Monday, 2 March 2020
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| today's route in 2 views |
I discovered that, completely unexpectedly, I can pick up a wifi signal on my little hotspot here. I knew the campground didn't have one because I called ahead and asked. And I figured that being so far away from any large town, and being right on a large body of water in a forest of trees, the chances were about nil that I could get a signal. So imagine my surprise when I turned the hotspot on, just to be sure, and there it was, working just fine.
So instead of leaving for another campground this morning, I stopped off at the office and paid for several more nights here. The ranger there told me, in answer to my questions, that they have a very healthy deer population here that comes right into the campground at dusk (great). And yes, they do have a year-round population of alligators here (double great), but these are usually very shy and keep themselves out of the way of humans - except one that had to be relocated when it got used to some idiots that were feeding it hot dogs a few years ago. Honestly, how stupid can people be? The ranger told me one of their alligators held the record for the largest in Arkansas for many years.
On the road
Just down the road I came to the town of Fomby that's so small they don't bother putting the population on the road sign. All I can find online is that it's "a populated place" within another township. But several houses had nice displays of daffodils and jonquils blooming like crazy.
I could smell a paper mill long before I could see one, and in fact, I never saw one when I got to Ashdown, pop. 4,723, the town closest to the campground. But online it says the Nekoosa Paper Company has a paper mill here - no surprise, that terrible smell is unmistakable.
I saw a highway sign directing me to a side road called State Route 32ᴮ. I was on State Route 32 at the time, so this was apparently an alternate route for this road, but I've never seen anything, let alone a road, with a B written like that. And the sign really did look just like that.
Then I turned south on US Route 71, which wends its way through western Arkansas and then back and forth between AR and Texas. I try to avoid routes that have me leaving my state-of-the-month, but this route was so very much shorter than the only alternative that I did it anyway.
I passed the AR town of Ogden, pop. 108 (which shows just how tiny Fomby must be not to rate a pop. on its sign) and on past the sign saying "Welcome to Texas - Drive Friendly - The Texas Way." (Can't fool me - I first learned to drive in Texas a very long time ago and know "friendly" isn't the leading characteristic of Texas drivers.)
Once I'd turned on I-49 to get into southern Texarkana, I passed a large field of solar panels. Always seems odd to me that heavily Republican Texas could so completely embrace solar and wind power, but it does.
I passed farms, small ponds and heavily treed areas.
All day I battled more very strong winds. Made it hard to do all kinds of things, including stay on the road.
Texarkana errands
I saw online that Texarkana, AR, has its official recycling drop-off center at its city maintenance facility south of downtown, so that's where I went. I got rid of everything except my glass, so that was a good thing.
For a while I was surprised that nobody there stopped me from dumping stuff off on the basis of my Texas license plates, but as the day went on I realized that this town seems to have as many Texas plates as Arkansas plates. It appears that, while the towns themselves operate separately, one under Texas law and one under Arkansas law, the folks who live here move back and forth without much thought. Everywhere I went I saw equal numbers of license plates from both states. It's been the same in other cross-border towns I've seen - at least, those that are crossing state borders (crossing national borders is more complicated).
I got lost after I left there because Google's directions were way off for some reason, and the streets weren't labeled well enough for me to be sure I was in the wrong place, but I'd looked at the map enough to figure it out and get found again fairly quickly.
Traveling around as much as I do, I've found I have an adjustment period of several days when I get to a new state, because they're all so different from each other and each has its own culture and symbols. Arkansas has no professional sports teams because it has no large cities - even Little Rock has fewer than 200,000 people - they just can't support a professional team. Enter college football. It's always been my impression that Arkansans embrace their university team with fervor. Fortunately it's not football season right now, but I'm sure I'll find out the general sentiment anyway this month.
Now that I was on the Arkansas side of State Line Avenue, I wanted to stay there - unsurprisingly, the state line runs down the center of the street - so I coordinated my errands to accommodate that.
I stopped at an Albertson's to stock up on several days worth of supplies. And I found a mostly unused area of their parking lot when I could walk the dogs a bit and have some lunch.
Then across the street to the CVS to replenish my depleted bandage supply. I'm still needing protection on that injury to my elbow that's trying to form a scar but is having trouble healing. I may be forced to find professional medical advice after all if it doesn't finish healing soon. It's been well more than 2 months.
We went next to the Wash A Lot Laundromat, where there was enough parking for my RV, the machines worked well for a normal price, the facilities were clean, and the attendant was only a little bit surly. Oddly, within about a 3 block area there were 2 more laundromats and 3 car washes. Definitely the clean part of town.
And finally I went to Chubby Cheeks Liquor Store, which is such an awful name I'd have gone somewhere else if I'd known where else to go. But this one was by the interstate so I knew where to find it. And to my stunned surprise, this place had Teacher's Scotch, my favorite brand.
I'd gone online as I've learned to do in each new state to learn its liquor laws, and I discovered more than half of Arkansas's counties are dry. This didn't bode well for a month of travel here, so I decided to stock up a little while I was still in a wet county.
Speaking of which, I heard on NPR that some people are afraid of Corona beer because they think it's somehow connected to the coronavirus. (I'm not sure whether I'm more afraid of or more stunned by some people's capacity for idiocy. Note hot-dog-fed alligators above.)
And back to the state park
I saw fields with sheep, some with lambs, and cows, some with calves.
NPR reminded me that today is Texas Independence Day. The day Texas became independent from Mexico is celebrated as an official state holiday. Sort of a shame that independence didn't last long.
Back in the campground, I stopped at the dump station to empty my waste tanks, knowing I wasn't going to move for several days. I empty the tanks every 7 or 8 days but don't want to push it any farther than that, which I'd have been doing if I hadn't stopped there today. This campground offers many nice campsites with sewer connections available, but they charge more for this service, and I don't want it and wouldn't use it so why pay for it. The one I've got has water and electric and that's enough for me.
With all that running around today, I was pretty pooped by the time I got us back to our site and the utilities hooked up and the dogs walked. So other chores will just have to wait until tomorrow.
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