The Arkansas Sportshow

The Arkansas Sportshow is this weekend at the ASU Convocation Center and I was itching to get out and see stuff so we headed down to town about 10:30 this morning.

Among the many vendors and attractions was a guy with a monkey. He was charging $5 a pop for people to sit in a chair and pose with the monkey. The monkey would also take coins from you and put them into the pocket of his overalls.

I gave Maria a nickel, which she offered the monkey. He glanced at it and turned away. What’s up with that?

“He only takes quarters,” explained his owner.

A monkey who can spot the difference between a nickel and a quarter at a glance? How cool is that?

So I gave him a couple of quarters while Maria took the shot.

We spent about three hours wandering around and looking at stuff including the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission’s huge trailer aquarium that features most, if not all, of the fish species found in Arkansas.

Maria noticed there are small holes in the backboard, making it possible to get behind the aquarium and photograph the fish in the foreground and the spectators beyond them. The holes were too small for the big lens on her Nikon D200, but my little Olympus point-and-shoot worked just fine.

The Sun ran a trail camera photo contest that turned out to be a huge success with hundreds of entries – enough to cover a 30-foot wall. My favorite was a bobcat halfway up a tree with a possum in its mouth.

The Sportshow continues from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow and it’s a sure cure for cabin fever.