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.
