OBSERVATIONS
We just entered Arkansas today. It’s always interesting to enter a new state. What we notice immediately are the changes in the roads then the land. The liquor laws change, too, but it’s more subtle. You find out those rules when you try to buy wine or beer or can’t find it!
Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas seem like poor states. You don’t see Tesla’s, Audis, BMWs or Mercedes. You see old pickups, American cars, closed and abandon buildings, land wiped out from Hurricane Katrina (2005) and never rebuilt. Walmart, Family Dollar and Dollar General are everywhere.
Since we left the west coast, school buses have been part of our daily routine. Lots of kids get to and from school on school buses and you need to stop when they are unloading or slow way down when you enter a school zone. We don’t have very many school buses in the California Bay Areabut here, it’s not unusual for the police to come out and flash their lights when school is letting out to re-enforce the school zone laws.
When we entered Missouri at the end of October, we noticed church steeples changed. They became skinny, pointy and white. You no longer could climb up in them. They were decorations at the top of a building. This continues to be true throughout the south. It doesn’t seem to be tied to any particular Christian denomination. Now we can’t remember what the “norm” was before we started seeing them!
NEIGHBORLY GESTURE
As we arrived at our campsite tonight, our neighbor, Lew, invited us over for coffee. Lew and his dog Jake brewed a pot of coffee and we brought over coffee cake and we all chatted awhile. A nice ending to a long days drive. Lew, an Arkansas resident, had escaped the winter weather in December by going to the Gulf Coast and was on his way back home.
NEW CRITTER!
It was big, swimming fast across the water and was nothing we’d seen before! It was at least 3-4 feet from nose to butt. Terry managed to snap a few blurry pictures of it which we showed the park ranger. It’s a nutria or river rat as they call them in Florida. They can be as large as a medium dog and very aggressive if cornered. They have a white nose and huge, nasty looking, sharp teeth and webbed hind feet. We’ll keep our distance now that we know what they are!
A nutria or river rat.
SEVERE WEATHER – TORNADO WATCH – LEAVE RV AGAIN
We decided to stay here 2 nights to wait out some rainstorms but we didn’t realize how bad these storms were going to be!
Here we go again! We’ve packed up our stuff and are prepared to leave the RV to seek shelter in the restrooms. They’re made of cinderblocks. The ranger stopped by to tell us we’re under a Tornado Watch and if it becomes a Tornado Warning she’ll come take people to the shelter. That was a nice change from last time when we were left on our own!
It’s 8:45 pm and we’ve decided to head towards the shelter. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning has been issued. The radar shows the storm coming soon with winds to 70 mph and large hail, possibly the size of tennis balls. It’s a hike to the restrooms. If we wait until all of that is here, it’d be difficult to make it there safely so, we’re playing it safe and going now.
It’s about 9:45 pm and we’re back in the RV. The worst is over but we’re still under a Tornado Watch until 3 a.m. We lucked out again. No high winds. No hail. We may stay here another night to wait until the storms pass. Temperatures are going to drop this week so we need to not linger in Arkansas or we may hit ice. We need to get to Texas but avoid Houston due to recent flooding.
We're in the restroom with our emergency radio, iPads and iPhones monitoring the weather radar so we know what to expect.
THE MAP
Terry’s goal is to sleep at least one night in every one of the 48 states. We’ve got 3 to go. He’s thinking since the weather is warmer than usual and predicted to be sunny for the next week that we’ll sneak into the SE corner of Oklahoma on our way out of Arkansas and into Texas. That’ll leave 2 states to go…Kansas and Nebraska. We’ll have a donut with a hole in the middle as our map!
We're planning to get Oklahoma on our way into Texas. We're thinking maybe when we visit Amarillo, Tx in the panhandle, we'll sneak into Kansas and Nebraska for a night each.
Camping: Cane Creek State Park, Star City, AR
Electricity, water, dump station, showers, 2 3G