This week, I started working out of a satellite office in Heber Springs, Arkansas. It’s about a 30 minute drive over winding country roads through the mountains, and the trip is filled with amazing sights. The most shocking sight to see is Sugarloaf Mountain.
Sugarloaf was the first thing I saw as I rounded a bend, and my trip to work circles around its base. The office is in this very long steel building that is what is known as the Old ASU. (A new ASU campus was built right up against the bottom of Sugarloaf and looks like a ski resort you’d find in the Swiss Alps.) Every time I walk outside, I look up at that square-topped mountain and wonder. Like everything else in this beautiful area, it is big in a big way.
And I do mean big. The woods along the back edge of the campus are dense and the undergrowth makes it impossible to walk into them. From what I could tell, there are a lot of hickory and willow and a few sycamore, and a lot of vine creeping up.
Today, the parking lot was empty today and the huge building was quiet. The old campus is now used for welding and art classes, and it houses Adult Education, Career Pathways, and my office, the Department of Workforce Services. Yesterday, someone was playing a bit of old rock and roll on an electric guitar, a nice change from the usual welding sounds.
Standing outside my office door, those sounds came from that third door on the left. I was able to pinpoint the sound on my way down the hall to the bathroom, which is way down, almost at the other end of the building.
It is big. Everything is big. And everything is beautiful in Heber Springs. I stuffed my good camera into my purse and have been carrying it around with me, but my iPhone is always in my hand, so it’s the camera that is always at the ready and the one I used to take these shots.
Just as big as everything seems is as quickly as wondrous sights pop up. I cross the Little Red River several times on my drive back and forth, and travel through some amazing countryside. Today, I saw huge geese fly up from the river and over the bridge I was crossing. Yesterday, I rounded a bend and found a herd of about 20 deer crossing the road. I pass huge ranches set far back and circled with white fencing, huge hay fields peppered with round bales and huge herds of cattle wandering through endless pasture land, all under a huge blue sky.
Yes, I suspect I’ll have quite a few photos to share before too long.
