Sunday, August 8, 2021

Little Rock, Tree House, Hell No, Paris and back to Dallas

 

As a continuation to the last blog post, I'll try to address the remaining bullet points that I wanted to share.

  • The toilet incident (I've got your attention, don't I?)
  • Goats, Deer, Armadillo
  • B&B heaven / Fudge, clutch pearls, gasp
  • Rage Monster: Cramps and Heat
  • Settling In
  • Decision Fatigue
  • The general pattern of road trips - aka Me and Road Trips
  • Peeing in fear (different than "The toilet incident")
  • What I packed but didn't touch, except to move it out of my way
  • Snacks & Drinks
Oh boy, that's a lot! And I didn't even mention: fear, no signal, the Eiffel Tower....oh there's so much to cover!

Yeah, totally fell asleep instead of writing the blog. Now I'm having a delicious yogurt, granola, berry and bacon breakfast. I'm waking up, trying to remember what happened yesterday. With so much input over the last week, it gets all jumbled together, which is partly why I get so tired. And 100% why by the end of every vacation I stop writing. The idea of being home soon puts me in relax mode rather than go go go mode and motivation drops through the floor. Let's see if I can pull it together this time!

Little Rock Arkansas. I pulled off the freeway into a residential neighborhood. The first thing I saw was a homeless man at the stop sign to my left. Not a bad place to ask for a hand. And maybe his girlfriend, or another homeless woman on a bench to my right. She had her shoes off and was playing, picking at, or examining her feet. Hello, Little Rock!

I've only driven to / through a few 'big' cities on this trip. Dallas, OKC, Tulsa, Little Rock and a bunch of small ones or even tiny ones. The only place you see "homeless" are big cities and it always bums me out. It's a slap in the face that 'big city' doesn't mean success. Not all the people there are prospering. It's like a small version of the American Dream to move from a tiny town to a big city, but it's just a dream. 

Boy, this is too deep a topic for the amount of coffee I've had. I'm not really getting to the point. I'm sorry, let's get back to the fun, light, what-did-I-see-on-my-adventures blog.

Krista had found me the most amazing and probably oldest standing Victorian Home (B&B) in Little Rock Arkansas. The gentlemen who run it, did an amazing job decorating and keeping it in excellent working order.













During breakfast on the wrap around porch the following morning, I mentioned to the gentleman who checked me in that I didn't really have a plan for the day. That I needed to get to Dallas by Sunday for a flight. He lit up and suggested Jefferson, TX. "There are hundreds of B&Bs there," he said, "not as big as this one, but all Victorian." And then he said, "And there's this fudge shop." He put his palm on his chest and gasped. I really wanted to go there, buy him some fudge and mail it to him, but Jefferson was just too far out of my way. 

Instead I started driving to Oklahoma, because....well, when Krista and I first started dating, I took a 12 day road trip (between jobs) to Mount Rushmore (it's all available in the blog). For every state we thought I'd pass, she gave me a little envelope with facts about the state and a little note. I asked her to do the same for this trip and wanted to take a picture with the envelopes at each State's welcome sign. 

So far, all I had was this, because I either couldn't stop at the state signs or there wasn't one on this random road.


Ok, I'm fading again. My breakfast is done and this coffee isn't doing anything for me. I've got to go take a nap or I'm going to fall asleep on my keyboard. 

Bullet points to talk about later.
  • Little Rock - Couldn't find the Clinton library, which was closed anyway
  • Aiming for Broken Bow to take state line pictures
  • Garvan Woodland Gardens (as suggested by the woman I met at the Center of the Universe)
  • Murphreesboro - Diamond mines
  • Broken NOPE - "No Hoodies or No Masks. Take them off before you come in." 
  • Paris, TX and the Eiffel Tower (which is at a high school and also a war memorial?)
  • Warwick-Melrose Hotel in Dallas (ending where I started)

I couldn't nap, but I did shower. That might help.

This was as close as I got to the Clinton Library. This is the Capitol Building. Google Maps kept rerouting and turning me in circles and putting me in parking lots that were not the library. I looked it up later and I'm pretty sure that the library is next to or behind this, but there was construction and road/parking lot closures, so I couldn't get to it. Also, it was closed anyway.

Next stop, Broken Bow. The goal really was to get to the state line and reassess. 

This started a series of happy (sort of) accidents, where I ended up at places I heard about, did not plan on going to, never Googled and found myself in the middle of. 

About an hour out of Little Rock, I saw a sign for Garvan Woodland Gardens. Remember the woman I met at the Center of the Universe (Tulsa)? She and her husband said they liked Presidential Libraries? She also recommended Garvan. I put it in my phone, but never looked it up and had no idea what part of Arkansas I would find it. A sign told me to turn left for the gardens and I couldn't pass it up, as it was only 5 or 10 minutes off my route anyway. 

HUGE parking lot. And then I realized it was a large self-guided walking tour of who-knows-what. I told you, I never looked it up, but I was game. Krista said there was a really cool structure to see, much like the chapel yesterday, so I paid the $15 and started walking. 

Maybe 2 minutes later, the car's air conditioning wore off my body and I realized that it was warm out. Y'all know I don't like to be hot, so I called Krista and said, "What am I supposed to see here?" She said, "The tree house. And if you see any flowers, can you send me a picture". I booked it for the tree house and by the time I got there, I was too hot to give a damn. 

I really hate this about my body. If I overheat, even slightly, my mood drops through to the center of the Earth and there is nothing I can do about it. There's no drinking water or taking a beat to settle into it. Unless I lay down and prepare to die, or get back into an air conditioned space, my body SCREAMS flight/flight/freeze and all I can do is get mad. 



How I posed

How I really felt

The structure was VERY cool (not temperature wise, unfortunately). You could climb around in there, so I did, because I'd made it this far, but every picture I took was quick and without aiming. I just wanted to prove that I'd been there and get out. 




I called Krista and said, "I don't see any flowers. Can I send you a picture of a Doberman instead?" She was kind and agreed.


The minute I got back in the car, I changed my shirt, which was completely drenched. I pounded a bottle of water and then remembered that I had a cooling towel in the bag I'd been carrying around. IDIOT. That would have been good to remember 20 minutes ago.

Next stop, Broken Bow! Only, it wasn't. Another hour or so down the road, I saw a sign for Murfreesboro. Now, the joke here is that Krista and I have played Red Dead Redemption 2 a couple of times and there's a clan knows as the Murfree Brood. They're the worst people in the game. They love to torture folks and leave them for dead, basically. So, of course I'd have to stop in Murfreesboro...you know, just to make sure the game wasn't based on real events. 

Turns out it's a diamond mining town. Or was. It's small and cute and everyone I talked to (I went into three shops) was so nice!



Have you ever been reminded of Christmas while sweating your ass off?




Ok, now really. Broken Bow!

I made it to the state line and got my pictures!



And then I had to pee. Now, if you remember my story from yesterday, I was not looking forward to my next bathroom experience, but it was a little worse (at least psychologically) than the loose toilet from yesterday.

I arrived or maybe was just about to arrive in Broken bow. There were two gas stations and I picked the one that was burning whole trees out the back. As I walked up to the front door, fastening my mask around my ears, I saw the sign.

"No Hoodies or No Masks. Take them off before you come in." I paused. A little shocked. And got by in my car. I'd rather piss myself than meet the person who wrote that sign. 

First of all, it should read, "No hoodies or masks," but it could have just as easily read, "COVID only!" Being that close to ignorance, gave my heart a start. I immediately felt unsafe and was heading towards the town itself and still had to pee. 

I had been wearing a baseball cap, but took that off and tried to smooth my hair down in a non-gay way, though I was wearing long shorts and bright yellow vans. I found a Shell station, or something I'd recognized, put on my mask, walked by bikers and big dudes and women - no masks. I opened the door into the convenience part of the station. There must have been 20 people inside and they ALL looked at me. I coughed loudly into my mask, as if to say, "Maybe I've got the COVID and don't want to give it to you!" Luckily the bathroom was to my left and available. My adrenaline was racing and when I was done, I tried not to look at anyone while exiting, though I did hear a woman (who was flipping burgers) loudly say, "Oh, yeah. I saw!" 

Now, as a lady and as a gay lady to boot, I have on many occasions taken other people's conversations out of context and worried that it was about me. Are the kids in school laughing at me, sniggering about my outfit or the way I walk? Are the people in the Broken Bow, Arkansas gas station gawking at me because I believe in science and not Jesus? (Also, why is it that towns like this with advertised ignorance also have the largest Jesus signs? And Trump signs? It's not a great connection, folks.)



Sorry, I don't want to get political or religious. I'm just pointing out that I feel the most unsafe and judged when I'm in outwardly Republican and religious places. 

Moving on from Broken bow. 

So, with my adrenaline at a 9.5, I found myself wide awake and ready to drive as long and as far as I needed to in order to feel safe again. Unfortunately, I had no signal, which was not good for my adrenalin or my maps! I turned left (why not?) and followed highway signs that pointed south. I even looked at my compass (app) and though I was on a southern highway, my compass said I was going Northeast. The exact opposite direction I wanted to go. Get me to Texas! (said no one ever). About 10 minutes later, I had enough signal for Google maps, typed in my destination and was on my way. 

It took me about 30 minutes to calm down and settle into the scenery. Whenever I do these long road trips, there always comes a point when the driving is easy. I'll have a pretty straight road that isn't a four lane highway, cruise control activated and good music or an audiobook on the stereo. On drives like this, time feels irrelevant and the scenery sinks into my bones. These are my favorites times. I tend to pull over randomly and take pictures of buildings or cows or wide open spaces that never look as good as a picture.




And every once in a while, you end up somewhere you'd only ever heard about in jokes.


That's right! Paris, Texas! They commissioned a small version of the Eiffel Tower and put a cowboy hat on it!

The part that you might not know is the context. And this is another reason I love traveling. When someone says a place that I've been, I know what it feels like, smells like, etc. If you said to me, "Cologne, Germany" I'm going to remember sitting with strangers in a cafe, staring out at an amazing cathedral. But I'm also going to remember where I parked and how hard it was to find an ATM. I have strange little memories from all over. Boys trying to sell me fireworks in Paris when I was trying to get a glimpse of the real Eiffel Tower from miles away. Gummy bears on my pillow at a hotel in the Black Forrest. Stumbling upon a Gaudi building by accident in Barcelona. I only knew I was there, because the tourists in front of me were all pointing their cameras behind me. 

The Paris Texas Eiffel Tower is right next to a war memorial, which is also right next to the Pairs Texas High School. There were kids playing basketball in the 90+ degree heat right next to me. 


Yeah, this is a sign for the high school

I had some dinner in Paris, Texas and decided to drive through to Dallas. I stayed in the same hotel I had a week ago and asked for a late check out, which gave me time to finish up this blog. I might go check out a museum after this, since I still have a few hours before my flight. But I don't know what will happen next, and I love it.

I love traveling. I love tapping into curiosity and whimsy and not knowing where I'll end up next or what I'll see or who I'll meet. Sure, there are scary times, or sad times when you see 30 dead armadillos in like 10 minutes along a road in Arkansas...yeah, that happened. Sometimes, I get stuck in the heat or a dodgy bathroom or I end up going 10 hours without eating a meal because I don't want to stop and I have nuts or other snacks strewn about the car. But most of the time, my brain is happy to learn bits and pieces about the world. To know what the landscape is like in Nebraska vs Ireland or what the bridges look like in Sydney vs Little Rock (I'm sorry I didn't get pictures of the bridges, they were really cool). My heart is happy be out and about, doing something new. I'm fulfilled in a way that I can't get by reading books or watching documentaries about a place. To be there and let it sink into me, to feel a place...I need that in this life. I need to know what its like to cry with strangers at a the Oklahoma City Bombing memorial museum. Oh, all the sudden, I'm remembering the time I was getting dinner at a town square in Viet Nam and everyone started walking away. All walking the same direction. I followed them and ended up at the water. There were a thousand people or more sitting around, mostly peacefully. It turned out to be their Independence Day and an incredible fireworks show took place right in front of me. I have been so lucky to see what I have in this life. To sneak into a closed drive-in and have it all to myself, to go for a walk on Route 66 and see what happens after the sunsets at a big neon pop sculpture, to be surprised by Bentonville Arkansas - these are gifts and I am truly happy to receive them. 

Get out there, folks. Drive down a dirt road. Have a dog bark at you. Be safe. But be adventurous. 

Until next time...


Saturday, August 7, 2021

No really: Bentonville to Little Rock

I am alive! And awake! Both of these are excellent things, which goes without saying, I suppose, but I drove from Little Rock, Arkansas to Dallas, Texas today, which can be a 4hr 40min drive, if you take toll roads and go straight there, which I did not do. According to Google Maps, the route I took was 6hrs and 34min. I left Little Rock at 11am and got to Dallas at 8:45pm, so....yeah. Another long day. But my last real "free" day.

Side note (already?!), if I'm on a road trip, I'm not getting the toll pass from the car rental place because it's a total rip off. "What? I have to pay $20 a day to be able to use a toll road and still pay the toll? Up yours!"

OK, I'm about to have a salad / take a little break, so I'm going to bullet point what I want to catch you up on from the last two days.

  • The toilet incident (I've got your attention, don't I?)
  • Goats, Deer, Armadillo
  • B&B heaven / Fudge, clutch pearls, gasp
  • Rage Monster: Cramps and Heat
  • Settling In
  • Decision Fatigue
  • The general pattern of road trips - aka Me and Road Trips
  • Peeing in fear (different than "The toilet incident")
  • What I packed but didn't touch, except to move it out of my way
  • Snacks & Drinks
Unlike last night, I'm not going to leave you hanging. Though I am tired, I don't have to drive anywhere tomorrow and I arranged a late check out of 1pm, so I can really sleep in and recuperate a little before flying home on a 5:40pm flight out of Dallas. 

You might have noticed the title of this particular blog post. "No really: Bentonville to Little Rock". You may have further notice that I said I am in Dallas and gave you bullet points of stuff from today. Well, yesterday's blog post was a miss. I tried, y'all, I really did, but I was so tired, I just couldn't. So, I thought I'd have a do over. I'll write about today in the next post.

Let's begin.

Yesterday, Bentonville, Arkansas. After checking out of the Victoria B&B, I went to Bentonville's town square. 




It's cute and surprising and felt like Main St USA meets Walmart. I say that, because there is literally a Walmart Museum in the town square! Check out the history of Walmart here, if you're interested. It was a free museum and told the story of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, and how he opened a 5 and 10 shop where the museum stands today. His vision was to make everyday items cheaper for the American people and, by God, he did it. You can't say Walmart doesn't sell cheap stuff. I was surprised to learn that he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992. The medal was in the museum, as was his truck, because he was a down-to-earth kind of Billionaire. I enjoyed the museum and I loved walking around the town square. The Geena Davis film festival was happening. Moana was playing. I sung and smiled as I walked by. It was perfect timing too, because it was Maui singing You're Welcome, which I only really know from watching The Rock sing it to his daughter




Other cute things in Bentonville (in pictures):

Barber Shop (notice the plant hair and the barber shop pole!)




Even their graffiti is cute

That morning I didn't really have a plan of where to head to next. My only real goal was to get back to Dallas on Sunday (it was Friday). My B&B host said that Bentonville was the best place, but I could check out...honestly, I can't remember. Something River. Anyway, I put it in Google Maps and went on my way. 

Cool things I saw were:
WILD GOATS munching on some grass. I suppose the goats could have lived in the property they were in front of, but there were four of them and they weren't behind a fence, nor did they have collars on (which I'm sure you don't do with goats ever, but how else are you supposed to know if they're wild?). 




THE ROWDY BEAVER Tavern & Restaurant. I only stopped there for a bathroom break (and did actually break off part of the door to the stall, woops). Sometimes I don't know how safe it is for me (as a gay woman) in a town, but was happily surprised to find that this particular place had drag nights!




Oh, Right! I did have plans other than the river thing. I went to Eureka Springs, but the main street was narrow and crowded. It felt like the Monterey Wharf with so many shops I didn't want to shop at and tourists that were only there for touristing. You know, obnoxious walk-in-the-street types with their bags of crap and art. Anyway, I drove straight through that town and ran into the Eureka Springs & North Arkansas Railway.  All the tickets were sold out for a train lunch, so I walked around the yard snapping pictures. The coolest thing was an old car that had been modified to ride the rails.





Later, when I was nearing the something River that I'd randomly put in Google Maps, it had me turn down a dirt road. Not my first dirt road that day. I actually turned left down a dirt road, because I saw that I was only a few hundred feet from Missouri. I crossed the border and turned back around into Arkansas. Road trip fun! Anyway, this dirt road looked a little sketchy. Not scary or dangerous, just...it didn't look like it was going to lead me to a big reveal of some amazing river. Driving at maybe 15mph, but probably less, there was a house on my right and THEN there was a dog barking LOUDLY and chasing my car. I slammed on the breaks because I couldn't actually see him. I knew he was there because of the frantic barking and I think he actually ran into my car! He scared the shit out of me but was just a border collie trying to say hi, or maybe chase the car out of the yard. Anyway, I drove on very slowly, eventually the dog turned around and went back home, but I was sufficiently shook and also turned around to GTFO of there. The dog heard me coming again and ran right to the front of my car, bounding all over the place and barking like a fool. I could NOT see him and didn't want to run him over. I honked, didn't do any good, so I drove on assuming he's done this to everyone and would get out of the way. As I passed the border he approved, he came over to the driver's side door and dopily looked at me with his tongue out, then loped off back to the porch.


That was enough fun for me. I decided to go to Little Rock, since I didn't have any other ideas of what to do in Arkansas. Krista helped me pick a place to stay and I drove a few more hours through the Ozark Mountains.

At some point yesterday, I saw a chapel. It sure was fancy.




As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, I was not enjoying the freedom of the road. I was tired. I was annoyed by the windy roads. My hands and wrists were sore, my leg was sore from adjusting the gas in the turns and elevation changes. That's why I didn't really care about the super cool chapel.

And then I had to pee. 

You know how it goes. You're on a road trip in the middle of nowhere Arkansas and you've been pounding water because it's so dang hot in August. Something in your brain whispers, "Maybe keep an eye out for a bathroom." An hour later, something in your brain is screaming, "LOOK FOR A GOOD TREE TO HIDE BEHIND!" 

I was driving on a mountain road, there weren't many places to pull off. Occasionally though, I'd pass through a little town. The first time I pulled over, I saw the employee's car behind the gas station. In place of the front license plate was a confederate flag. No thank you. The next opportunity was a town that looked like a ghost town, only the ghosts were still alive. Finally, I saw a shop selling souvenirs. From the outside it looked clean and well painted. I parked and noticed there were bathrooms to the right. I went to the ladies and it looked clean enough. Cement everywhere, but the stall doors were nice wood, varnished, good latch. No hook to hang my bag. No toilet paper. Well, that's ok because I have some in the car. (Remember a few post back? Day one: always put a roll of TP in the car!) Grabbed the TP, put my bag in the trunk, went back in the stall, locked the door. It was a big stall actually. Very roomy. I sat down and will leave out the details of how good that pee felt. But when I sat down, I started to feel a little dizzy. Not dizzy exactly. A little wobbly. For a second or two, I thought nothing of it. When I drive long distances, especially on windy roads, I can get dizzy from time to time. Just the night before, when I closed my eyes to go to sleep, the bed felt like a boat. But then it kept going, this strange wobbling. I thought, maybe there's a little earthquake? I am from California, you know. Nah, that doesn't make sense. Maybe when I sat down, the toilet moved a little and it kinda messed my brain up. I'll (while peeing) give my butt a little wiggle. Just a little one, to see if maybe the toilet is a little squishy on the seal. Yup, sure enough the toilet moved with my butt. What bothered me was the sloshing. The water in the tank sloshed against the sides and sounded like water against the side of a boat. Immediately, I did that thing that women do when you don't want to touch the seat. We activate leg muscles that I don't think men have. It's a hover muscle that just sort of elevates you a little, but I was still going pretty good and really didn't want to accidentally hit the toilet in one direction or the other, sure it would just tip right over. So, as I waited to finish this epic pee, I half hovered, listening to the sloshing of the bowl underneath me, praying a little prayer that the water stay where it is and not splash up on me. 

I was lucky, and finished with no more drama. I tucked my TP roll under my arm and turned around to flush. Unfortunately, the toilet wouldn't flush. Well, that's just too bad. If it's yellow, let it mellow (or rock for a while, I guess). The soap dispenser was an automatic...that didn't have any soap. The faucet was automatic too...but no water. The paper towel dispenser....well, you get it. I got in my car quickly and drove off, wondering if I hadn't missed the sign that said, "Don't use the bathroom, it's just for show!" About a mile down the road at a scenic overlook, I pulled over and washed my hands with soap I'd taken from the B&B that morning and a bottle of water. I couldn't scrub hard enough.