FAYETTEVILLE, AR, October 8-10, 2012

Yes, it's been way too long since I've made myself sit down and do some blogging about our travels. Looks like the last one was almost 3 months ago, and so much has happened since then. We are presently staying in Oldsmar, Florida having arrived here October 25th.

I'll start a little "catch up" just to get me up to date. So, looking back into October, here we go!

October 8-10, 2012
Our first stop as we headed north from Little Rock was at the Clinton House Museum in Fayetteville, the first home of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  They were married in this home in 1975 but moved back to Little Rock the next year after he was elected Arkansas Attorney General.

 It still has all the decor of the 1970s but now filled with Clinton memorabilia including Hillary's wedding dress.  The gardens were lovely on that fall day. In the back yard is the First Ladies' Flower
Garden.

  Our next destinations was our COE campground, Horseshoe Bend Park near Rogers, AR.  We had the most perfect site! Right on the lake with no one around us and the senior fee of only $10 a night. We set up and just relaxed and enjoyed the view. Our evening was spent with friends of Paul's sister, Glenda and Alan Miner.  The fun part was that Alan picked us up in his motorboat and gave us a tour of the lake on our way. Dinner was wonderful and the ride back on the lake with the full moon shining was memorable.  We love getting to meet new people along our travels!

Dinner with Alan and Glenda Miner

Tuesday Oct. 9 day trip to Eureka Springs. Lunch at Bubba's BBQ

After lunch we visited Thornhill Chapel, a spectacular chapel in the woods. Such innovative architecture of wood and glass. While there we had a wonderful piano concert by a local parishioner. 

 Woods and trails surround the chapel.

 We continued west on Highway 62 for a stop at Blue Springs Heritage Center and a walk down to the springs, though a little hard to see as the springs were being worked on an dug out to remove sludge from the ponds.  Not sure I'd make this stop again, a little pricey for what we got.

From there we took a little detour to find this little very narrow, one lane suspension bridge.

 We got back to our campsite just at sunset,  so peaceful

 Wednesday morning started with a visit to the Daisy Airgun Museum in Rogers, AR. Yes, the home of the little Red Rider BB Gun that's the main character of the movie The Christmas Story. It is surprising what unusual museums we find along our travels.

 Next on our day's plan was a visit to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (also known as The Art Museum Wal Mart built).  It's fantastic!!! Amazing architecture and amazing American art from Colonial to Contemporary artists.  I must say I wasn't expecting it to be as fabulous as it was, and so glad so many people had spoken highly of it. As is our custom, we had lunch in the museum restaurant surrounded by glass with this beautiful view.

 So many masterpieces in the collection inside as well as outside in the sculpture gardens.  We got on our bikes to enjoy the outside grounds.

 Since my tires were a bit low we also went on into the little town of Bentonville to find a bike shop.
 The town is the home of the original Walton's 5-10, which is a museum of the origins and history of Sam Walton and WalMart.  Tons of photos and memorabilia, including the red pick up out front that he drove every day to work.

 We got back at our campsite that evening after having dinner at a little restaurant we'd been passing the last couple of days on our way home. The parking lot would be empty each morning, but full every time we passed at night, so Wed. night we decided to stop and check out Monte Ne Inn. It's only open evenings from 5-9 and serves one meal: a family style chicken dinner. It was delicious!

 Our original plan to go east the next morning to see more of northern Arkansas changed as weather reports were forecasting a huge storm with very strong winds and heavy rain with thunderstorms.  After looking at the map we decided to put that trip off till next time and move south to avoid the powerful storm approaching. We packed up by 10 and headed for gas in Rogers...well, that gas stop caused just a bit of drama for us. As we were trying to drive out of the station, Paul turned too severely and pulled our tow dolly with car attached into one of the concrete barriers near the pump. Thank goodness the barrier was there, I think we would have taken out the gas pump if it hadn't been!

After detaching the car, whacking the tow dolly so the tires would at least move so we could get away from the pump, Paul started calling around to repair shops to see what could be done.  A broken tow dolly? No one wanted to touch it, too much liability. So, he contacted our insurance company and I got on Craig's List to see what we could do.  Oh, my goodness, best news ever! Our insurance covered our dolly and I couldn't believe it, but I found a brand new dolly, exactly the same as the one we had damaged and it was only 20 miles away.  Needless to say, we parked the RV, got in the car and by 4:00 that afternoon we bought our new car dolly!

 It is incredible that all the stress of the morning disappeared as we pulled out at 5PM and drove south to an over night in Little Rock with car in tow on the brand new dolly!  What would I ever do without Craig's List???

A LITTLE ROCK WEEKEND October 5-7, 2012

   There was so much more to see and do in the northwestern part of Arkansas but I had made reservations to see the Beatles Classical Tour with the Little Rock Symphony for Saturday night which I didn’t want to miss...so we made a pretty crazy decision. We would spend the weekend in Little Rock and then return to the Fayetteville area on Monday to see the rest. Lots of extra driving but that’s the joy of our traveling life. 

The drive south on I-540 was beautiful with the trees just beginning to show their fall colors. The weather was crisp and chilly but warmed up as we got closer to LR.  Our stay for the next 3 nights was the North Little Rock Riverside RV Park, a Passport America stay for only $11 a night.  It was the best for seeing all the sights of LR right across the river! 

Little Rock was so different from what I expected. It is small for a capital city with a renovated river front area that is anchored by the Clinton Presidential Library on the east, the capital building to the west with lots restaurants and historical buildings in between. 

Within about an hour the weather made a big change, I guess that’s normal for this part of the country.  The temp dropped about 20 degrees, rain clouds came in and the warm sunny afternoon disappeared. We drove across the river to see the River Market District that’s filled with galleries, shops and eateries. The rain was coming down pretty heavy so we stopped at the Flying Saucer Brewery for a bite to eat and to warm up. How can heavy rain come on so fast????

Saturday was even wetter and so much colder than any we have had all along the trip, but there was so much to see in the city. There is a darling trolley that circles from North Little Rock across the river and into Little Rock about every 25 min, the trolley conductor tells the history of the buildings and the 2 cities as it goes along. A fun ride to get a feeling for the area.  

Our first visit was to the Old State House Museum, beautiful Greek Revival architecture built in 1833. 

The House includes both chambers of the legislature and has been beautifully restored and furnished. But, we only saw half of the museum before it was time to hurry next door to the Peabody Hotel to catch the 11:00 Duck Walk to the lobby and the fountain where they spend the day.  Too funny, a Grand Marshall and John Phillip Souza march playing as 5 ducks come down on an elevator and follow the red carpet to the water.

This Nun was chosen as the Dignitary of the Day to lead the ducks into the lobby

They rounded the corner, walked straight up a ramp and into the water of the fountain.

We went back to finish touring the Old State House then time for lunch at a local favorite, The Flying Fish. 

 Fried catfish and gumbo, a perfect meal for the cold day outside. Our whole afternoon was spent at the Clinton Library a dramatic glass building that cantilevers out over the Arkansas River. (my photo is terrible, I know...it's much more stunning to see in person!)

State of the art exhibits showcase the President’s eight years with videos, displays and collections of gifts the Clintons received during his presidency. One wonderful display was the complete and full scale reproduction of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room.  

The room also includes a replica of the desk used by most Presidents while in office with the little storage area where John Kennedy Jr. poked his head out in that famous photo!

We had just enough time to return to the motorhome to take Foster for a walk, change, and head to dinner. We decided to have dinner at the nearby Riverside Steakhouse, a wonderful meal then to our evening at the Symphony. Such a fantastic performance by the Little Rock Symphony.  I didn’t realize that there really was going to be a Beatles Band performing with the symphony, making the evening just amazing! I loved the evening so much I almost went again the next day to the second performance, but I've learned that I can never recapture the feeling of a given moment, no matter how much I want to.

Sunday morning we started with brunch at the Arkansas Art Center 

This is an amazing ceramic sculpture by Marilyn Levine, so real it was hard to realize you weren't looking at leather. 

then toured all the galleries ending with one very special collection. It’s called 50 for Arkansas, a gift from Herb and Dorothy Vogel.  They are the most unusual collectors who lived very simply in NYC. Dorothy was a librarian, Herb was a postal worker and they both loved art. 

 They began collecting from new, young artists and in their lifetime collected over 4000 pieces of art; all of which they kept in every nook and cranny of their tiny apartment. As they grew older, they decided to donate 50 pieces of art to each of the 50 states.  The museum in Little Rock houses the Arkansas collection. Quite the story!

When we came out of the museum the sky had cleared to a beautiful bright blue and warm once again. Something I didn't want to miss seeing while in Little Rock was the Central High School National Historic Site, the scene of the battle to desegregate the public schools in Arkansas, 1957. 

The high school is still a working school but is also a historic site with a fantastic visitor center retelling the events of that painful period in the Civil Rights movement.  

Across the street from the Visitor Center is the restored gas station with a pay phone where reporters would call in their stories to papers around the country.

Though we couldn’t tour the Capitol on Sunday afternoon we did drive around it to see. A beautiful structure we’ll have to see on our next trip. 

Another missed tour was the Historic Arkansas Museum which has 5 restored early 19th-century buildings. The museum closed at 4 on Sunday, and we had saved it for last, so next time. 

We walked around the exterior areas to get a glimpse of the buildings.



 Then back to the Flying Fish for another great southern meal and a tasty beer.

We walked along the river front area and took photos looking across the river to where our motorhome was parked. The bridge in this photo is part of the pedestrian and bike path that runs for 7 miles along both sides of the river. 

The sky was getting pretty dark again so we finished our day with a walk through these red gates to see the H. U. Lee International Garden dedicated to the spirit of Taekwondo

Paul practicing...

Our weekend ended early Modnay morning as we set off once again for that lovely northwestern part of the state, 3 hours away. This was the view of Little Rock as we said good bye at 7AM with the sun just waking up the city.

DEVIL'S DEN STATE PARK October 1-3

For the last few years I've been wanting to visit the northeastern area of Arkansas...it just sounded like such a beautiful place and an area I wanted to see.  Now we had our chance to really see this part of the country. And...whenever I told someone we were planning to spend days camping in northern Arkansas, they almost always said we needed to stay at Devil's Den State Park just south of Fayetteville. So we did!

There are 2 different routes to get to the park and we took the turn off at West Fork onto Highway 170 since we were too large to take the curvy somewhat steep road, Highway 74. The park is so large with sites spread out in five different campgrounds.  We camped in Loop E and since the park was practically empty we had the pick of so many campsites and chose one that backed up to the creek.

Normally the Lee Creek flows into a lake that creates this beautiful waterfall, but due to the two years of drought in Arkansas, the river wasn't even moving, the lake was almost dry and we never got to see this view.

What we did get to see were some amazing rock formations as we took several hikes in the park.

Our first day we hiked the Yellow Rock Trail with a fantastic overview of the Ozark Valley below.

The park is unique in that it is one of only four Arkansas State Parks built in the 1930-40s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The roads, trails, campgrounds, dam, and structures were built during a nine year project and are still in wonderful condition today. This lovely Lookout is built of stone and huge tree trunks.

No matter where we hiked in the park there were tall sandstone and limestone rocks in the most unusual forms.

We joined an Interpretive Ranger for a great walk along the Devil's Den Trail the next afternoon.  She knew so much about the geology and history of the park, such a wonderful way to learn. 

This is usually the flowing water of Twin Falls...but no water anywhere in the park! So sad.

Along the trail we came to the cavern of Devil's Den which is now closed due to the spreading disease affecting hibernating bats, white nosed syndrome. To try to safe guard the bats in many parts of the country all caves are now closed to the public.  Studies show that 5.5 million bats have died since first documented in 2006 and with no way of combating this disease. Caving is a big adventure in this part of the country for sure, and I have no idea how they will ever keep people from crawling down into these caves.

Not only are there fantastic campgrounds in most of the Arkansas state parks, there are also beautiful wooden cabins.  The cabins were also built during the CCC years and are so well used today.  For less than $100 you can rent a 2 bedroom cabin with a fireplace, kitchen and outdoor patio area, just darling! What fun it would be to stay in one of these!

Crossing the creek is a suspension bridge to get from the campgrounds to the lake.  Near this bridge is also a swimming pool, picnic area, small store, restaurant, gift shop and the Visitor's Center.

The weather was perfect, warm and sunny with trees turning fall colors all around us.

Thursday afternoon we did drive out of the park to visit the nearby Prairie Grove Battlefield.  An amazing afternoon learning the story of this Civil War battle. We walked the trail and the actual fields of the battle.

One crazy thing about this part of the country...we cannot buy and beer, wine of other spirits in any kind of grocery store, only in designated stores.  But I did see something totally new: a "drive through" for picking up a bottle of wine or six pack of beer. Doesn't jive...  

That evening we stayed in town to see a little of Fayetteville and had dinner at a Dickson Street grill.  It's the "happening area" of town and right next to University of Arkansas so lots of college kids everywhere.

After three days it was time to pack up again and head south for Little Rock.  The morning we left we had quite a rainstorm with thunder!!! I don't think Paul or I have ever been in real thunderstorms, and this was definitely one. Poor Foster gets freaks and barks at every rumble.  I don't think he'll ever get used to the noise and not sure I will either.  It only lasted about an hour or so but of course it happened just as we were trying to put everything away and leave...

The rest of the morning's drive to Little Rock was misty and wet at times, but soon we were back in the sunshine and on to a weekend in the city!