Days 6 and 7: Texas and Arkansas

If you are paying close attention to these posts and wondering what happened to Day 5… Well, there was a little “incident” during this trip where my camera card fell out of the slot of my laptop (hadn’t pushed it in yet). Before I noticed, my new young dog, Pivot, had chomped some nice dents into it. I sent the card off the next day to a data recovery place but they were unable to recover the photos. The process cost me $2600. I hadn’t read the fine print in the email about “no guarantee” so it was sort of a scam but anyhow… expensive lesson learned. I lost a very productive, full day of shooting in Dallas in the sun and blazing heat wave (my big van’s AC sucks despite full freon). Fortunately, I always back up my cards to my laptop each night so it was just that one day that went bye-bye. I’ll be back in Dallas for a painful 14-hour repeat of what was lost in a couple of years. Although I have been to Dallas many times, there’s always things I find out about between trips or things shot at wrong time of day that need reshooting.

Let’s start out in Dallas then with this cattle drive sculpture group right downtown:

This bull is in Royce City, TX:

This frog in Hot Springs, AR had been installed in front of a closed restaurant for many years. I drove by and was sad to see him gone this time. But about 20 mins. later I was very happy to see that he had at new home just to the north at Dame Fortune’s Cottage Court. He originally emitted a stream of water from his mouth into a little pond so I guess they’ve dispensed with that feature. But it looks like they are fixing him up:

Fouke, AR is proud of their local legend and holds an annual festival. This guy is on the facade of this convenience store which sells souvenirs:

This sculpture of the Grand Master H.U. Lee is installed in front of the ATA martial arts headquarters in Little Rock, AR:

This Taco Bell statue is at Driven Towing & Recovery in Hot Springs, AR along with many other statues. This statue did not have a sombrero when the owner bought it. Mark Cline was able to create one:

Also at Driven Towing is this guy which would have originally held flags or signs in his hands. His arms were motorized to move up and down:

This giant rooftop milk carton is in Batesville, AR at a food products distribution company:

This Art Deco courthouse is in Hope, AR:

This Art Deco Masonic Temple is in Benton, AR:

This midcentury modern Farmers Electric building in Newport, AR…

… The business also has a Willie Wiredhand sign. More about Willie (and Reddy Kilowatt) at my website here: https://www.roadarch.com/sca/reddy.html