Arkansas - Day 8 - Hot Springs

DeGray Lake Resort State Park
Sunday, 8 March 2020

(I'm having to write this more than a week after it happened and am having to refresh my memory about all kinds of things - what day did this happen?  oh yes, Sunday, I remember now.  Thank goodness I take notes or it'd all be gone.)

Daisy State Park, where I stayed last night, is laid out in an unusual way.  The campsites are spread along 2 elevated arms of land that jut into Lake Greeson.  I was told my site wouldn't have a view of the lake, only of trees, but I wanted it because it would be more isolated from other campers and be less trouble for the dogs.  Turned out I had a bit of a lake view anyway, because a finger of the lake ran up past my campsite and was plenty scenic for me.  It'll be different in a couple of months after the trees have leafed out, but right now I had a nice view.  I didn't go over to the other arm, but that seemed to be where the party was - I could hear a lot of noise and shrieking kids and boats and so forth, and was very glad we weren't there.

I haven't complained yet this year about daylight savings time, but I'm going to do it now.  It's made sunrise after 7:30 in the morning, which is just plain crazy to me.  You'd think this was November, being so dark so late in the morning.  I know the original justification for this idiocy was to allow people to spend more time at home playing outside with their families in the evening, but I don't believe for a second that that still happens - if it ever did.  Now people work later in the day, fewer people are having kids, and everybody including the kids seems wedded to their smart phones all the time.  Meanwhile, we're all having to drive to work and school in the dark every morning, and nobody can tell me that's safe for either the kids or the drivers.  For me, it means I can't take my dogs out for the first time until after 7:00, so I can see the deer and bears and whatever else they can smell or sense that I have to see.  That's set our entire morning schedule back more than an hour, and all the way around is very inconvenient for me.  And besides, I know good and well I'm not the only morning person out there, but we're having to pay the price for this system.  The adjustment twice a year is hard both physically and mentally on people, and I think we should just go back to ordinary standard time year round.

Okay, I'll try not to mention it any more this spring.

today's route

On the road
I passed a church with the sign: "God answers knee-mail."  Churches really go in for puns.

I'm starting to move into the Ouachita Mountains, and the road is starting to go up and down and around bends a lot.

I finally started wondering what kind of cows I'm seeing, since I don't know one breed from another, with a few exceptions.  And the Arkansas Farm Bureau gave me the probable answer.  There are only 40 licensed dairy herds in the state, and the number is declining because of consumer preference.  That puts Ark. at #46 among US states.  On the other hand, half of all farm operations in Ark. are beef cattle and the number is gradually increasing.  Which means most of what I've been seeing are beef cattle.

I'd heard that rice is the main crop in eastern Ark. near the Mississippi River, and the AR Farm Bureau told me Arkansas ranks #1 of all the states in rice production.  In fact, 49% of all rice grown in the US is grown here.  That's a lot of rice.

I passed a lot of churches this morning, and almost all of them had plenty of parishioners attending.  Arkansas is part of the Bible Belt, with 86% of the state identifying as Christian and 14% as not religious.  As you can see, there isn't much room for other beliefs, though I've seen a few signs of others around.

Speaking of religion, I passed a cemetery this morning and saw a tombstone had been covered by a bright orange t-shirt stretched across it.  Wish I knew what that's about.

I've seen lots of dead critters along the road in this state, and this morning I saw 2 dead deer lying together by the road.  Apparently both were hit at the same time.  I hope whoever did it has a staggering car repair bill.  (I understand accidents - but 2 at once?)

I drove through miles and miles of a heavy haze that smelled like smoke, though I never saw a source.

I crossed Little Sugar Loaf Creek, then Middle Sugar Loaf Creek, then Sugar Loaf Creek.

Health officials have advised that, because of easy transmissibility of the coronavirus, they recommend people don't touch their faces.  I'm now finding what a habit I have of fidgeting by how hard it is for me not to touch my face, and how often I want to do it.

Near Hot Springs, I passed a Methodist Church that had a parking lot nearly full as early as 9:45.  That's a lot of folks going to church unusually early.

Hot Springs
Welcome to Hot Springs, pop. 35,750.  It ranks only #11 in Arkansas cities by size, though it's certainly one of the best known.

Hot Springs seems to be built on the lower slopes of 2 low mountains: Sugarloaf Mountain at 1,209' on the northwest and North Mountain at 1,120' on the northeast.  Just beyond Sugarloaf Mtn. is Lake Ouachita, the largest lake completely within Arkansas.  From that runs the Ouachita River, coming southeast as it skirts Hot Springs and widening out there so much it looks like another lake, though it doesn't seem to have any name but Ouachita River.  In other words, there's plenty of natural scenery in the area and a lot of opportunity for waterfront homes.  Which I passed quite a few of on the way into town, most quite fancy.

I've finally decided that little ᴮ, as in Route 72ᴮ which I was on today, stands for "Business" as in Business Route, the ones that go through towns when the regular route goes outside them.  I haven't seen one road in Arkansas that's labeled as a "business route" even when the online directions tell me that's what I'm on, but they do have that little ᴮ designation on the signs.  Route 72ᴮ runs through Hot Springs.

I'd called ahead to the Hot Springs National Park Visitor Center to ask about RV parking, so I knew to go to the city lot a block away, where they have several designated slots for RVs.  I saw a sign there advertising Hot Springs's upcoming World's Shortest Saint Patrick's Parade - all 98' of it.

At this parking lot is free public access to the mineral water from the springs for which the town was named.

public hot springs kiosk

As you can see on the left, this public water access is right on the street, not hidden in some building somewhere.  The nice man on the right explained to me what he was doing and told me that the water is indeed warm.  So I felt it, and it's definitely warm.  I had a small empty water bottle and filled it and found that the water tastes very good.  I'd thought, since it's mineral water, it might have an odd taste but it doesn't.  The government posts the mineral content.

properties of the hot springs water

It comes to the surface at 143°, so it definitely feels warm but isn't hot.

Native Americans in this area came here in the 1700s for certain (documents prove it), but most likely were coming here for centuries long before that: the first European to visit, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, came in 1541, so surely the people who lived in the region were coming too.

Lewis & Clark sent Pres. Jefferson reports of the hot springs and, in 1832, the US government set aside 4 parcels of land to protect the natural resource.  They didn't bother to enforce it, though, and private claims were being filed for decades afterward.  In the mid-1800s people built for-profit bathhouses over the springs, meaning they put up what were essentially tents and poorly built lumber structures.  These caught fire or collapsed from rot, and the area was an eyesore.

The town of Hot Springs incorporated in 1851 and, by the 1870s, was typical of a Wild West town, with gambling dens and the streams being an open sewer.  It could be a dangerous place for visitors, what with stray bullets and all.

In 1877, the government finally exerted control and approved plans for private bathhouses that ran the economic scale, even opening one for free to the indigent.  African Americans had access to these only as employees, of course, but began opening their own nearby bathhouses in 1905.  People came looking for cures for rheumatism and other health problems, though even then some came for relaxation.  By the 1880s, visitors came during the social season.

Hot Springs National Park
Some of these bathhouses saw themselves as competing with those in Europe and were built with marble and stained glass - quite luxurious in a time when indoor plumbing barely existed.  The area came to be known as Bathhouse Row; original dangerous buildings were replaced by sturdy, cleaner facilities, and those are the ones that exist today.  Only two of them are still in operation as a spa, the Buckstaff and the Quapaw.

Quapaw Baths

quite an elaborate building

Buckstaff Baths

The Buckstaff is the only bathhouse that's been in continual operation since it was built in 1911; all the others closed at one time or another though some, like the Quapaw, reopened from time to time.  They operate as day spas.  The only one that offers hotel facilities in addition to spa treatments is the Arlington Hotel, built in 1875.  (Al Capone used to stay here.)  I couldn't take a photo because of traffic, and this was the best I could find.  Fortunately, the photo includes an incredible statue that's between lanes in the middle of the street, which I suppose represents a woman taking a bath out in Nature.

Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa

The trees you see are in a park across the street that's part of the National Park.  It includes the Hot Water Cascade and various walks, one of which will take the hiker up to a 216' high tower, where the view is said to be spectacular.  The tower was built in 1870.

the Fordyce Bathhouse/NPS Visitor Center

I learned a lot of this at the National Park Visitor Center, located in what was the Fordyce Bathhouse.  It was opened in 1915 to great acclaim, and the NPS has done extensive restoration.  Nonetheless, to 21st century eyes there's little about it that seems luxurious, but I'll show you the most spectacular bits first.

the Men's Bath Hall as it once looked

the Men's Bath Hall today

detail of the statue - de Soto?

stunning stained glass ceiling in the Men's Bathhouse

steam cabinets

a steam cabinet in use

controls for the bath equipment

these are hot on today's market

the lap of luxury, I guess

The women's facilities were nowhere near as roomy or luxurious as the men's, of course.

the Ladies' Pack Room

Ladies' Cooling Room

The one note of luxury the women got: stained glass windows in their cooling room.

there are 4 or 5 of these windows along this wall

And down in the basement is a view of the hot springs themselves - or one of them.

this public viewing window was put in long ago

hot springs

I'm sorry the photo at right is so hard to discern, but there was a terrible glare.  You can see my legs reflected in the glass, and I did that on purpose to allow you to see the water and its surroundings.  The spa lined the opening with tile and then with quartz, as you see (all original).  Down in the middle of that is the water coming up from the ground.

Across from that are displays explaining where the thermal waters come from.

So basically, rain falls and seeps through fissures in the rock; it percolates downward, getting hotter as it goes from the warmth of the rock; the pressure difference between the surface and the impermeable rock below causes the water to rise again in an artesian-like effect.  This process takes about 4,000 years, from the time the raindrops fall until the time they reach the surface once more.  A gift of Nature.

The flow of water from the springs can't be turned off, and the National Park Service has been mandated to make the water available free, without modification, in any quantity.  This has been working out to about 700,000 gallons per day, every day, to anyone who wants it.  The bathhouses, though, are operated on a concession basis through the National Park Service.

I saw signs on their website this morning (3-18) that says the Visitor Center is closing temporarily to comply with the CDC guidelines for dealing with the coronavirus - social distancing and so forth.  Likely the bathhouses will, too.

Of course I saw a great deal more, not only at the Visitor Center but also in the town, with the City of Hot Springs putting up informational signs to explain local history and the springs.  But I'll stop here and move back through the town.

Continuing in Hot Springs
I went from downtown to the city's recycling drop-off facility - they accept glass! - and then on to a Kroger which was on my way out of town.

Along the way I saw a paved walkway along Hot Springs Creek and a sign saying Majestic Field is under renovation.  From 1908 until 1918, Majestic Field here in Hot Springs was used as the first spring training facility for major league baseball teams.  The Detroit Tigers originally built it, but the field was used by several other teams, such as the Boston Red Sox and the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron all played here over the years.  It's now not much more than an open field (I walked the dogs around a bit), but apparently Hot Springs plans to change that.

Hot Springs is also the home of Oaklawn Park, which bills itself as the Home of the Racing Festival of the South.  I couldn't get a photo because of traffic and didn't find one online that I could use, but it looked as nice as the other racetracks I've seen.  I think they also have a casino on site.

Back on the road
The road out of town reminded me of Guadalupe through Austin, or maybe Rt. 2222 as it used to be before a zillion people built houses out there and widened it into 4 tame lanes.  In other words, narrow and winding past houses and businesses and pleasant scenery.  And, like Texas, I had trouble getting other cars to let me change lanes.  Oh well.  It happens.

I saw more horses out in fields.  Now that I know Oaklawn race track is there, I'll guess there are so many horses in Arkansas because there's a place for them to run.  And I still don't understand why I saw so few horses out in fields in Kentucky.

I passed some rental cabins called Knotty & Nice Cabins.

I discovered I was on a designated Arkansas Scenic Highway, which I'm sure will live up to its designation in a few more months.  Now, not so much.

I chose to stay at tonight's state park because it's called a resort state park.  I remember those I stayed at in Kentucky, which pretty much deserved the "resort" identification, and assumed this one would be like that.  That is, I assumed I'd be able to pick up a wifi signal in the campground.  Sadly, no such luck.  If they'd had wifi, I planned to stay here several days to catch up on my blog, but instead I'm planning to keep on going to another park tomorrow, seeking the elusive holy grail - i.e. a comfortable park with fairly level sites, not too many dogs and a wifi signal.  Hope on, hope ever.

Day 7 - Arkansas - Crater of Diamonds

Daisy State Park, Daisy
Saturday, 7 March 2020

White Oak Lake State Park campground is on a finger of White Oak Lake.  My campsite doesn't really have a view of the lake, but we got a good look at it on our early morning walk.  The sun was just coming up and there was mist covering the lake.  The sky was a deep rose and clear blue, and it reflected on the lake.  Really lovely.

As we walked the campground drive along the lake, we startled a Great Blue Heron which took off to another spot; and when we'd walked on farther we came to that spot, startling the heron again.  This time when it took off, it had some ugly things to say to us.  Very irritated (the heron, not us).

I saw 2 different kinds of pop-up campers.  One was an old-fashioned VW camper; the other was a kind I've mentioned before, but this time I memorized its name so I could look it up.  It's made by Northstar and fits on the bed of a pickup.

You can maybe see that whole top half pops up to make more room inside, or folds down for a low driving profile.  They're making all kinds of outdoor equipment these days.

A recent trend in homemade campground equipment I've been seeing are plastic buckets filled with lights.  Most campgrounds these days furnish each campsite with a candy-cane-shaped pole with a hook on the end so people can hang a lantern without setting a tree on fire.  Lately I've seen lots of people hanging a white (usually) plastic bucket on them with white lights inside, and they plug the lights into the outside socket most RVs and trailers have now, and leave them on all night.  Not enough light to disturb the neighbors but enough so people can sit out in the evening and come and go to the bathroom during the night.

On a hill above my campsite some folks have pitched several very old-style tents - the kind that look like Civil War photos.  And these folks seemed to be wearing homespun clothes or something like that.  They were cooking bacon on their campfire, which could be smelled all over the campground down below, and after walking for a while I was ready to go up and ask for some.  The office said they're reenactors, though not for the Civil War site a few miles down the road, as I had supposed, but instead for an annual display of a French Colonial battle back in Revolutionary days.  The Civil War reenactment comes in a few months, they said.

today's route

On the road
I saw a Redbud starting to flower, and a tulip magnolia that was also starting - much farther behind than Lousiana, which is after all farther south.  But those flowering white trees are gorgeous - tall and full.  I saw someone had planted an avenue of them at their house.

Back to Prescott and on along the road northwest.

I saw a dog and cat along the roadside that looked like they were together.  I'm sure they were from a nearby house, though I didn't see any, but I couldn't help wondering if they were emulating movies they'd seen about dogs or cats or dogs and cats traveling hundreds of miles across country (I'm sure that's it).

Large fields, large herds of cows, scattered houses, pine woods.  This is what I saw for much of the day.  Japonicas and daffodils are blooming away.  Occasional cemeteries.  The wisteria is getting started now too.

I passed a house with a kid coming across the yard out of a nearby batch of trees, looking like Norman Rockwell had been painting him.  He was wearing jeans and knee-high boots and a flannel shirt buttoned up to his neck, and he was carrying a fishing pole and tackle box.  I'm sure if I'd been closer I'd have been able to see he had red hair and freckles.

We went through the small town called Delight, pop. 279, Home of Glen Campbell, they say.  And a sign saying I was on the Heritage Trail called Trail of Tears.

I passed numerous creeks and their reliefs, some right on top of each other.

I passed a mobile home that hadn't been mobile in years.  It was out along the road by itself, and off to the side it had one of those portable metal roofs on legs, which was incongruously sheltering a beautiful, new Corvette.  Easy to see what that homeowner spent his money on.

I saw a house with a lot of black cows in the pasture next to it, and a lot of black chickens in the yard.

All the radio stations seem to be either Christian or country.  There's a lot of them, but it's not much of a variety.

Pike County Courthouse

I came to Murfreesboro - this one in Arkansas, not Tennessee.  As I was negotiating the town, which involved circling the county courthouse, I saw a family of Amish going to a restaurant for lunch.

This courthouse, built in 1932, is extolled as "the area's most impressive example of the Art Deco style of architecture."  Which may give you an idea of the general level of architectural creativity in this area.

Murfreesboro, pop. 1,641, is best known as the nearest town to the world-famous Crater of Diamonds, which I visited, and where the ranger at the front desk explained the number of kids around by telling me this week is spring break for Texas.  Well, I'm here from Texas so I guess I can't complain.

Crater of Diamonds
It's not a deep crater that you look down into from the rim, as I'd half expected.  Instead, it's called a crater because when the volcano blew its lid many centuries ago, it created a 600' crater (geologically speaking) filled with lava and diamonds.

Diamonds are created deep in the Earth's mantle (the layer between its core and its crust), where temperatures are higher than 2,000°F and the pressure is greater than 725,000 pounds/square inch.  The heat and pressure modify the atomic structure of the graphite that's there.

top: diamond
bottom: graphite

This graphic depiction finally explained to me why diamonds are hard and graphite is soft, which I've never understood before.

So there are all these diamonds deep down inside the Earth where nobody would ever see them if it weren't for volcanoes.

The one here was formed many millions of years ago, as these exhibits show.

Our volcano here was formed down deep enough to reach the diamonds in the mantle.  They came up through what's called a pipe, a martini-glass-shaped tube from the mantle to the Earth's surface.  That's the orange shape you see in the illustration below.  So when the gas that had been building up pressure finally blew up, it did so from down where the diamonds were and they came up too.

Apparently, it's not unusual to find a number of other gemstones in the deposit of this type of volcano, and they are found here, too: jasper, amethyst, garnet and peridot, among others.

The diamonds were first discovered here by a man named John Huddleston in 1906.  He lived on this land with his wife Sarah, her son and their 6 daughters (only 2 of whom grew to adulthood).

some of the Huddleston family

He'd apparently had tough going trying to support his family with farming, and his discovery made a real difference to them.  He first found a 2⅝ ct. white diamond and a 1⅜ ct. yellow diamond, and eventually sold the land for $36,000, which is what he thought was a fair price.

The land changed hands many times, with each successive commercial mining venture unsuccessful.  It was finally opened as a tourist attraction in 1952, with the owner even appearing on I've Got A Secret.  (Not too surprising he stumped the panel.)

Finally in 1972, the State of Arkansas bought the land and opened it to the public.  It's the only diamond mine in the world where anybody can come and look for diamonds, and keep whatever they find.  That includes the garnets and other gemstones.  Since then, park visitors have found more than 30,000 diamonds.

Adults pay $10/day; kids 6-12 pay $6; kids under 6 are free.  The park has staff readily available to help visitors identify the stones they find.  Some say it's often very muddy so folks should wear clothing with that in mind.  But it seems a lot of parents are delighted to give the kids a chance to grub around in the dirt for a few hours at such a low cost.

I'm not including a photo of the work bench mentioned in this sign (left) because it's just a table with a strong light above it.  But you can see this 8.52 ct. diamond was found as recently as 2015.

I know the photo at left is fuzzy, but the ring was rotating and this was the best of several shots I took.  They say that this is the real diamond, but why wouldn't the owner want to wear it?  I would.  It was found in 1998, weighed 3.03 carats in the rough, and what you see now weighs 1.09 carats.  It has the rare perfect grade of 0/0/0.

These and many others have been found since this crater became a state park.  Some include the Amarillo Starlight, 16.37 cts., found in 1975; the Star of Shreveport, 8.82 cts., found in 1981, and the Illusion Diamond, 8.66 cts., found in 2011.  The ones most people find, though, are about a third of a carat or so - which is still nothing to sneeze at for $10/day.

The largest diamond ever found in North America came from this crater.  It was found in 1924, weighed 40.23 carats, and is called the Uncle Sam.  At both of Bill Clinton's presidential inaugural balls (1993 & 1997), Hillary Clinton wore the Kahn Canary, a yellow diamond found here in 1977, diamond cut, weighing 4.25 carats.  It's considered an unofficial symbol of Arkansas.  There was also the Star of Arkansas, at 15.33 carats, found here in 1956.

And as a parting note, here are some little nuggets of information I found at the museum.

By the way, a diamond is incredibly hard, but that hardness makes it very brittle.  If hit hard, say by a hammer that some diamond seeker is using, it can fracture along those cleavage planes.

There were many other displays at the museum.  Way too many (I thought) showed the history of the land exchanges, but lots explained the various qualities of diamonds and other gemstones, and examples showed how to tell the difference between diamonds and man-made substances.  Lots of different kinds of things.  And it was all free.

The campground here was nearly full, so I went farther along the road for the night.

Back on the road
From the crater, it wasn't even 25 more miles to the next state park, and for most of that the road was climbing.  But it was climbing in a series of swoops - up a hill, then down, then up a slightly higher hill, then down, then up an even higher hill which I could see from the first of the swoops.  Then I came to downhill s-curves, which they recommended I take at 40 mph or even 30 mph - and since I've been driving this RV, I've learned to pay attention to those recommendations.

We came to Daisy, pop. 115.  As far as I can tell, its only real reason for existence now is as the gateway to the Daisy State Park.

I passed a house where a woman was getting into her car, and she was almost a caricature from the '60s: dark hair in a French twist, white-rimmed cat's-eye-shaped glasses, dark blue polka dot dress.  Nothing odd about any of those things, but all together, the effect was unusual for this century.

Sadly, this park doesn't have wifi and I can't pick up a signal.  I'd hoped to be able to stay a couple of days here but will have to press on tomorrow.


Addendum
I'll just throw in some of the diamond exhibits I took photos of that I don't want to arrange or explain, but I thought they were interesting and don't want to just delete them.













scales and jewelers loupes and stuff

WWII information

these next 2 show increasing amounts of hardness in stones, from talc to diamond

The Field of Dreams - it got much more crowded later in the day.

Every now and then, after the field's been picked over for a while, the State replows the ground to try to turn up more gemstones.  And apparently they find some almost every day.  Even after all these years.  Remarkable.

an update

Early in the AM, 3/13/20

Here's what's been happening this last week: I've moved from one campground to another to another - 4 in 4 nights since that last post - trying unsuccessfully to find a wifi signal.  In desperation for a signal, I finally came back to the campground where I made that last post, only to find that I can stay here just 2 nights. 

This one day I had with wifi capability was used completely with trying to locate future campgrounds for the next week, working out routes to get there, checking on tourist sites on the way and getting directions for them.  I did all this because I have no faith at all that I'll be able to pick up another signal for at least the next 4 or 5 days, so wanted to get things figured out while I still could.

This last week has been really frustrating not having a clear idea of how to get where I wanted to go, not to mention how tiring it's been to keep changing locations every night.

I've seen some great things though - Crater of Diamonds, the real hot springs at Hot Springs and the bathhouses, a museum about the 2 Japanese-American internment camps from WWII here in Arkansas (the only 2 east of the Rockies) - and lots of other stuff.  I'm looking forward to writing about all of it, but I can't do that until I have the ability to stay in one place with a wifi signal.

Arkansas has some great state parks and campgrounds, and there are a lot of Corps of Engineers campgrounds around the state.  Maybe that's why there aren't all that many private campgrounds, and the ones I've found online appear to have serious shortcomings.  Even the KOA at Eureka Springs doesn't have wifi at the campsites - I was willing to pay their prices if they did, but there's no point paying double for the same thing I can get at state parks.

Anyway, I have to leave this campground and will keep pressing forward to see more of the state.  Who knows, maybe somewhere along the line I'll find a state park with a signal.  But I'm eyeing a private campground I'll get to by the middle of next week that says they have wifi throughout the campground, so I'm hopeful.

Meanwhile, I'm not getting email or weather reports (a problem given the kind of life I lead).  And it's not just the campgrounds - I've even stopped in a couple of towns where I couldn't pick up a wifi signal on my hotspot.  Too many mountains and too much water?

I'll catch up as soon as I can.

Arkansas - Day 6 - through Hope

White Oak Lake State Park, Bluff City

Friday, 6 March 2020

I've been noticing a real change in Gracie's share of the wrestling the dogs do.   They've been wrestling since Dexter first came to live with us, but for a long time Gracie didn't initiate any part of it and was always a pretty passive participant.  It's been nearly 4 years since then and, slowly but surely, I've been watching a real transition for her.  As of this morning, she has started to instigate these wrestling matches, not just to look eager and ready to play as she's been doing for a while now, but actually to jump on Dexter and start the wrestling.  

Also in the beginning, Dexter won every time, mostly because Gracie was so passive.  But again over time, that's been changing and now she can win as often as he can.  When she first started winning, Dext was really surprised, even disconcerted.  But he seems to have gotten used to the idea and it's more of a give and take thing now.  It's good for both of them, though hard on me because they're always doing this wrestling at the end of their leashes and jerking me all over the place as they jump around and play.  But it's great to watch.  It does tell me, though, how long it takes for Gracie to make a change in her behavior.  I guess I've still got a lot more years to go before she stops flinching when I do something as simple as close the door.

Several times I've heard a bird that sounds like one of those dog toys that makes a noise like a duck.  This morning I finally figured out it's crows that are doing it.  I thought all crows did was caw, but the ones in this park can make doggie toy duck noises.

As I was leaving the campground this morning, I heard an ad on the Texarkana radio station for an insurance company, and the announcer pronounced it IN-sure-ence - emphasis on the first syllable.  That's the way I grew up pronouncing it (despite my Yankee mother) and never, in all my years of living up north, adjusted to hearing folks putting the emphasis on the 2nd syllable.  It was nice to hear it on such an authoritative source as a public radio station.

today's route

Back to Texarkana
This time, I stayed on Route 71 all the way into town, where it becomes State Line Avenue.  That means I saw a sign saying: Texarkana, pop. 66,330.  What's interesting is that this is the combined population of both the Arkansas and Texas sides.  My first stop was back at the Albertson's.  I'd been parked at the campground so long, I ran out of things.

Next I took a detour to see the post office.  It's the only US Post Office to be physically located in 2 states, and it does this by being right in the middle of State Line Avenue, the boundary between Texas and Arkansas.  State Line Ave. splits from being 4 lanes, 2 in each direction, to being two 2-lane roads that wrap around the post office and join up on the other side.

This dramatic photo isn't mine and unfortunately obscures what I found most surprising about this building.  Hidden behind this sign, which is really there, is the label on the building.  Carved into the stone are the words:

   United States Post Office

   Texas               Arkansas

So for anyone like me who was thinking maybe the line was moved after the building was built or something, nope - they knew what they were doing when they built the building.

Driving back up that street, I noticed banners of the 2 states' flags on each side of the road, with the Texas ones on the Texas side and the Arkansas ones on the Arkansas side.  Just in case anyone wasn't sure, I guess.

I also noticed a string of liquor stores on the Arkansas side that did not have counterparts on the Texas side.  I'd never thought of Texas as having an onerous liquor tax, but there's bound to be some advantage to buying alcohol on the Arkansas side of the road.

I was headed for the vet's office.  They took us early and 2 young women working together (one to hold, one to clip) took care of Lily's nails for another month and dosed her with another month's worth of flea medicine.  They charged me $16, which I think is a bargain for all the trouble I don't have to go to myself.

Heading northeast
I picked up US Route 67 a couple of miles from downtown, and stayed on it all the way through Hope to Prescott - about 45 miles.  Along the way I saw lots of fields, most of them with cows in them, and scattered houses.

I crossed the Red River again and by the other side of the road I saw a woman with a large backpack and a large dog.  She was doing something with the backpack so I don't know if she was hiking or hitchhiking.  That dog looked tired, though - it was lying down.

Hope
I passed a building labeled Hope In Action #2, and have discovered it's a homeless shelter.  It's just outside of town and I wondered what folks do for transportation out there.  Across the street is the Hope Livestock Auction buildings.  Odd juxtaposition.

And then into Hope, pop. 10,095.  Bigger than I thought it'd be; I always got the impression, when Bill Clinton was first running for president, that this was a small town.  And so it is, in comparison to Little Rock.  But then, Little Rock's a small town in comparison to Chicago, so I guess it's all relative.  Hope is certainly bigger than most of the towns I've been driving through so far in this state.

When I stopped to feed and walk the dogs, I saw a Tyson Foods facility nearby.  Tyson, the world's largest poultry packaging company, is headquartered in Springdale, which is a suburb of Fayetteville, near the Oklahoma and Missouri borders.

the Clinton Birthplace Home

President William Jefferson Clinton's Birthplace Home is run by the National Park Service now as a tourist attraction.  But I've discovered that Clinton's Presidential Library is in Little Rock, and I think that'd be more interesting to me than the home he lived in for a few years with his mom and grandparents.  But I still wanted to drive by and take a look since it was handy. 

This place was odd in one way - if you came to it from Hope's principal street, as I did, you'd find zero identifying signs for this home.  It's not until I came at it from the other direction that I saw the standard Park Service signs.  And there's nothing in that other direction but more tiny towns.  Odd.

Back on the road
Continuing northeast on Route 67, I crossed the Terre Rouge Creek, followed by the Terre Rouge Relief, followed by Little Terre Rouge Relief, and then the Little Terre Rouge Creek.  I'm glad I figured out the other day what a "relief" is, since I kept meeting them today.  But for a casual boater, these names must make the waterways confusing.

I passed the Foster Farms (chicken) Emmet Feed Mill, just outside the town of Emmet, pop. 506.  A road sign told me I'm now on the Heritage Trail called the Civil War Trail.

Then into Prescott, pop. 3,296.  Route 67 appears to be a principal street in Prescott, and the businesses that would be on the east side of the road aren't there because a train track is.  Those displaced businesses are on another road that runs along the other side of the train track.  Prescott is proud of its Depot Museum, which is quite clearly the old train depot refurbished to become a museum.  Because of a sign on the depot/museum, I can say that Prescott's elevation is 308'.  Arkansas's lowest point is the Ouachita River on the Louisiana border at 55', so you can see we've already started climbing toward the mountains farther north.

I turned right on State Route 24 just past the depot and passed the Prescott Lodge 80, Free and Accepted Masons.  Extremely old building, but I suppose it's still in use.

The Prescott First Baptist Church had a sign in front that said, "Need a Lifeguard?  Ours walks on water!"

Those white-flowering trees were just glorious in the sunshine.  Breathtakingly beautiful.

A good distance of this road was lined with trees, a mixed woods that was very pleasant and probably quite lovely when all the deciduous trees are green again.

And I crossed the Terre Rouge Creek again.  You can tell they all wind around quite a bit.  After that I crossed Caney Creek Relief, followed by Caney Creek.

I saw online that Austin's South by Southwest festival has been canceled, thanks to the continuing spread of the coronavirus.  With spring coming on, I'm sure there'll be a lot of canceled traditions until they get this thing stopped.  Pretty spooky.

Arkansas - Days 3, 4 and 5

Millwood State Park
Tuesday, 3, Wednesday, 4 and Thursday, 5 March 2020

I'd intended to leave on Thursday but found myself on Wednesday afternoon still changing my mind every 15 minutes about which route I wanted to take when I left here.  This didn't seem like a good way to begin several weeks of travel, so I extended my stay one more night.

Travel parameters
I went all last month without getting around to having Lily's claws clipped, so that's at the top of my priority list.  I've always gone to a Banfield at Petsmart, but there are only 2 in the entire state, and one of those is closed Sat - Mon, guaranteeing that the other will be busy those days.  And since those 2 are both in the Little Rock area, several hours from here (at my rate of driving), I had to consider logistics.  I of course want to visit Little Rock anyway, since it's the state capital, but I hadn't planned to shove that visit up to this week.

Then I discovered the main choice of campgrounds in that area was between either several Corps of Engineers campgrounds or a KOA (huge difference in price and other amenities).  And then there were all the things I'd intended to stop and see on the way that I'd have to bypass so as to keep an early vet appointment.  It all got to be just too much for my little pea brain, and that's when I called the state park office to tack on an extra day.

After I got that pressure relieved, I realized almost anybody could clip her claws and that there were likely several vets in the Texarkana area too, not to mention other communities around here.  Lots of people have pets, after all.  And sure enough, in a quick online search I found 2 in Texarkana (AR), both of which I'd noticed when I was in town but forgotten about.  I called one of them and got in easily for a 10:30 appointment on Friday.  Perfect.  (I think they've done studies that show too much pressure can lead to underperforming brains.  Mine certainly does.)

That left me to consider campgrounds and sights and traveling routes more in this vicinity, helped along by having an extra day to consider all that.

My time
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday putting clean sheets on my bed and taking a shower and washing several days' worth of dishes and finishing up my Louisiana posts and writing the post for March 1st, and of course walking the dogs.

Also on Wednesday I went over the tourist information I'd picked up a couple of days before.  I found I had both too much and too little information - I have too many of the combo booklets showing things across the whole state (hard to coordinate between them all) and too few of the pamphlets about specific sights to visit, meaning I had to spend more time online.

Once I was smart enough to give myself an extra day, I spent Thursday finishing up all the things I hadn't quite had time to get to.  Got the blog posts caught up (for a change) and the cabin cleaned up and the bathroom cleaned, went for long walks with the dogs when the sun came out (another welcome change), and planned the driving route for Friday.  I was lucky that Thursday was a beautiful sunny day, so we could open the windows and get some fresh air inside.

Local birds
Maybe it's the lake this campground is on, or its proximity to the Red River, or it not being all that far to the Gulf of Mexico (in far southwestern Arkansas), but there are a lot of birds in this campground.

Early one morning I saw a White Pelican swimming around in the water nearby.  There's a flock of Canada Geese that seems to be resident here - the park has signs asking folks to not feed them.  I've been seeing Red-headed Woodpeckers since we first arrived in the campground.

Common Goldeneye

I saw what I'm pretty sure were several Common Goldeneyes.  I didn't see them closely enough to see the spot on their faces, but I used to see them constantly in Alaska and I really think that's what they were.  The bird book says they show up in Arkansas in the winter, so there you go.

kid with croppie

At another time I saw a pair of Buffleheads.  I guess all these duckies really like this nice lake with all its fish (well-known for largemouth bass and croppies.  (The state park's literature calls them "crappies" but the local fishermen call them "croppies."  Nicer sounding name for sure.)

I've also seen lots of Juncos and a pair of Bluebirds and a large flock of Red-winged Blackbirds and several Crows and a large flock of some kind of little warbler or something - "miscellaneous brown bird" I used to call them; "miscellaneous bush bird" my husband used to call them.  Though what I saw weren't so much brown as a sort of olive color.  So with all of these critters, it can get a little noisy around here.

Camping here
The birds are noisy but the other campers aren't.  In fact, there've been very few others here.  I had next door neighbors for a couple of nights, but they were generally quiet, even when they had friends out to visit.  This couple and their small dog were camping out of their small pickup truck with a camper shell covering the bed - it's just the cover without any camper stuff inside.  Except these folks had lots of stuff inside that they took out at night to make room for their mattress (and hoped it didn't rain, I guess).  They looked middle-aged and were towing a little fishing skiff and I'd have thought they'd be ready for more comfortable living conditions.  But I guess they were tough.  Nice folks though.

Besides them there's a couple with 2 medium-sized dogs that they let out several times a day to run around without leashes for a while, and a large Class A RV that I think has 3 single men living inside who seem to leave for work every day, and another single man who parked his trailer and stayed one night, then left the trailer and hasn't come back.

In other words, it's been very quiet here with little dog competition, until Thursday afternoon.  Suddenly, 4 more campers came in, one of them with 2 large Labs.  It's a good thing we're planning to leave on Friday, because it'd be hard to dodge them in a small campground like this one.

I know there'll be dogs anywhere we go, and I know we're moving into camping season as the weather gets better, but it's been so pleasant here for so many days that I got spoiled.  Oh well.

This little channel runs into Millwood Lake in the distance, beyond the marina that's at the head of the channel.  A lot of campsites are on the right, most just out of the photo, though some are in it but not occupied.  My RV is immediately to my left, so this is what I see out of my dining room window - a very pleasant view.  For some reason, none of the Canada Geese are in this photo but I could sure hear them when I was taking it.  It's a nice little campground, probably quite lush when the oaks and gum trees all leaf out in a couple more months.

Oddly, I saw only 1 squirrel the whole time we stayed at this park.  I'd have thought there'd be enough food to support quite a few and couldn't figure out why they weren't there.

They warned me at the Visitor Center that I'd likely run into a lot of competition at campgrounds this month because it's Spring Break time.  They said it's not just Spring Break in Arkansas, but also in all the surrounding states at various times throughout the month of March, and lots of folks will be coming to Arkansas to spend the week in the state parks.  It's good to be forewarned, though I'm not sure it'll make me forearmed.  I guess I've been lucky so far.

That may be partly due to the weather.  It absolutely poured rain for much of Wednesday, making outdoor activities uncomfortable.  (That's likely why my neighbors left Wednesday morning, because they've got nowhere to go when it rains but the little space in their small pickup bed.)  And we had a fair amount of thunder now and then, upsetting Gracie of course.  I'd heard that Arkansas has as many as 60 days a year of thunderstorms, and this was one of them.

The campground is stretched out along State Route 32, that crosses the dam creating Millwood Lake, and runs between the small towns of Saratoga and Ashdown.  I'd already seen (and smelled) that Ashdown has a paper mill, so it wasn't a surprised to see multiple logging trucks rumbling along the road toward Ashdown.

About quarter to 10 Wednesday night, Dexter woke me up woofing at something outside.  Well, it could have been deer or the leash-free dogs or someone else could have come in after I closed the curtains.  But he kept it up, and then he started acting like he really wanted to go outside.  I of course assumed it was because of whatever critter was outside and refused.  But I doubt if he slept all night long.  He kept sitting near the door and pacing around the cabin and whenever I'd move he'd make a noise so I'd know he still wanted out.  And I gradually realized he might need to pee or something, but I usually keep to the schedule.  And then he'd torpedo his chances of getting me to change my mind by occasionally getting under the front curtain (to look outside) and woofing again.  Then early this morning he vomited, which he doesn't often do.  And then he took to sitting in the stairwell by the door, so I finally gave in.  I'd waited until about 45 minutes before sunrise so it wasn't pitch-black outside, and I'd told the dogs it was just a short walk, so they could relieve themselves.

Sure enough, we hadn't gotten very far from the RV before Dexter pooped.  A lot.  And then he peed a lot.  So while I still believe there was some critter outside that he wanted to see, I also believe he was in physical distress too.  I hated to do it to him but was absolutely terrified of being dragged through mud puddles when the dogs took off after a deer or something and maybe losing them altogether, as has happened at other campgrounds.  So neither of us got much sleep that night and I was glad I'd extended my stay here.

Flowers
My time here has been made more pleasurable because of the flowers.  Little ones, some of them tiny, and all very fresh and spring-like.

like violets with those little beard marks

Despite looking so delicate, they're mostly pretty tough, I think, because both dogs rolled on some of them and it didn't seem to hurt them (the flowers).  I guess you'd need to be tough to live outdoors all the time.

smaller and simpler than the violet-types

tiny pinky-white flowers

a carpet of them (lower right), looking toward the lake

more, simple, tiny blue flowers

Arkansas - Day 2 - Texarkana

Millwood State Park
Monday, 2 March 2020

today's route in 2 views

I left Louisiana with some important things still undone, so I'm spending my first few days in Arkansas catching up (yet again).  Texarkana is a little more than half an hour from the campground, so I'm off to town this morning.

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.

I passed the Arkansas High School (the local high school) football stadium and learned their mascot is the Razorbacks, with what seems to be the same logo as that for the University of Arkansas.  And all of a sudden I realized I'm now in the state of Arkansas.

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.

Arkansas - Day 1 - getting here

Millwood State Park, Ashdown
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.

today's route

On the road again
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.

Arkansas - my 24th state

Highway signs in Arkansas are much like those I grew up with in Texas.  For one thing, they tell you the population of each town when they tell you the town's name.  "Emerson - Pop. 368," for instance.  This was nice for someone like me who wants to know these things.  Emerson has a small city park called Purple Hull Pea Park, where the dogs and I stopped to take a break.

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.