One, mississippi, two, mississippi...

I really wish we had a better picture of this, but we were living it first, photographing it second, so this is what we get. We are crossing the Mississippi River. This occasioned Liz's talk about radio stations starting with K instead of W. Upon request, I supplied some bullshit story about two dudes whose names started with K and W having a wonderful radio empire over the whole country, and then getting into a fight over a girl and dividing up the territory. Mr. K totally got more territory. Way to go.
Pretty quickly, something (Memphis) turned into nothing (Arkansas.)

So, Arkansas. Indeed. And specifically, Little Rock. We follwed the directions to the Clinton Library, but as it was lateish and again we were brokeish, we just observed it. Kinda cool. It's in a very cute part of Little Rock and, I know, I'm really smart, but I was thinking, it looks so... new! The whole thing made me very depressed about the current political situation. Because let's be honest here, people. Is there actually going to be a W library? a LIBRARY? Seriously. Remember when we had a president who was smart?

When we were finished there, we decided to head back to the cute little part of the city we'd spotted on our way by, stroll around, and look for some dinner. And again with the parking space!! Right where we needed to be! Legal and everything! I'll probably never get another good parking space for the rest of my life, but that's okay. We spotted a public library with the names of lots of authors cut into the stone around the top. We saw cute stores and a big farmers market and a waterfront concert pavillion. In search of a place with no cover charge and readily available food, we stumbled into a British-themed pub called Underground. It was kind of dark, and nice. We ordered some beers, and Liz ordered some friend pickles. Now maybe I'm really sheltered. But fried pickles? What? Betsy liked them pretty well. I'm not sure what Liz thought. They really just tasted like... fried. Pickles. And since I'm not a huge fan of either... well... yeah.
I got some hot wings. Suitably hot, though they left me in dire need of a bath. Liz got some kind of locally-produced sausage? Betsy went for fried chicken salad. We were all pleased.

Our waiter was a character. He seemed to be in his mid-late 30s, wearing cowboy boots, a funny shirt (Liz: help! I forget!) and had long curly hair. He didn't write anything down... we'd all order, and then he'd look really confused for a minute, then repeat the whole order, and disappear. He got all the orders right, so... whatever works, I guess. It was decided that his name was Travis.

At one point I ran back to the conveniently-placed car in search of a map and guidebook to study, and a guy on the street stopped me to ask a question. He wanted to know what the yellow equals sign sticker on my car is. I told him about the Human Rights Campaign, and he was really psyched! Not really what I expected from Arkansas. But awesome. Awesome, awesome.

Upon my return, there was much giggling... it seems that the girls may have called the waited "Travis" to his face. Nice work ladies. Truly nice work.
Farewell, Little Rock! You treated us well!
It was getting late, and we were tired, so we only drove another hour or so, where we landed in Benton, Arkansas, at a motel where the clerk said "Y'all holler if y'all need anything!"

Tomorrow: I am the waffle nazi, and we see some cowgirls!