the Overlook (Alan Bartels must have liked Pink Floyd)

In some places the road needed work!

Wednesday afternoon we drove to Bentonville to see the the Chihuly glass exhibit. We met John and Lynda at Growler USA in Rogers for a few craft brews, then dinner at the Flying Fish in Bentonville. We got to Crystal Bridges at dusk to walk through the woods and see the Chihuly in The Forest glass exibit.