Slow Sunday afternoon in the River Market

The River Market is full of restaurants, shops and interesting destinations and is a great place to visit for a photo session...even on a slow Sunday afternoon.

Eat at Doe's - a downtown tradition

It's a hole-in-the wall but these kind of places usually serve the best food, For starters you get shrimp of tamales and then wrap it up with a two and a half pound porterhouse. Bill Clinton knew a good thing when he saw it.

Our Town

View of our town from the third floor of the Clinton Presidential Library...the best little big town in the world !

The River Market at night

The River Market area is a great place to dine and play at all times of the day. It's come a long way from 25 years ago when it was a rundown warehouse area with delapidated buildings. I remember counting paper ballots for the election commission in the building that now houses the Museum of Discovery. You've come a long way baby.

Villa Marre

Villa Marre is a Second Empire and Italianate home at 1321 South Scott Street near downtown in the Quapaw Quarter of Little Rock. It was built in 1881 by Angelo and Jennie Marre. Angelo Marre was a ninteenth-century transplant from Borzonaca, Italy, who made his fortune as a liquor importer and saloon owner.

Angelo Marre died in 1889 and his wife Jennie in 1904. Aftert her death the home passed from the hands of the Marre family to Arkansas Attorney General Edgar Burton Kinsworthy in 1905. Kinsworthy occupied the home for twenty-seven years. Since then house has been a nursing home, school of dance, and meeting house for Alcoholics Anonymous. Over the years the home fell into disrepair and in 1964 was condemned and scheduled to be demolished but was aquired and spared the wrecking ball by James W. Strawn, Jr. a local furniture company owner. In 1979 the home passed to the Quapaw Quarter Association, which used it as its headquarters. It has been a private home since 2002. The renovated Villa Marre is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The exterior of the Villa Marre is recognizable as the fictional Atlanta Georgia home of Sugarbaker Designs from the 1980s and 1990s CBS sitcom Designing Women which was produced by local Arkansans Harry and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason.

The Love Bench

This bench is located in the Quapaw Area of downtown Little Rock on Main Street across from the Community Bakery. It is a bench I have seen in many photos on local Arkansas websites. It usually is used in romantic settings with couples leaning against it kissing or holding hands, etc. Everyone should have at least one of these in their photo stream.

Inside the Clinton Presidential Library

The Clinton Presidential Library is great place to visit and a tremendous drawing card for the River Market Area and Downtown Little Rock. During a visit you will see not only important relics of Clinton's terms in office but you will see people from all over the state of Arkansas, the United States and the world.

Finally done

Whew...I finally finished. Just wrapped the last present and put it under the tree. Now I'm headed to the wine cabinet for a bottle of red. Gonna sit back and watch It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas Vacation.Tomorrow is an all day marathon of Christmas Story; I can't wait.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas

Blue

I took my old D40 with me to the office today. It's been quite a while since I used it. I forgot how good a camera it is.

When I got home from work I grabbed some flowers from the Christmas centerpiece I bought for Toni and shot it against the sky. I forced the flash to get a contrast to the slightly blue sky.

Max and Santa

After a long day at work I was watching television when Toni told me to check Max out. He was on the floor in front of the fire with his Santa toy dreaming of Christmas. I couldn't resist,

Merry Christmas from Max to all of you.