Arkansas - last stop!

Friday and Saturday, Aug 5th and 6th

I really had no plan for Arkansas other than see the Ozarks, in the NW corner of the state. Arkansas is the state I probably know the least about. I was impressed by the visitors center and the very friendly lady there who helped me plan a half day of seeing the best of the ozarks, with a nice town to stop in for dinner before heading back north. It involved about 10 miles of dirt roads, but would allow me to go deep into the Ozark national forest and see a great overlook. I was stoked - sounded perfect!

I headed into the forest only to find the roads had detours. I ended up on dirt roads much sooner than expected and went many many miles out of the way before finding the overlook. Granted, the overlook was TERRIFIC - and the ride was beautiful, I was tired of driving, the roads were horrible - but worst, I was running out of gas!!! I went without A/C to save fuel, but since it was at least 110 degrees that meant I was sooo over heated, feeling dehydrated and weak. I pushed through, knowing it was only 10 miles from the overlook to the main road and next town. 10 miles - no problem, right? After doing about 3000 already on the trip???

After the overlook, I found the cut through road, made it about 8 miles down it, only to find it was blocked off!!! YIKES! Gas light on, so many back windy roads behind me to get to that spot, and I can't go any further! I'm exhausted, dehydrated, and so worried that I'll run out of gas in the middle of the forest. I decided I was only a few miles from the town - my best bet was to push forward, USING the closed road, and at worst I'd have a few miles walking to get help if I couldn't get the car through. I moved the barriers and pushed forward. I was happy to see there were tire tracks so someone had been there recently. There was a downed tree - but it had been mostly cleared, the tire tracks went past it and so did I. Thinks were looking good. About one mile to go I saw the real reason for the road closure - the road was BROKEN OFF! It was barely wide enough for me to pass with my little economy rental car - but the tracks I was following had done it, and I figured I could to - so I held my breath and pressed on.

I soon came to the other end of the road block, passed through (good think those signs aren't heavy - they were easy to move aside then put back in place!!) and found the main road and town. I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. Now for a gas station - but WAIT! None in the town! Yikes. So I had two choices - push north and hope for a gas station, or head back south on the main road (toward where I had started had I not gone on the forest roads) knowing the interstate wasn't far. I reluctantly backtracked and headed south - to find, to my sheer delight, a small fishing stop and single gas pump just outside of the town. I got a rehydrating drink, filled the tank and took a little breather. Somewhat recovered from my fiasco, I started back north.

The recommended town of Eureka Springs was indeed quite cute, and I was very happy to settle into what looked like a decent restaurant with live music and have an ice cold beer. (If you know me well, you know this is NOT my norm - but that beer was SOOO needed and OH SO good!) I was rattled, tired, and ready to go home. After dinner I drove north until I couldn't drive anymore, stopped at a hotel for ease and slept. The next morning I packed up all my things and headed back to the Omaha airport. Much easier trip north, knowing the Iowa side was washed out - so I took back Kansas roads and it was smooth going... I was VERY happy to reach the airport and get back to Oregon safe and sound that night!!

Heading South - Oklahoma

Thursday and Friday, August 4th and 5th

I left the conference a few hours early - realizing that I would not manage the 20 hours of driving left for my trip in 2.5 days without doing so. I pushed and went about 10 hours on Thursday and made it to a lovely campsite by a lake just outside Oklahoma City.

Getting there was no easy task, the main highway between Omaha and Kansas City is still

closed from flooding and I had to backtrack and take back roads to get south. I hadn't fully realized the extent of the flooding - despite all that I had already seen - until this. It is heart breaking. The people of Oklahoma have also dealt with recent bad tornadoes, and over 45

days of over 100 degree weather. It was about 110-115 when I was there.

I was a bit worried about this campsite, because I saw about 5 people being stopped by cops in the near by town - and mostly people on foot, in handcuffs, not the typical speeding ticket stops. When i got to the campsite around 10:30pm, there were teens playing and people being obnoxious. I thought maybe I wouldn't be able to stay there. But the ranger pulled up almost immediately, assured me it was safe and told the kids they had to leave - it was for overnight camping only. After she left, a couple came to camp near me - and they had a bad fight. It unnerved me and I slept horribly. At least in the morning I woke up to a lovely view of the lake, went lake swimming and decided that a bath in the lake was far preferable to the tornado damaged camp showers. It was sublime! And quiet. Only one fisherman in site, he waved politely and moved on. My swim shorts and shirt were great fold holding my shampoo, too :)

Then I went to the Oklahoma city bombing memorial and museum. An incredible place - and another must-see. I am very thankful for this recommendation from friends. The memorial is beautiful and very touching, and the museum does a great job and making the people very tangible - the idea of innocent civilian deaths has never been more poignant, yet at the same time, the museum leaves you with a sense of healing. It is a town renewed, not a town broken. One special spot is a tree that amazingly survived the bombing (which ruined several surrounding buildings), and now has a place of honor on the memorial grounds.

Then it was off to Arkansas...

End of Dakota trip

Sunday, July 31

I needed to get back to the conference for an evening meeting - so it was time to drive, drive, drive and get back to Omaha. I stopped in the morning at the corn palace in Mitchell, SD for my last 'tourist' activity - it was a pretty neat spot! The palace was built around 1865 as a way of lobbying for Mitchell to become the capital city - it lost, but the palace remained. It was moved and expanded, and has been updated yearly since about 1904. Souza was hired to play there for the corn festival and ended up changing his schedule from 2 shows a day to 3 because of the high demand and huge crowds! They change up the exterior corn decorations every year, the interior ones are permanent, with fresh corn put in about every 11 years.

I ate lunch at ihop. I had initially stopped at Cracker Barrel, only to see an elderly lady collapse in line - she clearly had fainted and was loosing blood from the spot where she had given blood earlier that day. I was horrified, but even more so, by the fact that her husband was having such a hard time getting anyone to help him, and I couldn't get past the gawking crowd of people who were standing there doing nothing :( I wish I had just pushed past them. Sometimes people really upset me... I left in disgust and stopped further down the road once my appetite returned. I wish I knew if the lady was ok - but mom says chances are good.

I detoured in Iowa, checking out the flooding and the scenic hill region. I was referred to a state park along the lewis and clark trail - but it was closed due to flooding. The hill towns that caught my attention were quite scenic but nearly abandoned. Not even a place to stop for gas or coffee. Many buildings were empty - the signs of a cute past were present, it was sad.

This ended part one of my vacation. I got to Omaha, went to the laundromat, cleaned up, went to my meeting, then had a terrific authentic mexican dinner with my grad students where I was able to laugh, decompress, and tell tails of my travels...

South Dakota - why did it take me 36 years to get here??

Saturday, July 30th

I left my seedy hotel and drove 10 miles south to find myself in Spearfish, South Dakota, one of the cutest 'tourist' to

wns I've ever seen. Why didn't I drive just a bit further the night b

efore? I would have loved staying th

e night there!! I would like to take

a trip based in Spearfish someday. It is at the north end of the Black Hills - and the entrance to Spearfish canyon. I had a lovely little hike there to some waterfalls, waded in the creek, and took photos.

Then I headed through the back roads of the black hills toward Mt. Rushmore. When I first saw it, i though - wow, this is overpriced and over commercialized - I don't want to pay to go in. I drove past, and about half a mile later, I turned back thinking I should see it while I'm here. I'm SO GLAD I did! It is built up for 'the masses' - but I think it's a place to be visited, so if that is the exchange for making it easy for the general public, I guess that's reasonable. The park rangers were terrific - the tour and people along the way were very knowledgable. I found it an interesting dichotomy that they seemed to be saying a lot to honor the native americans whose land was taken - but the honoring was nearly exclusively via the voice of the rangers - where is the REAL honoring? Why not give the land back?? The black hills were sacred to the tribes and they were told white men wouldn't enter that land - but when gold was found we took it over... The gold has destroyed areas and been dug thoroughly - can we let it go now??

I love Teddy Roosevelt, by the way - and if you haven't, read "my last chance to be a boy" - one of the best books I've ever read, about Roosevelt's explorations of the Amazon. Incredible man! He was once SHOT on the way to a campaign speech - gave the speech, THEN went to the hospital.

After this, I took back roads to the Badlands - one of the most breath taking places I've ever seen. Near the south entrance I found a deserted town, Scenic, SD - the town is for sale...

If the winters weren't so harsh - tempting :) My favorite part of the badlands (after I finished gawking at the view) was the wildlife, with the prairie dogs being the highlight. I spent a long time sitting in a field with them, watching and listening - there were hundreds. It was incredible! Zoos are so over-rated... just go into nature, watch, listen, and oh it is so much more rewarding...

That night the campsite I had picked was underwater - so I found a spot between two RV's at a commercial campground and slept quite well despite the fact there seemed to be several campground parties going on. I was happy-tired :)

North Dakota - impromptu safari :)

Friday, July 29 - North Dakota

I didn't really know what to do in North Dakota - I had two goals only: eat Kuchen, and make it as far west as possible so I'd be ready to explore the black hills on Saturday. However, I found that there was a wetland wildlife preserve not far from where I camped, so that's where I ended up spending the bulk of my time. (Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge.) There were apparently less water birds than usual because there was so much water everywhere in the state from the flooding that the birds had gone elsewhere. It was still lovely! I saw lots of birds I can't identify - I'll need to look them up. Pelicans were the only ones I knew for sure - and did NOT expect to see them there! I was fascinated by the sounds of the marsh - the tiny frogs that were too fast for me to photograph were making a racket. Tiny bugs landing on reeds were also much louder than I expected. There was thumping and cracking and rustling and all sorts of sounds. I must have stood silent for 20 mins trying to identify what they were. I suspect there were larger things that I never saw (I did see one Beaver elsewhere - something like that could have made some of the louder sounds!) This was one time I was glad to not have the dogs with me - they don't make for good birding companions!!! I got some terrific photos, on my facebook page, just a few I'll put here because this blog format isn't great for adding photos

.

Then I went to another wetland the ranger suggested, but that one was far less accessible and I couldn't see much, so I moved on. I ate in Bismark, at Kroll's diner (homestyle German-American diner) - http://www.sitdownandeat.com/ it's a pretty cute spot and so incredibly local. The waitress was so friendly so I asked her about what to see in North Dakota - I don't think she's been further than 50 miles from Bismark in all her life... Even more surprisingly, they served Kuchen, and she has never eaten it! (She was easily over 40). I liked it - kind of like custard fruit pie - how can that go wrong?

Then I pressed west to get as close to the black hills as possible. I passed beautiful grasslands and lovely hills that were just a preview of what was to come the next day. I heard forecasts of possible severe thunderstorms with hail and damaging winds so I decided to get a hotel room. I regretted it - it was a pretty shoddy place - apparently there were actors in town from an old cowboy movie for some reunion of the filming, and the town was all booked up - I ended up in a rather seedy motel room and would have had less bugs in my tent!!!