Weekend Update

So the weekend is over. . . and while I always lament the end of a good weekend I think it's about time I share with my faithful readers (I say, that's a joke, son.) what it is that fills my weekends. First and foremost, as a good boyfriend, I am dutifully obliged to state my girlfriend fills up most of my weekend when she's down here from her home in Joplin, MO. And we get out and try to take in some of what the area has to offer. This summer we've been very diligent about going to the farmer's market on most Saturday mornings. While I wish I could say this is for the health aspect of locally grown organic food, it's not. Personally, I think the food just tastes better. To demonstrate how unhealthy such a healthy event can be, think of this market basket we acquired on a Saturday a few weeks ago:

• Bacon-Local, grain-fed, and soaked in honey and maple, in a word: Delicious
• Coffee-Iced mocha latte with a splash of vanilla
• Potatoes-This one seems healthy on its face, but after cooking, the first item from this list was applied, as well as copious amounts of butter and cheese. Also, I can really tell a difference between farm-fresh and store bough potatoes
• Cookies-From a local bakery, slightly overpriced but definitely worth it

So there it is, does that sound like the shopping list of a hippie? I think not. Anyway, the point is that while some people think of Fayetteville as the liberal bastion of Arkansas, there's still stuff here for everyone even if it is at the hippie people, uh. . . farmers. . . market.

In addition to the bountiful cornucopia of food every Saturday at the farmers market there are other activities. One which my girlfriend and I partook in this weekend was the natural beauty of this, the Natural State. Just about thirty minutes south of Fayetteville is a state park around a series of caves called Devils Den. Apparently it's called this because when the breeze flows through the caves, the resulting breeze was thought to be the devils breath. In this park there are many campsites, horse trails, and mountain bike trails, but we were there for the hiking, and we took this wonderful picture while there:

What you can't see in this picture is out of the frame just to the right is a cave dropping off about twenty-five feet really quickly and you can't see much further than that. It was closed this weekend due to a fungus on the bats living in them, but we're rebels and went spelunking anyways, just kidding, I needed an excuse to type spelunking. This is just one of the many fun things to do around here and when I find other cool stuff I'll be sure to post it.

Also, we're approaching the second week of Citi-watch and I think I'm winning so far. Volatility, and not fundamentals appear to be the biggest threat to my impending triumph but we'll see.