Arkansas - Day 24 - to Gregory and Little Rock

Downtown Riverside RV Park, North Little Rock
Tuesday, 24 March 2020

Sadly for Gracie, we've had intermittent thunder since 3:30 AM and pouring rain.  Not much fun to drive in.

today's route

On the road
I heard on the radio that FEMA has established a website to deal with some of the myths about the coronavirus.  Good idea.

I heard an ad for a company called Tree Doctors - they don't cut down distressed trees but instead treat them.  Their motto: "We put the zap back in the sap."

Near the tiny town of Light, I saw a sign saying that was the future route of I-57.

The land is flat in all directions and I could see for miles if the visibility from clouds and rain were any better.  There's also a strong crosswind, making elevated bridges tricky to navigate in this high-profile vehicle.

These might be rice fields on both sides of the road, though all I can see is that most of them are quite flooded.

I heard on the radio that the areas where I spent the last couple of days - Black Rock, for instance - were under a severe thunderstorm alert from the Weather Service.  I guess I got out of there just in time.

I spent much of today's drive on US Route 67, which is the direct road from northeast Arkansas down to Little Rock.  But after the first 40 miles, I turned off first to State Route 17 (east) and then to State Route 33 (south), heading to the tiny town of Gregory.

There's a Tupelo (pop. 180) in Arkansas.

All the land I passed today was flat flat fields.

Near Augusta, I passed several signs that seemed to be advertising "New Quiet Cemetery."  I saw the signs on either end of an obviously long-established cemetery along the road, so I'm guessing some entrepreneur is selling plots in a new cemetery that will have the reverential atmosphere people seem to think is proper.

I heard a further warning by the National Weather Service of severe thunderstorms in different Arkansas counties than they mentioned in the previous alert.  They make it sound like a tornado warning, telling people to go to an interior room and to expect some roof and hail damage.  That sounds like more than a thunderstorm to me.

I passed a sign saying Delta King - The Soybean of the South.  Turns out it's a seed company that's been experimenting with producing better, more reliable products - especially soybeans.

I passed a white barn with a small sign on it that said, "Tamale Factory."  There were a few cars there - do you supposed it's been certified by health authorities?  I mean, it really was a barn.

Gregory

I was lucky and found the postmistress in the Gregory Post Office.  I told her Gregory was my maiden name (easier than the truth) and asked her to postmark a letter to my sister-in-law for me, which she was pleased to do.  And she said she was also happy to let me continue to park in her tiny parking lot for a bit while I walked the dogs and fed us all lunch.  Very nice lady.

This photo (above) is of the Gregory Store, which looks pretty closed to me, with the post office and my RV beyond it.  You can see how gloomy the weather was, still raining or at least drizzling most of the time.

Gregory Gin Co. (now closed)

detail from photo at left

Besides the post office, I don't think there were any businesses operational in Gregory.  Wikipedia says its an unincorporated community that's well-known for deer and duck hunting.

While we were eating lunch, I saw a bird fly by that I'm sure was a Flicker.

Yellow-shafted Flicker

The only difference between the Yellow-shafted and Red-shafted Flickers is that the first has bright yellow under its wings and tail and the latter has red ditto.  And the first is common in the eastern US, while the red is ditto in the west.  But both have that white base on their tails that you can just barely see in this photo - but it's the only one I found on the internet that showed it.  It's easy to see when they fly.

Back on the road
We continued down Route 33 and passed the town of Dixie and a sign saying "Dixie Plantation," though neither was apparent.

Water continued to be deep in the drainage ditches, with lots of ducks everywhere.

The land's still flat in this area, even though it seems to me like we're quite a ways from the Mississippi Delta area.  Most, but not all, of this land is plowed.

Visibility continued to be only about a half mile, thanks to the persistent mist and/or rain.  A dreary day, weather-wise.

I heard Andrew Cuomo, NY's governor, say on the radio that the rate of illness in NY state is now doubling every 3 days.  That's a seriously frightening number.

At the (apparently non-existent) town of Little Dixie, I turned right on State Route 38 to head back to US Route 67.  If I'd turned left instead, I'd have reached the town of Cotton Plant.

I passed Sandhill Cemetery, and I mention it because it's the 2nd one with that name I've seen today.

I'm guessing the White River is navigable in this area, because the bridge I went over was extremely high, and abruptly so.  There I was, riding along straight flat land, and suddenly the road rose up high in the air and came back down again just as suddenly.  I spent at least 10 minutes online trying to find out more about that bridge, with no luck at all.

The radio station I was picking up gave listeners the EAB Ag Market Report (I think that stands for something like East Arkansas Broadcasting).  Their stations boast they have the most farmer listeners in East Arkansas.  Anyway, I learned about commodities prices for May and June markets - such as for beef and rice.  When they moved on, it turned out to be an oldies station, which was fun.

Then I heard them say, "East Arkansas broadcasters remind that in times of trouble, local businesses have been here for us, so now we should support our local businesses.  It's the East Arkansas way."

I saw lots of signs today reminding motorists that "Road Unsafe When Under Water."  But I was once again lucky not to encounter any underwater roads.

In Hickory Plains, one church advertised a parking lot drive in church service.

I passed a little Citgo station at a crossroads in the middle of nothing but fields, but they had gasoline at $1.59/gallon.  So I stopped and filled up, which I discovered later was a good move because that was the cheapest gas I found for the next 4 days.

Across the little intersection was a convenience store with a sign: "Try our new loaded mashed potato pizza."  Sorry, but that sounds absolutely ghastly to me.  I'm Old School on pizza too and am really fond of plain ordinary pepperoni or sausage with mushrooms.

Along this very rural road, I've been passing lots of small farms with at least 2 horses in every yard.

On the radio they said today in history, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska.  The next morning, my husband Pete and I made an appearance on Good Morning America to talk about this catastrophic event from the Alaska fishermen's point of view.  But Juneau was 4 hours behind New York City, so we had to stay up all night to be at the local PBS station to be streamed (new technology in Alaska, when we were used to getting programs on a one-week taped delay from the Lower 48).  And we could only hear New York, not see them, though they could see us.  Odd sensation.

I finally made it back to US Route 67 and made it to a shopping center in North Little Rock, where I got a call from tonight's campground.  The manager wanted to be sure I'd gotten her email with the GPS information.  When I told her I hadn't gotten a wifi signal in days so hadn't seen her email but it didn't matter because I didn't have GPS, she was aghast.  How could I find the campground without GPS! she asked me.  So I told her when I'd last had a signal, I'd looked it up on Google and written down the directions and it looked pretty easy.  She was obviously very skeptical and warned me they were charging my credit card today for my reserved stay.  Could it be possible she really didn't remember a time before GPS when we all managed to get somewhere new?  She sounded like she was my age, not some teenager born with a smart phone in her hand.  Weird.

I was in the shopping center because I'd called last week to order a couple of books from Barnes & Noble, and they'd told me my order had come in and were holding it for me.  I often watch the movie Denial about Prof. Deborah Lipstadt being sued by a British Holocaust denier for saying in one of her books that he was a Holocaust denier.  So I ordered the book where she first said it and the book where she talked about the trial experience.  Just curious about what the movie left out.

In North Little Rock, I saw cherry trees and wisteria blooming.  We're coming up on Nature's most charming time of year.

The campground lady might have been surprised to know that I did get lost when I was following Google's directions but got found again easily when I pulled out the AAA map.  When I got to the campground, the map fell out of the cab when I got out to check in, and a nearby camper scoffed that I was using a paper map and said he much preferred technology.  To each his own, but I just don't see why people - especially those my age who should remember a time before all this fancy technology - are so scornful of the methods that worked just fine for a hundred years.