Junction and Big Dam Bridges

In case you haven't heard, there are two new ways to cross the river. This isn't exactly new news, but I recently had a chance to put both to use, so I wanted to share my impression of each one.

The first bridge to be completed and the first one I got around to using is the Big Dam Bridge.

It spans the river from Murray Park on one side to Cook's Landing on the other. I got a little turned around the first time I went looking for it, probably because I'm not familiar with Cook's Landing. On the upside, I got to take a little driving tour of the business park going up down there. If you want to avoid the same type of meandering by actually looking at a map beforehand, there is one available at BigDamBridge.com.

The bridge got it's name because it goes right across the lock and dam at that part of the river. This makes for an incredible view when the dam is churning. You can stand right on top of the damn and see the water perfectly still on one side and wildly turbulent on the other. There is a little informational plaque part way across the bridge that gives some information about the purpose of the dam and how much electricity is can produce, so look for that if you're interested.

I've been to this bridge several times now and there always seems to be a good mix of people. Some people come for the view and stroll across while others jog for exercise. There are also plenty of people riding their bikes and walking dogs (although not at the same time). The bridge has a "lane" divider running down the middle as a reminder to observer a common sense flow of traffic, and it's plenty wide to accommodate visitors of any inclination, so come and enjoy at your own pace.

The bridge is longer than the span of the river to allow for a steady incline on either side. As a result, the walk up either side feels about as long as the middle section. Once you get right over the dam, there are a few seating areas that jut out of the way of traffic. This gives you the perfect opportunity to take a short rest or enjoy the view in either direction.

If you're into longer walking or cycling trails, the bridge connections trails on either side of the river so that you can actually ride all the way up to Conway and end up traveling about 100 miles if you did the entire circuit. There is a shorter circuit that takes you around to Pinnacle mountain and through the river market. Check out bigdambridge.com or rivertrail.org for a bit more information.

I've really enjoyed walking the bridge every time I've done it. I usually take my dog with me and it's just enough of a walk to get the day going without wearing myself out. There are also some picnic tables and fishing areas, around Cook's landing so you could make a day of it.

Until I went looking for the Big Dam Bridge, I didn't know where it was, but not so for the Junction Bridge. I've ever been anywhere near downtown, you probably know exactly where the Junction Bridge is. It used to be a railroad bridge, but hasn't been in working order for as long as I can remember.

Look familiar?


The Little Rock side starts just west of the amphitheater. From that side, you have to take stairs or an elevator up to the start of the bridge. This is because one section of the bridge is higher to allow barges to pass under it. Being a little higher up makes for a great view, but it's a little disjointed to have to take stairs up at the beginning, the back down halfway through. The first time I used the bridge through, I just went up to the raised section, enjoyed the view for a bit, then headed back down. This bridge is more useful for its scenic view and connection between the cities than for exercise, so having to go up and down isn't too big of a deal.

One thing that surprised me about the Junction bridge was how nice and clean it looked once you're on it. Looking at the bridge from the shore, it looks like the weathered, unused railroad bridge that it is, but once you're on it, there are trash cans, benches and plenty of lighting. While I'm glad the area is well-lit, there were a lot of bugs when I went at night, especially around and in the elevator.

With the addition of these bridges to the city landscape, there are now two new ways to cross the river. Each with it's own purpose and each doing a fine job of it. If you're looking to get a little exercise and enjoy some scenery away from the city, give the Big Dam Bridge a try. If you're looking for a leisurely stroll and a nice view of the city after dinner downtown, make your way over to the Junction Bridge. Just two more reasons to get out and enjoy the city. You're here, might as well make the best of it!

North Hills Animal Clinic

Last week, my dog got into a bit of a scuffle and we ended up having to take her to vet. Let me start off by saying that if anything requiring a visit to the vet happens between noon on Saturday and 8 a.m. on Monday, an after hours vet is your only option. Thankfully, there's one on Smokey Lane that's open the entire weekend. This is where we ended up.

I was afraid that the visit was going to cost an arm and a leg, but after the doctor had examined my dog and talked about what she recommended doing, they wrote it all up and let us determine which of the optional treatments we wanted to do. We crossed a couple of the items off the list to keep costs down, but paid to have her sedated, stitched up, and sent home with some antibiotics and pain pills. It ended up costing about $275 for the whole ordeal. I figure the only thing that would have been cheaper at our regular vet would have been the visit fee. For a visit requiring an examination, most vets I've been to charge around $35 whereas the after-hours clinic charged $69. I figure the extra $35 was worth the trouble of being able to get it taken care of right away. I think that the after hours visit fee doubles after midnight, so I'm at least glad we were able to avoid that.

My dog spent most of the evening sleeping off the medicine, but at 2 o'clock in the morning, I woke up to the sound of her moving around more than normal. I got up to check it out and she'd managed to remove the stitches. Her wound was now completely open again, so I begrudgingly drove back up the clinic, fearing the charges that might be incurred. I called ahead and the doctor was waiting when I got there. They stitched her back up, sent us home with an e-collar (aka "cone") and only charged us $28. I don't even know what the $28 was for, but was just excited the fee didn't include a staggering charge for dragging the doctor out of bed.

Let me just pause here to say that my dog did do well with the e-collar at first. Initially, she refused to walk anywhere. She hadn't yet figured out to keep her head elevated, so the front of the cone kept dragging on the carpet and she didn't know what was going on. I'd also find her standing still staring at walls, for what reason I don't know. After a couple of days though, she was running around the yard and jumping up on the bed like nothing was going on.

They told us at the after hours clinic to take our dog to her regular vet after a certain number of days to have the stitches removed. About a year and a half ago, North Hills Animal Clinic became our new "regular" vet. We switched from another vet when I found out that I had to have an updated rabies shot in order to register the dog with the city. Our vet at the time wanted to charge a $35 visit fee in order to give the dog a $15 shot that would take less than a minute to administer. So I called around and North Hills Animal Clinic had no problem just charging us for the shot. We've been going there ever since.

When we went to N. Hills Animal Clinic to have the stitches removed, we saw Dr. Willman. She got all the information on what had happened and what treatment had already been done, then she took the stitches out and sent us home with some more pain pills to help with any inflammation. I was probably in the office for at least 20 minutes, and we even spent some time talking about tick treatment. In the end, in spite of the fact that the visit had lasted a while and they hadn't done the initial work, they didn't charge us anything! Even the pills were a free sample they had. Maybe they don't even charge office visit fees and I just think I keep getting off easy, but whatever the case, I couldn't be happier with them and the way they've taken care of my dog. The office staff is always friendly and helpful, and Dr. Willman is great. She obviously loves her job, loves animals, and knows her stuff. I never want a reason to make a special trip to the vet's office, but for those times it's inevitable, I'm glad to know the staff at North Hills Animal Clinic is there to help.

Mi Burrito II

Last Saturday night, I made my first trip to the new Mi Burrito in Sherwood. It's in the old Mazzio's building near the Neighborhood market, if you're not familiar. Apparently it's not the first "Mi Burrito" as their sign actually reads "Mi Burrito II". I couldn't tell if the "II" was Roman numerals for 2 or an 11, so there is somewhere between one and ten other Mi Burritos somewhere out there.

When we got there around 7:30 on Saturday, there were only about four other groups of people seated, although one group had 6 people in it. I was surprised to see so few people on a Saturday night.

Decor/Layout: The walls had been painted bright colors, in glorious contrast to the white ceiling and trim. It was lively without being garish. There is a small bar area in one corner and booths all around the outside walls. The entire center is tables with no partitions or half-walls to break up the area. The booth I sat in had a big lump in the middle of the seat, so I sat a little to the side. The tile floors are no doubt easy to clean, but when the person bussing tables came through with a push-cart, the sound of the dishes rattling as the cart bumped along the tile was distracting.

Prices: I thought the prices were about average. I didn't notice the lunch menu, but my Chimichanga dinner was $7.25. I can't find a menu online, but two dinners (One chimchanga and one Mi Burrito) plus two frozen margaritas came to a total of $28 before tip.

Food: I tend to judge Mexican restaurants on two criteria: 1) Rice and beans 2) Chimichanga. I realize this may be neither scientific or fair, but the Chimi is almost always what I order when going to a Mexican restaurant for the first time. As for the rice and beans, those are the staple sides, so if they can't get those right, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the meal. At Mi Burrito, the rice was good, but the beans were a little runny. The flavor on both was good, but I would have preferred the beans to be more substantial. I got the chicken chimi and it was very good. It was cooked to a perfect golden brown and was just crispy enough. My companion had the Mi Burrito dinner and had no complaints. The chips and salsa were tasty, but we only got one bowl between us, so we kept bumping chips.

Bar: We didn't sit at the bar, but the drink page on the dinner menu had lots of varieties of frozen and mixed drinks. We both ordered a frozen margarita. I got peach and my dinner companion got a specialty one whose name I can't recall. Mine didn't have a very noticeable peachy flavor. The specialty one had some sort of extra alcohol added and ended up being MUCH stronger than my peach one was. I'm not sure what the price for each one was since the ticket was hand written with no breakout on prices, but the total for both drinks and two dinners was $28 before tax.

Overall impression: The food was good and the atmosphere was agreeable. It's convenient location may be enough to get me back for another day, but with the wealth of excellent Mexican restaurants around town, if I had my choice, I'd probably head to El Porton or end my long hiatus at Casa Mexicana.

Morningside bagels in Maumelle

Last Saturday morning, I was out towards Maumelle so I decided to stop in at Morningside Bagels. I've always thought it was a shame that there aren't more bagel shops around Arkansas. Maybe there are more than I know about, but Morningside was the first bagel shop I've ever been to in Arkansas. I heard there used to be one out around Bowman but no more. In any case, I took the opportunity to stop in and try it out.

They make their bagels fresh every morning, and even have a glass window overlooking their baking area so you can see it firsthand. Check out their website to see a fully menu, but they have 17 different kinds of bagels ranging from plain to spinach parmesan. They also have 5 different kinds of cream cheese, plus peanut butter, honey, jelly, or even lox. They even have breakfast sandwiches (on bagels, of course), soups, and basic latte choices.

We got there around 8:15 on a Saturday and although there were a steady stream of people through the door and the drive through, nothing seemed hectic or rushed. Everyone there was extremely nice and helpful.

I started off by ordering an Everything bagel with vegetable cream cheese and my companion got spinach parmesan with plain cream cheese. I also had a hot chocolate. Both bagels came out perfectly toasted and generously schmeared. I got to try the spinich parmesean and it was very good without being overpowering. I ate the bottom half of my everything bagel first and it was delicious. The vegetable cream cheese was actually much better than I expected it to be. I would definitely order that again. When I got to the top half, I got to taste the "Everything" part of the bagel. Everything bagels are usually my favorite kind of bagel. They're topped with a mixture of all the toppings that get put on the other bagels, so there's usually poppy seeds, onion, sesame seed and whatever else. At Morningside though, they have a salt bagel that's topped with big pieces of salt (not sure if it's kosher, sea salt, etc). I like salty, but the addition of salt to my everything bagel kept me from being able to taste anything else, including the vegetable in my vegetable cream cheese. If I go back again, I'll definitely skip the salt or everything bagel.

Before we left, I wanted to split a chocolate chip bagel with chocolate cream cheese. I love chocolate, so I didn't want the chance to pass by without trying that. I already had my hot chocolate, but I was still waiting for that to cool down, so I ordered the bagel. It came out very quickly, and was fairly good. The cream cheese with chocolate mixed in was an odd combination, but I suspect some people might like it. I probably wouldn't order it again.

Overall, my experience was good enough that I'll definitely stop in again if I'm out that way around breakfast time. If you like bagels, stop in and give it a try. It's a nice departure from the usual donut choices that usually dominate the weekend breakfast circuit.

Google Streetview comes to town

On March 27th of this year, Google added Street View data for Little Rock and surrounding cities. According to Wikipedia, it covers the following cities:
* Alexander
* Benton
* Bryant
* Cabot
* Carlisle
* Conway
* Greenbrier
* Heber Spring
* Jacksonville
* Mayflower
* Maumelle
* Pine Bluff
* Searey
* Sherwood
* Stuttgart
* Ward
* White Hall
I think that's a pretty impressive coverage area for an initial offering. Some roads are missing, especially newer subdivisions, but most of what I've looked for has been available.

If you're not familiar with Google Streetview, it's basically another layer of information that's been added to Google Maps. Before, when you looked up an address on Google maps, you could either use a satellite view, a street map, or a combination of the two. Now, they've added Streetview, where you can actually view a three-dimensional picture of the area. You can see anything that would be visible from the road. When you have the StreetView activated, roads that are covered are highlighted in blue.

To gather all the data, they got cars equipped with cameras on top and drove all over town. Then Google complied that information so that when you look up an address, you can view what the camera saw when it drove by. Once you're looking at an area, you can use arrows to move down the street or scroll the camera view in any direction for a better look. I'm not sure when the data was collected, but gas was $2.59 at the time:



The one complaint I do have is one I also have with google maps. The location you're at when you pull up an address is not always right in front of the address. This means that if you search for an address, you might have to move down the street a couple of houses to see the one that's actually at the address you entered. The service is still wildly useful for all sorts of things.

Redbox

This past weekend, I finally tired out one of the Redbox movie rental kiosks that have been popping up around town. There is one in the Neighborhood Market, and at McDonald's off the end of Kiehl, across from McCain Mall, and on JFK and N. Hills. You'll know it when you see it. It's literally a big red box.

The way it works is that you swipe your credit card and it dispenses movies. You pay $1 a night and you just have to return it before 9pm the day after you get it. If you don't return it in time, they just charge you another dollar for each extra day.

The movie I was looking for had just been released the previous Tuesday, but the Redbox had a copy, so I swiped my credit card and entered my email address and zip code (to verify my billing address). The movie came sliding out and I was on my way. The whole thing took a couple of minutes and the dvd came in a hard plastic case.

I wish I'd checked to see whether entering an email address was optional, but at the time, I just wanted to see what kind of confirmation email they'd send. I ended up getting three emails from them: one verifying my rental, one verifying its return, and one showing the charge. Three emails over one rental seems a little much, but I can see why each one is useful.

I currently subscribe to Blockbuster through the mail and return them in the store, but I actually liked Redbox enough that I might suspend my blockbuster subscription for a month or two and try Redbox instead. My blockbuster plan is $16 (plus tax) a month, which would buy me 16 Redbox rentals if I manage to return them all on time. If you use Netflix or Blockbuster Online and always send the movies back through the mail, Redbox probably seems like a huge inconvenience to you. On the other hand, if you're like me and you usually swing by a Blockbuster to return movies in the store, Redbox only adds the inconvenience of having to pick up the movie ahead of time.

I checked out the Redbox website and I really like that you can see what movies are available at a location prior to leaving the house. You can even reserve a movie and have it on hold for you when you get there. The one thing I can't believe is missing is a quicker way to locate movies. You basically have to look through screens showing 10 dvd covers at a time. They're sorted by title, release date, or availability, but you can't just view a list of all available titles at once or even search for a movie title and see what locations nearby currently have it. I can definitely think of some basic features that would make the website more useful, but the very fact that you can check a Redbox inventory and put movies on hold before driving down there makes the website worth using.

The one disclaimer I will add is that Redbox's inventory of movies is (from what I've seen) exclusively new releases. If you're into foreign movies, or seasons of tv shows, or old classics, don't count on Redbox to have anything you're looking for.

Schlotzsky's got a makeover

I went to Schlotzsky's for lunch this past weekend. It's been around for as long as I can remember, so I'm not going to even bother telling you where it is. If you don't already know, I'll let finding out be part of the adventure. It'll build character and be worth it. You'll thank me.

I don't go there very often, but their fresh-made bread is worth the trip. I don't know baking, but the bread is the perfect density and is full of air pockets. There is probably a name for this type of bread, but I just call it "delicious". I always think of them as being on the expensive side for a sandwich, but I don't think it's any more than Jason's Deli or McAllister's. Plus, you can check out their website to get some coupons (.$50 - $.75 off a sandwich, depending on size).

Schlotzsky's also has the best chips around. They have their own chips, in all sorts of tasty flavors, so don't go in hoping for Dorito's or Lay's. I always get the Cracked Pepper ones, which are probably my favorite kind of chips ever. You can also get Schlotzsky's chips at some grocery stores around town (Walmart Supercenter on McCain carries them last time I checked) so pick some up even if you don't make it by for a sandwich.

But like I said, this place is been around forever, so I hate to act like you don't know anything about it. If you haven't been, go. Nuff said. The reason I'm posting is because if you haven't been in awhile, they've redone their dining area. It used to be a big open area and you could see everything from everywhere. Now they've added a brick divider so that you can't see the front counter from the seating area. It looks a lot nicer than it did before, so check it out. It'll be a good excuse to go. It also looked like they were working on adding a back patio area, but it was still under construction as of about a week ago.