Sunday, 1 March 2020
I found this morning that my little fall in the streets of Monroe has left me with a scraped nose, which I hadn't noticed before because I don't look closely in the mirror all that often. And once I started moving around, I found my upper arms - especially my left arm - are really sore. Falls on hard pavement are just no fun any more.
When I walked the dogs early this morning, we met a dog that wasn't at anyone's campsite, but I figured the owners had tied him up across the street to give him something new to look at. I was wrong. The owners hadn't tied him up at all. I'd turned us around as soon as I saw him and dragged mine away as quickly as I could and was just congratulating myself on us getting out of a difficult situation easily when Dexter noticed this dog was following us. We'd already come a quarter of the way around the campground from where we first saw him, but here he was.
He looked like a nice dog and seemed to be friendly, and I tried to hold mine back but just didn't have the strength. So here we had a large dog - bigger than either of mine - but with one of mine on each side of him sniffing away, so he started getting nervous - I could see his ears going back - but his tail was still wagging. Then mine started to back away when Dexter decided to jump on him. Well, with Dext it could have just been an attempt to play with him, because Dext doesn't seem to have any social skills and just does things out of the blue.
But it still looked like a possible preface to a fight so I dragged mine away from the other dog who had finally decided he didn't want to try to be friends any more and backed away himself. But in all this I never saw the dog's owners. What on earth were they thinking just letting their dog roam around? I see a lot of dog owners who say things like "my dog is real friendly" or "my dog wouldn't hurt anybody" - and maybe that's true, but what about all the other dogs in the world that "friendly" dog might encounter? Clueless.
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| today's route |
We passed through the small towns of Shiloh and Bernice, where I saw a sign that said "Today is a good day for a good day." Very cheerful.
Into Claiborne Parish, with partly sunny skies and very strong winds. I had to work to keep the RV on the road.
Past Lisbon and Wisteria, and then I found myself on the Boom or Bust Byway, which "pays tribute to the fortunes made and lost in this area," according to their website. Oil mostly.
Haynesville calls itself the Butterfly Capital of Louisiana and hosts an annual Butterfly Festival. There was also a sign saying that this was the birthplace of Geoffrey Beene, famous fashion designer.
Then I saw Welcome To Arkansas - The Natural State.
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| Arkansas - my 24th state |
I hadn't heard of purple hull peas so looked them up and learned that they're similar to black-eyed peas, though slightly pinker in the "eye" and with a less earthy taste. They're native of Africa and are thought to have come over during the slave trade years. Of course, Emerson has an annual Pea Fest.
I'm back in the part of the United States that doesn't have corporations and parishes but instead has cities and counties. Feels like I've been in a foreign part of the world and am now back home again.
Magnolia, pop. 11,577, is the location of Albemarle Global Specialty Chemicals Co. I saw the plant and smelled the terrible smell coming from it. And I saw no fewer than 3 highway signs directing me to turn left if I wanted Steel Mill Road. And there is a steel mill down there, one that primarily rerolls used train rail to make fence posts and so forth.
I saw a truck with the large label "Shell Shocked, a catering and events company." Such an odd name and I looked them up and they are a catering company. I don't know where the name comes from, except they say "Have us cater for you and you'll be Shell Shocked." Not sure that's a great slogan, but their food looks good. Based in Texarkana, TX.
I saw 3 Exxon gas stations within a mile of each other. Doesn't Exxon regulate where their franchises are located?
Also in Magnolia is Southern Arkansas University, which bills itself as an "affordable, modern university" that offers 80 degrees. Nothing wrong with an affordable college education.
I was still dealing with very strong winds, and it was still hard to hold the RV straight on the road. And at this point I saw I'd be passing a white-haired bicyclist, which worried me. Yeah, his vehicle was much smaller than mine, but that didn't mean he'd be more likely to be stable in these winds. I gave him as wide a berth as I could with the oncoming traffic.
Back in this part of the US, creeks are labeled, and towns are labeled, and highway signs tell me where I am and how far I am from the next town. What a concept.
I know where Waldo is, and it's in southern Arkansas.
I passed the PotlatchDeltic Pine Products company, which seemed to have a very large facility here.
The creeks I was crossing - Big Creek, Beech Creek, for instance - seemed to have ordinary water levels in them. I saw so much flooding in the last 3 states that it seems odd to have a regular flow here.
For much of the drive today I've been on US Route 81. Sometimes it seems like the main difference between US routes and state routes is the presence or absence of shoulders; the designation doesn't mean better or worse road quality. US routes are halfway between state routes that stop in every town along the way and interstates that don't stop anywhere. US routes sometimes bypass towns and at other times go right through the middle of them.
In one town I found myself going under an old rusty railroad bridge at the moment that a large heavy train was speeding across it. It made me start thinking about the infrastructure problems in this country and the aging auto bridges, and wondering whether anyone's inspecting railroad bridges. This one held for the two seconds it took me to go under it, though.
I crossed into Lafayette County and saw a sign saying Dorcheat Relief, and I still haven't quite figured out what it referred to. Dorcheat Bayou is an important bayou in this area, and I found online a listing of public structures, such as bridges and dams, including a bridge over Dorcheat Bayou Relief. So apparently, a relief is an offshoot of a bayou that's big enough to warrant a bridge over it. Wish I knew somebody to ask (clearly a relief is more than what Alka-Seltzer provides).
I passed Buckner, pop. 275, and lots of fields - some for crops, though I can't tell what kind of crops, and some for cows, lots of cows in this area.
Then the town of Stamps, pop. 1,693, established 1889, where Maya Angelou spent much of her childhood, and where I saw several men wearing black Stetsons coming out of church services.
In Lewisville, pop. 1,280, I saw a large lumberyard with no visible name (there are several in the area) and passed a facility labeled Messer - Gases For Life. I think Messer produces industrial gases and seems to be an international company - I found a website where they say Messer has its own "fleet of lorries," and another that's in German.
I've seen a couple of billboards advertising the website IDriveArkansas.com, where a driver can check on driving conditions throughout the state. I gave it a quick look and noticed 3 roads closed for flooding over near the Mississippi River, which may help me plan my itinerary for the month.
Continuing west I started passing quite a few oil wells with pumps that were rusted and no longer pumping,
I entered Miller County as I crossed the Red River (actually a sort of reddish brown).
I've been lucky all day because of having very little traffic on this drive. Mostly due I'm sure to it being Sunday, but I've often seen a lot of cars out on Sundays. Just not today.
I continued to pass very large fields, some obviously cotton fields, others solid green though no obvious crop appearing yet.
I passed maybe 3 animals that I think must have been mules because of their long ears and their coloring - they were pinto, which apparently mules can be because they often take the color of their parent horse, whereas donkeys breed with other donkeys and are usually gray or dark brown (I looked it up, of course).
Oh, another thing about Arkansas roads (from my very limited half a day of driving on them) is that they make frequent use of passing lanes, where I rarely saw them in Louisiana. Much appreciated.
Along the road I've been passing log houses, wood houses, brick houses - in all sizes.
Texarkana, AR, pop. 29,919, is the largest town in the area. It's somewhat smaller than Texarkana, TX, with a population of about 36,000, but I've always understood them to be twin cities.
I merged onto I-49 and passed a sign with "I-49" on it that was wobbling so much in these very strong winds that were still with me that I was a little afraid the sign would come loose and come flying through my windows. I got away from it as fast as I could.
I changed from I-49 to I-30 so I could stop at the Arkansas Welcome Center to pick up tourist information. And I saw grackles in the parking lot - first grackles I've seen in 2 years. A homecoming of sorts.
Walking into the Welcome Center was a little like walking into a library - rows of shelves with quite an array of literature on all kinds of places and events. The women there were very friendly and helpful and interested in trying to help me enjoy my month in their state. The dogs and I tried to walk around the parking area, though the winds were so strong it was hard going.
Just as we were leaving the welcome center parking lot, I noticed the sky was suddenly almost full of black clouds - an ominous sight.
I left I-30 for US Route 67 and saw a sign saying I was on the Arkansas Heritage Trail called the Southwest Trail. There's a website for these heritage trails that says the Southwest Trail was once just a footpath, but by the 1830s more than 4/5 of Arkansas's population had come in on that route. Today, it's an amalgamation of roads running from Texarkana up through Little Rock to Maynard in far northeastern AR.
I passed the turn for Historic Washington State Park, naturally in the nearby town of Washington. Its website describes it as a stop on the Southwest Trail that was visited by Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and Sam Houston. In fact, the local blacksmith actually forged the famous Bowie knife, they say. And from 1863 to 1865, the town served as the Confederate capital of Arkansas. Historic indeed.
I passed McNab, pop. 68, on state route 355 and saw a sign saying I was now on the Trail of Tears Heritage Trail. This trail is much more diffuse, as all five forcibly-moved Tribes went through Arkansas on their way to Oklahoma - the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole - all coming from different parts of the US, so following different routes. One of the most shameful parts of our country's history and incredible how it's been overlooked by history.
Then the road took me into Little River County and past a huge lake, that I shortly learned was Millwood Lake, where tonight's campground is.
Google had said today's drive would take me just over 3 hours, but it actually took me almost 6, counting stops to rest and get tourist stuff. I always add at least half again as much time onto Google's estimate these days to come up with something more realistic.
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