Arkansas - Day 17 - driving to Harrison

Harrison Village Campground and RV Park, Harrison
Tuesday, 17 March 2020

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Wonder how many people are going to insist on getting together with 50 of their closest friends to celebrate (when they aren't even Irish), thus ensuring the likelihood of spreading that virus.

Gracie in the rear, Dexter's nose and eyes in the front right

During the night we had a lot of thunder and rain.  As usual, Gracie got really upset and somehow managed to insert herself between the wall and the strut of the table, a matter of a few inches.  I lightened this photo as much as I could; you can sort of see Gracie's green collar at the right rear with her head against the seat, and with the back half of her body on the left.  Dexter, who has learned from Gracie's example and become more fearful of thunder than he used to be, crawled into bed with her and is on the front half, his nose just inches from the camera.  Poor little things. 

When I can, I run the fan all night to cover up some of the thunder noise, minimize its impact.  But when it's chilly, as it was last night, I'd just freeze us all out by leaving the fan running.  The puppies just have to put up with it.

today's route

When I left last night's campground, I still hadn't decided for sure where I was going.  When I last got a wifi signal, I'd noticed 3 private campgrounds in the Harrison area, which was a 1- to 2-hour drive from Huntsville.  I figured I'd head over there and, if none of those looked good to me, I'd just keep on going to Bull Shoals White River State Park, a few more hours down the road.  It was a plan, anyway.  So off I went toward Harrison.

I spent most of the drive on US Route 412.  It was very scenic - farm fields, lots of cows.

At one point, I was trying to go the speed limit, though the road curved a lot and went up and down hills.  Suddenly, some idiot passed me in a no passing zone (i.e. a blind s-curve on a hill) and about 2 seconds later a truck came around the bend right toward us.  If that idiot had been even a second slower or started his pass a second later, he and I would both have been caught in a crash with that truck.  Threw my little brain into a tailspin for a bit.

I crossed a body of water labeled North Fork of Dry Fork Creek, which struck me as an odd name.

I continued to pass lots of cows of different ages.

I haven't mentioned before that I think Arkansas does a good job with their slow lanes on highways.  For one thing, they have lots of them.  They're always well marked.  They always have signs saying it's state law for slower traffic to move over (and everyone does).  When there's still at least a half mile before it ends, there's always a sign that warns it's going to end, followed in a quarter mile by another sign that illustrates the right lane is going to end, so there's plenty of warning and lots of time for the traffic to adjust itself to being one lane again.  This is the first state I've seen it done this well, and it's done this well consistently throughout the state.

I passed a sign saying to turn for the Historical Dogpatch School and Cemetery.  And I still have no idea what that's about and why a school and a cemetery would be coupled on the same sign.  All I could find were articles about Dogpatch USA, an abandoned theme park in rural Arkansas.  The developers even got Al Capp to agree to it, and the park ran for several seasons, but it's all left now to the creeping vegetation.  And I have no idea whether that theme park was somehow connected to the school and cemetery or not.

I saw signs saying alfalfa and hay are for sale, so I guess that's at least some of what I've been passing in these fields.

I heard on NPR about the Insular Cases, focusing on the rights of citizens in various US territories.  These cases were decided by the same US Supreme Court that decided the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case - the "separate but equal" guys.  I'd never heard of the Insular Cases, though I should have, I think.  They're the reason folks who live in Guam, for instance, are US citizens with US passports but can't vote for national offices.  Plessy v. Ferguson has been overturned, but these decisions, which were decided on similarly racist reasoning, are still the law of the land.

And so into Harrison, pop. 12,943.  I discovered the most attractive of the 3 campgrounds - at least online - was also the most convenient, by lying on the road I'd take if I kept going to Bull Shoals.  It also turned out to be comfortable enough, with a good wifi signal, and an owner who was willing to give me the Good Sam discount even though they weren't members of Good Sam anymore.  So we stayed.