Road trip to Arkansas

First, on Monday, the child we babysat for five years came to visit, since school was out.  She's eight years old now, and I'm so glad she asks to come.  It's sort of funny how she seems to want us to do things we used to do when she was younger, things she recalls from her time spent here.  I had introduced her to a favorite childhood treat of mine when she was about three years old... Graham crackers soaked in milk; that's what she wanted for lunch.  She always has to have a trip with Cliff out to the shop, like in the olden days, and she asked if I would bake some bread in the bread machine.  I looked at the time and said, "Well, I will need to call your grandma and see if she can pick you up a little later, because bread takes a long time."  Grandma was fine with that.

As she and Cliff were on the way back to the house from the shop, her grandma arrived; we'd already eaten some bread, so that was fine.  But Cora had told Cliff she wanted to go back to the house because she wanted me to make her a shake like I so often used to do.  Grandma said she's wait, so I just made a small shake so she wouldn't have to wait too long.  It's like the kid wants to go down memory lane and make sure some things are still the same, even though I got rid of her Little People.  I like knowing she has such memories she wants to replay.

When she left, we started packing for Arkansas.  We knew it was going to be cloudy, cold, and raining, but I thought surely we could find something to do.  The trip down went smoothly; we arrived at Lambert's, home of the throwed rolls, around 12:30 and ate our fill.  The rolls are as good as ever, although the chicken seemed a little over-cooked.  I love the pass-arounds they give out to everybody, as freely as can be:  black-eyed peas, fried okra, fried potatoes, and macaroni and tomatoes.  I think if I went again, I'd just settle for those, since you can have all you want of them!  Cliff said his meat loaf was great, though.  Cliff was doing fine driving, he said, so we set out for Russellville to spend the night.  If it hadn't been raining, we were going to see The Museum of Automobiles, setting at the top of one of the Ozark mountains.  Cliff would have especially enjoyed it.  Unfortunately, we were only planning to spend two nights in Arkansas and it didn't open up until 10 A.M.  If we were going to see anything of interest, we needed to get moving to our next town, Little Rock... the state capital.  

Our first stop was the William Clinton Presidential Library, which was I feel was very much worth our time; I didn't realize it had been closed down since July because of Covid and just re-opened the day before we visited.  They wanted to see our covid cards to make sure we had been vaccinated, and they require masks to enter.  There weren't many people there, probably because it was a week day, it was raining, and they had just re-opened.  There is a lot to see.  Neither of us can walk too much... me because of my knees, and Cliff because he was having a problem breathing after awhile.  We had to walk quite a way from the parking lot to the building, too.

Next, we went to the state capitol.

I didn't get any pictures, since we exited out of a side door in order to make our walk to the car a bit shorter.  It is an imposing building, although it isn't as pretty inside as our Missouri Capitol or the Oklahoma Capitol.

We had been wanting a catfish dinner for awhile, and we found it just a few blocks from the Capitol and the Clinton Library;  I kept the plastic cups as a souvenir. 

 I used to buy souvenir coffee cups everywhere I went, but two old people don't need any more $10 coffee cups, so now I buy refrigerator magnets... for $7.  At least they don't take up so much room, though.

 

This doesn't look so great in a photo because it's one of those things where the photo changes, depending on what angle you're looking at it.  There's a picture of the Library, one of the bridge behind the library, and, as you can see, William Jefferson Clinton.

Speaking of the bridge behind the library crossing the Arkansas River, I did get a picture of it from inside the building.

As we rode to Arkansas and then back home, I practically talked myself hoarse reading a book we both enjoyed.

Oh, he was a rascal all right, but Cliff and I have always loved his piano playing and his singing; we saw him in person once, long ago.  Even though I read aloud for a good five or six hours altogether, I only got a third of the way through the book.  It was interesting to both of us, and the driving time just flew.