Big River and Little Rock: Petit Jean State Park, AR 6/17/08

This is Ned filling in for Debi again. Turns out one of the disadvantages of T.O. Fuller State Park in Memphis is it’s proximity to the airport. Guess who makes (what seems like) hundreds of take-offs and landings around 3 a.m. in Memphis? You guessed it: FedEx, because Memphis is their national hub. Anyway, Debi says she didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Meanwhile, I apparently slept through all the noise (possibly from my years of training near the Oakland airport?) Anyway, this morning began with us riding our bikes on the pedestrian walkway above the monorail tracks over to the River Walk at Mud Island. The advantage of being one of the first people there after they opened the gates at 10 a.m. was that we got to ride all around and scope out the whole place with almost no one else around. My sister Polly had recommended that we see this place. It’s a half-mile long, concrete scale model of the Mississippi River running all the way from it’s head waters to the Gulf of Mexico. Fascinating! The other fun thing about it, besides being very informative about many geological and historical facts about the river, is that little kids just LOVE to wade in it! There was one group of moms who had a group of about 10 very little kids, every one of them intently wading around the curves of the scale model river with their little Crocs on! While on our bikes, we also checked out the housing on the north end of Mud Island. It looks like a very tastefully planned community with many great looking houses. Debi thought it would be a fun place to kayak from every morning, if she lived there. While we were overlooking the Mississippi we also saw acouple of huge tug boats pushing about 10 barges each up river. It really gives you an appreciation for the strength of the river’s current to watch the mammoth wake churning up behind those tug boats to make very modest progress upstream. After leaving Memphis, we headed into Arkansas, speeding along Interstate 40 past lots of rice, corn, and sorghum fields. It made us appreciate the back roads that we normally drive, since the number of Eighteen Wheelers on this stretch of highway was phenomenal. Most of them seem intent on driving about 75 miles an hour too, which makes it a little difficult, if you happen to be trying for a relatively fuel-conserving 65 mph. Once we arrived in Little Rock, we went directly to the Visitor’s Center, where we got lots of great ideas from a very helpful woman. We then took our bikes and found the Farmers Market along the river. We found a great place for lunch called the Flying Fish where we both had a different version of catfish. (See photo of me in front of their wall of fanciful artwork waiting for my lunch to arrive.) Debi had catfish grilled with veggies, while I had mine fried in a Po’Boy sandwich, accompanied with fries and hush puppies. Both were delicious. Debi says she has missed eating real vegetables! (No, fried Okra doesn’t count.) After that we spent quite a while in the Old Statehouse Museum, which had some really excellent displays, but which the most noteworthy were Bill Clinton’s running shoes (New Balance) and saxophone, along with Hillary’s Inauguration Ball dress, when Bill became governor of Arkansas (really matronly!) We also biked and drove around some of the rest of Little Rock. Debi was especially impressed with what a pleasant looking little town it is, with lots of very stately older homes. We then headed along the back roads toward Petite Jean State Park, passing through some very beautiful wooded countryside, and along some spectacular lakes. Right before arriving at the park we pulled into a little overlook which gave us an amazing view of the Arkansas River meandering below with lots of lush farmland spreading in all directions. This park was the first state park in Arkansas, established around 1928, with the registration headquarters having the rustic look of something made during the 1930’s by FDR’s CCC. We don’t know yet whether we’ll hang out here for just one night, or maybe two. We plan to play it by ear in the morning.