Back in Arkansas Again, (even though it is a pass through on I-40)

After living in Arkansas from 1991 through 2012 it always feels like a "coming home" moment.  Today, a little I guess, but we are just passing through.  Our goal, to get to Georgia for a visit with Marcia's long time friend Gerry, who is just a few years older than Marcia.  

 

We left Texola at 8 am, got to Brinkley Arkansas after 4 pm, with an hour lost going from Mountain Time to Central Time.  Traffic was not too bad...got through Oklahoma City without any problems...the same with Little Rock.  Lots and lots of large trucks, as always.  Tomorrow we need to drive about 400 miles to get us within 90 minutes of where Gerry lives.

Tonight we are staying at the Brinkley RV Park, which is part of the Super 8 Motel...price is around $30.  It is just too hot to try and stay at Cracker Barrel like I had hoped for...in fact, our Air Conditioner ways on for nearly the entire night last night...and will be until we get home.  I have tried different was to do this, and setting it so that the fan runs regardless, helps to create a loud "White Noise" which masks the on and off of the compressor.  Right now it is nearly 9:30, it is 81 degrees and 80% humidity.  If I don't have the A/C going, the humidity gets to me real quick.  Welcome home to the SOUTH.

Arkansas and Decision Time

 

We left Delhart Texas and headed South to I-40 at Amarillo, and then east on I-40.  Marcia caught this wonderful picture of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries in Groom Texas with the rays of the sun shinning down on the cross.

 

With so much of the World in turmoil, everything seemingly falling down, we were certainly glad to see the cross before seeing the Leaning Tower of Texas also in Groom.

After seeing so much green, so much beauty over the past week, it is hard to find the enthusiasm to take pictures of dull Texas and Oklahoma...so we drove on and on, about 400 miles, till we got near Seminole Oklahoma where we stopped at the Catfish Round-Up RV Park, hooked into electricity, water and sewer, and stayed inside the motorhome trying to keep cool in the 100 degree, 55% humidity weather.   YUCK double YUCK!!

With just over 150 miles to go on Tuesday, we passed by pretty Eufaula Lake.

And eventually the Arkansas River.

Into Arkansas itself.

And finally parked at the Springhill Campground in Barling, just on the outskirts of Fort Smith.  I drove over to Walmart to drop off the batteries, and almost did not make it back with the car.  After all that work I did on it, it acted up today even worse than when we left Florida.  It was decision time...time to cut our losses and head straight home.  It was a sad call to my good friend and loyal employee for so long whose house we were going to driveway camp on for two nights and visit all the Libraries and my former Rotary Club...our visit in Pine Bluff is not going to happen.  I am afraid that if I unhook the HHR, I might not get it started again to hook it back up.  (It died 7 times just driving it to the dumpster here in the park after I got back from Walmart, where I almost did not get it going at Walmart after I turned the batteries in.) Here at the Springhill Campground I positioned the HHR so that I can back the motorhome up to the HHR to hook up, so we will be good to go in the morning.  From there, we are headed across I-40, then across I-22 to Tupelo where we have reservation with a pull through.  The next day we will make it to northwest Florida for the night, and then home on Friday...IF we don't encounter other problems.  We are not crossing our fingers, but we are holding onto the Giant Cross we passed by in Texas on Monday morning.

Thankfully, Marcia's cousin Jim picked us up in his huge older SUV, we managed to get Marcia up and out of it without any damage, and he took us to a BBQ restaurant nearby.  It was great to visit with him for nearly 3 hours, and Indy did not destroy the place while we were gone, but all the window covers were certainly amiss that she could get her little paws on.  Happy happy happy girl when we got back...now she is on the floor within eye-sight of us both...between us and the door! 

Hellfire and Brimstone

At Maumelle Park, Little Rock, AR

Oh, you think things are going so well…and then KABOOSH!  It suddenly felt like Hellfire and Brimstone had broken out!

It started last night at Cracker Barrel in Vicksburg.  After what seemed to be a fairly easy drive from Wilderness RV Park to Vicksburg, staying on I-10, then I-12, then I-55 for nearly all of it (instead of taking the shorter yet harder drive through Hattiesburg and Jackson Mississippi), we had a good dinner at Cracker Barrel, ask to spend the night and got the normal, “you bet” from the manager.  Around 9:30, some fool starts playing his car radio booooming extremely loud, which lasted about 30 minutes.  I told Marcia it was probably some guy waiting for his girlfriend to get off from work...and it probably was.  About 10:30 we both called it a night…and soon after that is when all hell broke loose.  The manager did not warn us that it was Cleaning Night…that they had scheduled deep cleaning with a high pressure steam cleaners…that run on the loudest generator you can imagine.  On and off throughout the night until 5:00 when the dumpsters were dumped by the garbage truck.  Then seeing a new victim to clean, the steam cleaner guy starts up again and washes down the huge garbage bins.  By 5:45 the noise subsides...but by 6:30 I told Marcia I have had enough as now we can hear cars pulling in, and highway traffic zooming along the Interstate.  Why did we wait that long?  Because the steam cleaner blocked our exit with his van, so we were stuck for the duration...although I could have unhooked the car and backed out…staying seemed to be the lesser of two evils, and decided to stay put.

Our drive through Louisiana and up US 65 was just fine.  Just 2 to 3 miles short of Arkansas, Skruffy lets out a bark.  She has trouble getting down off the chair, but with a little help I got her off while I still drove, and she came over to Marcia, and I got her up on Marcia’s lap.  She acted very peculiar…like she knew she was near her old home.  She barked and howled and we all had a good time.  In Lake Village I stopped to walk her and Bubba, and back to her chair she went.  Then, seeing we went through Hellfire last night, the heavens opened and we were POOOOOOURED upon.  When I say poured, I mean poured…all the way to Little Rock.  Sometimes it was so heavy I could barely go 45, and boy it was hard to keep it on the road sometimes.

We had reservations starting tomorrow through Thursday at Maumelle Park…but we arrived a day early, and we took a walk-in spot for one night because someone is in the spot we will get starting tomorrow.  Pictures of one of our favorite parks will follow later…for now, I think we are both going to take a nap, assuming that woodpecker in the tree above us doesn’t get too loud.  Time to LOAD the GUN….

NOTE:  It sure is nice to be back on the road....

Made it back to Arkansas

At Cracker Barrel, Alma, AR

We left Blue Springs right around 9 am, had light traffic most of the way.  Stopped in Joplin Missouri for gas, coffee (at Flying J), and an RV Wash (Blue Beacon next door).  The line to get washed was a little over average, taking nearly an hour to get through, but at least our baby motorhome is clean again!

Stopped in Alma because Marcia’s first husband has a cousin living in the area, Jim, the son of Sophie whom we use to stop and see every time we were in the area.  Jim and wife Pat came over from Fort Smith to the Cracker Barrel, and we all enjoyed a nice two hour visit with dinner.

Yesterday I picked my youngest son Ryan up at the KC Airport, flying in from a SACA meeting in Milwaukee.  Ryan is the chapter president of the Student American Chiropractic Association for Cleveland University - Kansas City.  He loves it anytime he can be an advocate for the Chiropractic field.  He graduates next April.

 

His dad, however, needs to learn how to take “stealth shots” with the camera better…this is him getting in the car at the airport with guards looking at me with that “You have 30 seconds at the curb buster” type of look.

On the drive to the airport I was able to get this shot of the Royal’s Baseball field…tried to get Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Chief's too, but this is the best I got.

Just before I went out to get pictures, this truck pulling a small trailer pulled up.  WHY they felt so compelled to park right next to us, is beyond my comprehension.  As of now, I don’t know if they are going to stay the night or not.  It is not that this was the only spot available…there is an empty spot right next to it, and the parking lot is not that full.  I know they have a small black dog, it stared at me as I took Skruffy and Bubba out for their last walk of the day…big buggy eyes, did not bark, just stared.  Hoped that the rest of the family, “IF” they stay the night, are not loud either…but they came out of the restaurant, got the dog, got into the truck and OFF THEY FLEW! 

Hail-elujah–Back in Arkansas

Having lived in Arkansas for 23 years, I have seen all sorts of weather.  Yes, it has hailed when I lived here, but not very much, and I did not have to drive through hard hail the entire 23 years.  Our route today took us west into Louisiana, north on Highway 65 at Tallulah right up into Arkansas.  The first town in Arkansas along this route is Eudora, a sleepy little town of just over 2,000 people, a largely Black population with a median income for a household of roughly $17,000.  From nearly the moment we entered the town, and for a good mile after we left town, we had hail, hard pea size to small marble size hail.  Do you stop and sit through it for who knows how long…or continue to drive, slow and steady, until you get out of it???  I picked the latter.   Luckily, no damage…no dents, no broken windows, all was well.

Which leads me to a funny thing…at least I think it is funny…one would have to ask my wife what she thinks, because it has to do with my sense of humor.  The first place I could safely pull over was in the town of Dumas in a Walmart Parking Lot so I could check out if there was any hail damage. The first rest area, which has a small parking lot, was too full.  The second rest area was closed.  This always happens after I have been driving while drinking a 24 oz cup of coffee…which means, yes, nature was calling.  So as I am getting out of the driver’s seat and stepping outside, Marcia says, “I thought you needed to ‘use the bathroom’, which is the polite way of saying it.   I said, “I do.”, and I shut the door, walked up to the front left tire, reached down and “acted” like I was relieving myself…looking into the front window at her…while she puts her hand over her forehead, shakes her head, and burst out laughing.

I don’t know why I get these urges…not the urge of nature calling, I know it is the coffee doing that…but the urge to spontaneously commit a mischievous act…or blurt out something funny.  It has been five years of doing this type of thing and Marcia still loves me to death.  Of course, my Mom is saying to herself, "If I can only tell everyone of the MANY times when David was small that he really would 'whip it out and go' ... at parks, front yards, playgrounds....the entire outdoors was his bathroom!"

Fort Smith was our goal, so Pine Bluff was a quick drive through along the Interstate.  All was well, traffic a bit thick from Little Rock on along I-40.  Shortly after getting on I-40, I decided to call Spring Hill COE park to be sure they were open.  The guy assured me they were, but they had only one spot left!  What!!!! in mid-March!!!!   And he could not hold it, it was first come, first serve.  So we hurried along I-40, and as I got close to Alma, mile marker 13 (13 miles from Oklahoma) I called and he said he still had the spot open, and another opened up.  So we went on to Springhill, a US Army Corps of Engineers park.  With National Park Pass, it was $9 for the night.

We like COE parks, and this one, which we have been to a few times now, is really nice. 

With all the rain, the water is real high.  I doubt we will hear any barge traffic along the river with this high water and fast current. 

After so many miles in the past 50 hours, the dogs were ready for a stay in a park. What they did not like was that we were only parked for 90 minutes before Marcia and I left to go visit her cousin Sophie (92 years old) and have dinner with her, her son Jim and his wife Pat.  Since our plans in the Pine Bluff area fell through, we came to Fort Smith a day early, which is allowing us to drive the RV up to just south of Kansas City for a two night stay where we will be taking my son Ryan out to dinner Saturday night, and visit my Aunt and cousins on Sunday. 

    

When we know we will be gone for a few hours, we always try to give them a nice chew treat…in this case, some Healthy Hide, Good 'n' Fun, Triple Flavor Chews.  It keeps them occupied for the first 10-15 minutes that we are gone, and they seem to settle down quickly after that.   (look at Bubba’s new collar!)

We had a nice dinner at an Italian Restaurant that recently opened…good food at a decent price, but I failed to get the name of it.  We always enjoy our visit with Sophie and Jim and Pat...and hope to see them again when we pass through again in October.

Bye Bye Arkansas

Tomorrow morning we head out of Little Rock, into Mississippi, and down south.  Lived in this state from January 1st, 1991 until my retirement in 2012, nearly 22 years.  When we first moved here, my youngest was 3 months old.  My children's mother got her teaching degree by the time he was in 6th grade, and she is still a very successful teacher in White Hall, a community close to Pine Bluff.  When we first moved here the local PBS station shut down every night, or was it just Sunday night, and they played this song above.  It really does tell how Arkansas "grows" on you. 

While here, we had a very enjoyable meal with our dear friends, Jana and Mike at Applebee's.  I think we were there for over three hours, and we wish we could have stayed another three hours visiting.  There will be a next time, that's for sure.

Saw my doctor today, and although my high blood pressure is coming down, he changed out one medication and encouraged me to loose more weight.  In the past year and a half since I last saw him, he said my weight had not changed....guess I need to do more of those hikes that I pass up from time to time. I asked him if I should wait until the results of the blood tests, and he assured me that I should head on out, and he would call me with the results in a few days.

On our way back to the motorhome, we just had to stop at Corky's, my favorite BBQ place in Little Rock.  We had a late lunch, early dinner, an got a rack for the road for tomorrow's dinner.  You can now buy Corky's BBQ in some grocery stores, and if you order off their website, they can deliver just about anywhere pretty fast since the headquarter location is in Memphis where FedEx has its headquarters.  

Above is picture from the Internet (public use ok) of the Buffalo River.  There is so much beauty in Arkansas, and yet it is overlooked because what many first see is the flat, cotton and soy bean fields between Memphis and Little Rock.  When you live here for awhile, it really does, as the song say, "Runs deep in me...."  For us, we are signing off from Arkansas until our return visit next year.