Arkansas Travelers

On Thursday, August 14th, we left Tennessee and headed out to Arkansas for our next leg of the journey, driving through Memphis and crossing the Mississippi River into Arkansas where we stopped to camp just across the state line near Wynne, Arkansas at Village Creek State Park. It was getting late and the crew was hungry so we set up camp fast and started cooking dinner. I wanted to get some good food in the kids, after they had been snacking on the road on convenience store chips, etc. The campsite was huge and right next to a little creek. I thought this was kind of cool at first, but didn’t realize until later that the water was mostly stagnant and a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The kids were later having a contest on who had the most bites. Jordan counted 92 (ouch!).

I was cooking on the camp stove when Sarah came running over with a look of terror on her face – Mommy! I saw something brown moving on the picnic table (this was way down at the other end of the campsite). “Don’t worry honey, it was probably nothing.” Wayne said there might be some animals around. I’m thinking chipmunk. I didn’t think much of it until Adam noticed a raccoon near our site. I shooed it away and it looked at me disdainfully until I advanced menacingly and it slowly backed away, but not before turning around and picking up what looked to be a bit of food from the ground. This was puzzling, since I hadn’t put any food out yet. I finished making dinner and then went to get the bread and discovered that those little buggers had gotten into the box with the English muffins and torn right into them. So THAT was the little bit of food was. Man! And those were my Trader Joe’s muffins too! Grrrrrrr. We ended up putting all the containers of food into the car that night. The next day, I tried out our new pie iron and made grilled cheese sandwiches over the campfire.

We packed up camp on Friday morning and headed out from Arkansas to Oklahoma, stopping to pick up some fresh peaches from the roadside stand of a local orchard. Three old guys were sitting around in lounge chairs shooting the breeze when we drove up. They started telling stories and kept us entertained for a good 15 minutes. That was fine with us, since it had just started to rain and Wayne didn’t want to drive in that mess (thank God we had gotten the camper popped down before the rain). These guys were a hoot! We then got seriously on the road and started eating up the miles across Arkansas and into Oklahoma.

We stopped at a rest area in Arkansas and saw a sheriff’s vehicle pull up. The driver got out – dressed to the hilt as a cowboy - a pair of faded blue jeans, a t-shirt, cowboy boots cowboy hat, and a colt- 45 strapped to his hip (well, I really don’t know what kind of gun it was, but it looked western, so we’ll go with that). We were thinking this was an Arkansas cop with a cowboy complex. Then we watched him go over to the other side and get someone out of the back seat – some young man wearing jeans and sandals and nothing else. And then we realize he is handcuffed . . . and shackled! Hmmm, maybe the guy isn’t just strutting his stuff, he was a serious man of the law! I did a quick double-take on the license plate of the sheriff’s vehicle and he was from . . . you guessed it – Texas! They both went in, and then came out and had a smoke (both of them), then the sheriff hustled him back into the car (after one last toke) and they drove off.

Our music listening has changed drastically. Most of the stations play country. But we did have a choice – New country vs. old country. After searching the stations, Wayne and I settled on listening to some old Willie Nelson from the 60s. The teen girls were in the back seat rolling their eyes and periodically shouting up to the front to change the station. We obliged and did another scan, finally finding a station that was playing Jesse McCartney, Jojo, Aly & AJ, Miley Cyrus, etc. But every time one was found, the station would quickly fade to static so they gave up and listened to their ipod. We finally found one playing some classic top 40s music. We were grooving to the Jackson 5, Hall and Oates, Loggins and Messina, etc. This didn’t annoy the girls quite as much, and we only heard the occasional groan from the back seat when we sang along to tunes such as “Brown-eyed Girl.”

Have seen some great signs along the way: “Buford Pusser Highway (and Home and Museum)” and “Toad Suck Park.” Gas has gotten down to an average of $3.49/gallon, although we saw one station advertised at $3.39. Next stop: Oklahoma.