Arkansas - Day 13 - west to Mt. Rich

Queen Wilhelmina State Park, on top of Rich Mountain near Mena
Friday, 13 March 2020

After a difficult week, I'm pinning my hopes on Friday the 13th being my turn-around day, hoping today all goes well.

today's route

It didn't start out all that auspiciously.  We had heavy rain, and the road out of the campground was twisty, and up and downhill, with no shoulder at all.  The rain had been going on since about midnight and hadn't let up much at any point.

I passed a home with a batch of elevated solar panels out front that they were also using as a carport.  They had 2 vehicles parked underneath them.  Makes sense.

I crossed Caney Creek Relief and saw it had flooded a quarter of a mile beyond its ordinary course.  It was within a few yards of somebody's barn.

The rain had pooled in the ruts in the roadway - this is a paved road but so heavily used it had ruts in it - and in some places the water was deep.  It was so deep it was dangerous because I couldn't see what the bottom looked like and because I was more liable to skidding.

Prescott
I got to Prescott where I'd planned to run some errands.  Gasoline, propane, groceries, dog walk.  All in heavy rain.  The grocery store had lots of empty shelves, so I guess they'd had a run on groceries by folks who thought they'd be quarantined by the coronavirus.  I got the propane at a Love's Travel Stop, and the unlucky clerk who drew the short straw came out without an umbrella or even a jacket and was completely soaked by the time he'd filled up my tank.

I was parked there behind a delivery truck for a company called Blue Bayou that sells chocolate milk.  (My mind kept mixing up the chocolate milk with the blue bayou and getting blue milk.)

While I was pumping gasoline, trains went by on the railroad track we were right next to - 3 of them in 15 minutes.  If it's always like that in Prescott, I'm amazed they're able to get around town, with that railroad track running right down the middle of it.

I stumbled on this mural accidentally in downtown Prescott.  I hadn't known it was there.  It looks like a brief history of the town in mural form.  Sorry the picture's not any better but you can see it was raining at the time and I had to catch it in between windshield wipes.

Back on the road
Still having trouble finding a public radio station, I stopped my channel surfing to listen to a discussion about psychological counseling for folks with depression and other mental problems.  It sounded okay until the discussers all started agreeing that psychological treatment was against the Bible, because psychiatrists want to reach into your mind subliminally and reform your personality, which is against the Bible (though they didn't explain why).  Knowing full well that that's not at all what psychiatrists do, I decided this was another set-up-the-straw-man-and-knock-it-down technique they taught us to spot in law school.  I changed to country music.

The town of Delight was down a road to the right.  And the Arkansas town of Belton was nearby.

Arkansas also has a Nashville, pop. 4,878 - I went through there this morning.

The entire time I've been in Arkansas I've seen billboards urging everyone to get tested for HIV.  Have they been having an epidemic of it here?

I saw a billboard saying, "Thank you Pres. Trump for Making America Great Again."

I saw a utility crew working with a cherry picker, and this one was outfitted with an 8' drill bit.  Never seen a drill like that.

All the cows and horses I passed out in the fields all day looked absolutely miserable in the heavy rain.

The road west started getting very bumpy and winding and hilly.  What with some wind and heavy rain and water collecting in the road ruts and lots of oncoming traffic, it was a very difficult drive today.

I passed a sign saying Keep America Great Trump, paid for by sevier4trump@yahoo.com.  Arkansas is fairly solidly Republican, though it's not a given (they kept voting for Bill Clinton), but certainly this part of the state is heavily in favor of the current president.

Today's drive took me through De Queen, pop. 6,594, but mostly I went through a lot of much smaller towns: Gillham (188), Grannis (557), Wickes (754), Cove (382), Hatfield (413).

In Grannis there was a large Tyson plant, and the Grannis police station was right across the street - a tiny log cabin.  Is that all they can afford for the police or is the outside for atmosphere with the 21st century (or at least the 20th) in the inside?

From Nashville to Mena, I didn't find one place where we could stop for a rest break.  I think we were all tired by the time we got to Mena.  Actually, I didn't stop there either since we were only about 12 miles away from the campground.

Mena is the location of the Fully Baked Cafe and Cakery.  (So, not half-baked?)

I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup that said, "Loud Pipes Save Lives."  Somehow I doubt it.

I passed the old railroad depot and noticed there was still original glass in some of the windows.  I would have liked to take some time to visit Mena, pop. 5,737, though just not today in the rain.

We turned on State Route 88, called the Talimena Scenic Drive.  It's been designated a National Scenic Drive because in 12 miles it rises from Mena's elevation of 1,171' to the peak of Rich Mountain, at 2,681' - Arkansas's 2nd highest point.  I'm told you can see not only the Ouachita National Forest that we're in and the Ouachita Mountain Range that this mountain is part of, but also its continuation into Oklahoma and a view toward the Brown Mountains to the north in the Ozarks.  The road has 6 or 7 scenic pull-out areas for folks to see the views. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't even see a quarter mile in any direction around me.  Of course there were the rain clouds, and those clouds surrounded us almost as soon as we set out on the road.  It's a 2-lane road, seriously uphill, and very very winding.  Pretty spooky driving on that thing when people could, and did, materialize out of the clouds right in front of us, and all I could do was hope they stayed in their lane.

When we got up to the Lodge at the State Park, I found a breeze so strong it was shaking the RV.  Even up there we weren't above the clouds.  A woman who was checking into the lodge when I was there was saying they might as well have stayed in Dallas for the weekend.

She was even more disturbed to learn that the mountain is in a dry county and if they wanted alcoholic beverages at the Lodge, they'd have to join a private club, which would then allow them the freedom to imbibe.  Maybe she didn't know there's still places in Texas that are like that.

The good thing about this weather is that it should keep the campground population down lower than if it were a beautiful weekend.  The bad thing is that it's a little scary to be up on top of a high mountain while the wind is shaking your house and the rain is coming down sideways.