Stage Five Recap

Photos:
Dad and I spotting with the Indians outside the Oklahoma History Museum.
The crazy roads of Oklahoma City.
Mom being blown away by a brief storm outside the marina restaurant.
A boat pulling into the marina outside our restaurant.

Tonight I am writing from our lovely room in the Hampton Inns, Clarkville, Arkansas. We had a lovely day, a good mix of getting the drive done (We were in 3 states today!) and exploring the local culture.

This morning Mom and I enjoyed the pool at the Irish Inn and we all went to the free breakfast. Seems our hotel is a popular place to eat. Pretty good food and very nice coffee. We packed up the car, saw a loaded car with two girls about my age with NC plates and wondered if they were going to CA, and hit the road. Mom started driving as I navigated and dozed a bit in the front. We soon left Texas and were in Oklahoma. Lots of famous people are from here and they are darned proud of it. We went through Woody Guthrie's, Garth Brooks, and Carrie Underwood's home towns. Soon enough we were in Oklahoma City. We got gas on Garth Brooks Boulevard and I took over driving, I am used to the city stuff. We managed to find downtown after passing a river with a crew team practicing in it and made our way to the Oklahoma Historical Museum. A huge, beautiful, place, which we figured had better lunches than the Stuckey's from yesterday. It was amazingly detailed, almost overwhelming in the amount of historical paraphenalia. We trotted through, seeing old film equipment that Dad still has, the Gemini Space Pod that an Oklahoma native flew on the first in space docking, and lots of information on the crazy way Oklahoma was settled. They just agreed that at noon on a certain day, registered people could run out and stake claim to big pieces of land. Nevermind that there were all sorts of Indians living there. Of course, tons of conflict ensued for years.

We had a really nice lunch at the Museum cafe and got back on the road. I drove straight on through Oklahoma and into Arkansas. The land out here is MUCH greener, just lush with trees, even though they are in a drought right now. Many lakes and rivers, our favorite was one on a Lotawatah Road. Not kiddin'. We found Clarksville in the AAA Book and it seemed like our kind of small town. We decided on the Hampton because it had all the necessary requirements, indoor pool, hot breakfast, internet. Turns out to be one of the nicest places we've been yet, they had tea and cookies out, a clean and nice pool with a fun family from Denver who had driven to Maine for Mom to chat with, and friendly folks. We took a nice long swim in the pool (I just swam around the periphery for ever, best way I've found to actually get any exercise in these small pools) and Mom nearly drown herself trying to mimic the 10 year old girl doing summersaults in the pool. Everyone is okay though :)

Came back and finally drank the beers we'd bought outside the Grand Canyon. After a bit we headed out to explore the city. Dad loves the marinas so we headed to the local one, on a creek leading to the Arkansas river. It was just perfect. A total family operation, we immediately felt like we were definitely in the South. Mom and I had the catfish special, with sides of greens, fried okra and cold slaw. Gotta remember that okra is fried out here, not what I was expecting. They had all the southern fixin's on the menu, even frog legs!! Ahhhhh!! We noticed some people looking down at the river for a long time, so we went to explore. They were feeding catfish with some pellets you could buy for a quarter. They were pretty full, I guess, because they weren't too interested in mine, but we got to chatting with the family. It was the owner and her mother. They had a thousand things to say, from giving us directions, to their objection with the huge Adult Store that moved into town, to all the local history of the area, all the way to finding out that the daughter went to the University of Alaska and majored in Psychology and has seen many Davidson Films. Small, small, world. But it is nice to be able to chat with anyone and not be thought to be crazy like I was in San Francisco.

We hung around there for a bit and went and saw the campground by the river. Then we made our way back into downtown and visted Ozark University, which Mom's friend Mrs. Munger loyally donated to yearly even though no one knew why. Beautiful, small, college. We laughed that I might have my first teaching job here.. Trent, you okay with Arkansas?? The town is doing better than Shamrock and had quite a bit going on. Lots of Mom and Pop stores and Auto Repair shops. We looped back around to the hotel, dropped Dad off, and cruised to the tiny movie theater right next door. No "The Devil Wears Prada" so we weren't interested. Back to the room for some reading and relaxing!

Stage Six (wow, this is going fast!) should take us into Tennessee somewhere. We'll go through Memphis, maybe lunch there, and find some other small town to get acquainted with tomorrow. We are definitely getting the hang of this lifestyle. It is just going to get greener and greener and I have the feeling that Chapel Hill is going to feel downright metropolitan after some of the places we've seen!