Hot Springs, Arkansas: a lovely place for fun!

Even though our trip has been riddled with problems from the beginning (car trouble, funding issues, clashing egos, internet failure, etc) for the most part we’ve been able to improvise with a little help from the nice folks we’ve encountered on the way. The hurricane destruction meant we had to cancel a lot of southern stops I was looking forward to including New Orleans and the Wichi Wachee Mermaids, but for everything that’ll have to wait til next time, we found something just as good.




We’d scheduled a shoot at the Arkansas Alligator farm. The helpful woman at the front counter informed me that the farm had been running for over a hundred years, and that the founder had been a driver for Al Capone during that time when Hot Springs was a destination for gambling, hookin’, and shoot ‘em up battles on the streets. After a lengthy explanation on how to feed bread to the goats, we were turned loose. We pet some goats, held some baby alligators and then Mike was into the pen with the full grown varieties, setting up his camera. While Chris, one of the alligator wranglers attempted to get a surly and hissing gator to hold still in front the camera (Mike’s process requires his subjects to pose for a relatively long time), John, a reporter from the local paper came down to interview us. He wanted to give us the low-down on unique things to see and people to meet in town. He had some friends that he was sure we’d want to photograph. Just down the street from the alligator farm, we met Zach and Cheryl, traveling musicians from Seattle, who’d found a happy home in Hot Springs and settled down to raise their newborn boy, and little girl, Eureka. A few minutes later, they were inviting us to stay the night, and decked out in their finest, giving an impromptu accordion and tuba rendition of the Talking Heads’ “Heaven” on their front lawn. An hour later, kids and warm beers in tow, they led the way to the nearby reservoir for an early evening swim. I can’t sing enough praises about Cheryl, Zach and their awesome kids, so I’ll keep it short - catfish, waffles, a bathtub outside, fire orange hair, and a dirty mouth; we didn’t want to leave.