East Is The Beast     04/19-20/22

Maumelle COE, Little Rock, Arkansas

Then their father Israel (Jacob) said to them, “If it must be, then do this:  Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift… balm..honey..spices..myrrh..pistachios..almonds.. double the silver…for you must return the silver that was put back into…your sacks.  Perhaps it was a mistake.  Take your brother also and go back to the man at once.  And may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you.  As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.” ~ Genesis 43:11-14      It seems Jacob has finally come to his senses now that the entire family is on the verge of starvation.  And you might not have thought about it, but if there’s no grain to be had, if they’re in the midst of a seven year famine (two years in according to Gen 45:6), that means the animals have nothing to eat either, nor most likely watered properly.  Jacob and his sons are herders.  What is this famine doing to their livelihood?  And what do you make of the gifts Jacob is sending along?  It was customary, when approaching a superior, to bring gifts of some kind.  Whether it be political (I Samuel 16:20), military (I Samuel 17:18), or religious (II Kings 5:15).  Scripture doesn’t mention if the brothers took gifts the first time they appeared before Joseph.  I think this time isn’t so much a custom for Jacob, as it is a bribe in the hopes of securing Benjamin and Simeon’s safety.  And note Jacob’s attitude now.  He’s resigned to the possibility that he may lose both.  When you go through extreme trials, at what point do you feel yourself resigned to accepting God’s will be done – whatever it may be?  For me, if it’s solely something I personally am going through, I have no problem accepting whatever God may have in store for me.  However.  If it’s my sons?  That’s an entirely different story.  I really struggle with releasing them to God’s will and not mine be done.  Oh, I get there eventually, but not without a lot of arguing and anger and fear first.  And once I come to God in humble submission and seek forgiveness, I feel eversomuch better!  And I wonder why I didn’t start there in the first place.  What about you?  Is there something in your life that you need to turn over to the One Who Knows Best?

Right next door to us is Pinnacle State Park.  We’ve kinda sorta determined that we think they’re loosely tied together.  There’s no hiking at Maumelle, but plenty of camping.  But at Pinnacle there’s tons of hiking and no camping.  And they’re only a seven-minute drive apart.

Prepared with hiking sticks and boots, we set out on a gorgeous day!  Our main objective was to get to the top of Pinnacle Mountain where we were promised 360⁰ views of the area.  Our first stop was the Visitor Center where we were told, “East is the beast and West is best” for getting to the top.  I’d seen a picture online of a climber (complete with equipment) making his way up a sheer rock face.  No thank you very much!  And when the Ranger told us that the East side was more difficult with many three-point holds, we determined that we would go up the West side.

Before we began though, there were two observation areas to check out.  The first was from the Visitor Center itself!  What a spectacular view!

And then, from the parking lot, there were steps up to a viewing platform.  Again, a “Wow!” moment.

During our drive to the mountain trailhead, we talked about that East side climb and decided, nothing ventured nothing gained, right?  If we got to a place where we couldn’t go on, we’d simply turn around, connect with the base trail that goes around the mountain, and walk till we got to the West trail.

The Ranger’s idea of three-point holds that I had in my head, was not the climbing sheer rock face three-point holds I had imagined.  Instead, we did a marvelous rock scramble to the top!  Truth be told, I’d much rather do this than walk up a steep incline.  😊

And those 360⁰ views?  While spectacular from where we first ascended, you had to walk a short distance over to another peak to see the rest.  Oh.  And the peak itself was much smaller than other mountains we’d climbed in the past.

After we finished soaking up the view of a small portion of God’s magnificent Creation, we left down the West side, which put us on the opposite side from the Jeep, so we walked the base trail around.

Time to hit the water!  We haven’t kayaked in forever so we were excited to paddle the Little Maumelle River.  The Rangers told us it would be a little more adventurous than paddling along the edge of the Maumelle – much narrower and a little faster moving, but we should be able to do it with no problem.

And they were right!  But only marginally.  We started out very well, but soon had to portage across a wide rocky spot.  Paddled some more, had to portage again, and not long into our journey, came to an area impossible to get a boat through due to so much debris in the water. 

Now came the challenge of getting back up river, through rapids.  Yeah.  We portaged again.  The Rangers were right.  It was more adventurous.  😊

Since our river adventure was pretty much a bust, we decided to hike some more.  We had passed a sign for the State Park Arboretum, and it being Spring and all, thought to check it out.  It was all about trees, rather than flowers.  We were expecting something like back home, where we have the Sieberling Naturerealm.  It wasn’t.  But it was still a nice walk.  And at a spur to a view of the river we were just on, someone had planted a memorial garden.

Larvae emerge in early spring when temperatures tend to fluctuate. The caterpillars live communally in silken tents designed to keep them warm during cool spells. The broadside of the tent faces the sun, and caterpillars may huddle together on cold or rainy days. Before each of three daily feeding excursions, the caterpillars tend to their tent, adding silk as needed. As the caterpillars grow, they add new layers to accommodate their larger size and to move away from the accumulating waste of frass.​

Eastern tent caterpillars exit en masse three times each day: before dawn, around midday, and right after sunset. As they crawl along branches and twigs in search of leaves to eat, they leave behind silk trails and pheromones. The trails mark the path to food for their fellow tentmates. Pheromone signals alert other caterpillars to not only the presence of foliage but provide information about the quality of the food on a particular branch. ~ thoughtco.com

For some crazy reason, we decided we needed more steps, so we took on one last 2 ½ mile hike.  It was about two miles too long.  😊  But it gave us a different view of the rivers – the Maumelle and the Arkansas.  And we discovered a bunch of cacti growing in one spot, which we were very surprised to see!

Altogether, we spent eight hours at Pinnacle State Park, and though pretty worn out and a bit achy, we enjoyed every minute of it!

And during all this, we received pictures from home! Can’t wait to get back to squeeze our family!

The next day was a great day to recuperate, as it poured down the rain allllll day long!  We woke pretty stiffly, but after just a couple of hours, we both felt right as rain. (pun intended).  We cooked, we researched and we blogged.

Since the rain’s supposed to clear out, we’re planning on heading into Little Rock tomorrow (the 21^st) to see what there is to see.