Oklahoma, Hot Springs, Little Rock,  & Memphis

Oklahoma, Hot Springs, Little Rock, and Memphis

April 24-29

April 24: Leaving Santa Fe we saw a coyote standing on the side of the road. Partway through our drive from Santa Fe to Elk City, OK we passed a really disgusting and smelly  cattle farm that went on for miles. Along the way, we stopped at Cadillac Ranch to see the crazy artwork there, a worthwhile and fun stop. We also stopped in Amarillo at a Walmart to do some grocery shopping and restock. As we drove back east, we noticed how much greener Oklahoma is than Texas and New Mexico, and welcomed seeing lush green grass and trees. After our Quartzite ordeal, I think we’re finally feeling back to normal. We arrived at our Harvest Host stop at 66 To Go on historic Route 66, around 6:30 PM, ate dinner, took a small walk, and settled in for the night. It poured, with thunder and lightning overnight, but because we were so tired we actually slept very well. 

April 25: After a good night sleep, we got up, had toast for breakfast, drove through Elk City, which is not particularly interesting, stop for very cheap gas, $2.90 a gallon, and headed on our way toward Oklahoma City to drop our compost off at the Fertile Ground Co-op. On our way to Oklahoma City, just within city limits, we saw a farm with longhorn cattle and bison, which was kind of neat to see. 

The Fertile Ground Co-Op was a really convenient compost drop-off. We were greeted with a few pride flags in the store, and we purchased some compostable bags. After leaving  Oklahoma City, we pass through Potawatomi and Seminole nation land. Then we started getting phone calls from our previous work places saying that someone from the Co-Op found my wallet, which must have dropped out of my pocket outside the compost facility. Luckily the person from the Co-Op, was an honest soul who said he would  mail my wallet to our home. I got onto the DMV site, purchased a replacement driver's licence, and we continued on our way. We tried stopping for lunch in a spot that smelled really bad so we continued on to Okemah, OK and pulled off onto a street called S. Woody Guthrie Street, made and ate a quick lunch and continued on. We arrived at Gulpha Gorge Campground around 6 PM. The campground is beautiful and our site (27) was right on the river. 

April 26: We woke up to find a Great Blue Heron fishing nearby in the river. We had pancakes for breakfast, then rode the bikes he 2 1/2 miles into downtown, historic Hot Springs, which covers much of the National Park. We thought that we could ride our bikes on the Pullman Trail so we wrote our bikes to that trailhead only to find that the trails is really for mountain bikes, so we turned around and rode back into town. We also thought we might go into the spa It at the Buckstaff Bathhouse but the wait was too long. So we walked through the display and saw the springs outside of the Hot Springs National Park Visitor Center and Museum at the Fordyce Bathhouse. Seeing the Fordyce Bathhouse was really interesting as we learned the history of the bathhouses, including the racial and gender divisions. And some of the treatments looked more like torture chambers, so I was glad we didn't go into the Buckstaff Bathhouse which would be very similar.  After looking around, we hiked to the Mountain Pagoda and Tower, and then came down and walked through the town and looked at the little shops, including a nice art gallery. Always looking for vegan  ice cream, we found a rolled vegan ice cream at Chill and Go. We got lavender vanilla with granola and chopped pistachios: YUM! There was an art show in town so we looked at that as well and we biked the Hot Springs Creek Greenway Trail to the end and stopped at the farmers market. We had lunch along the trail sitting on a bench eating PB&J. We rode home later in the afternoon, drank some beer by the river, took showers, talked to friends on the phone, and had adjust eggs burrito for dinner. Now we are settling in and going to watch the movie, Conclave.

April 27: Again this morning we enjoyed watching the Great Blue Heron fishing nearby in the river. We had toast for breakfast, packed up, and headed to Little Rock, Arkansas. We stopped first at the Little Rock Nine Central High School, which was really moving. The building is beautiful building and the school is still in use. The Visitor Center was closed, but we walked around a bit and got a feel for the school. Then we headed downtown and were able to park right on the corner of River and President Clinton St. Because we arerived onSunday morning most everything was closed, but downtown is really cute, and the Riverwalk was impressive. The art work along the Riverwalk is amazing, and the Arkansas River, much bigger than it is in Salida, Colorado, where we have visited in the past. 

Leaving Little Rock, we drove to out stop for the next two nights, at T.O. Fuller State Park in Memphis. The park has an interesting history as being the first state park east of the Mississippi dedicated to African Americans. Our site 11 was nice and large with a nice picnic table emptying into the woods, but the mosquitoes were vicious. We thought we were going to be able to take a hike, but it was rainy and wet with so many mosquitos so we walked along the road down to the Wildlife Habitat Area. Much of the trail was made from rubber crumbs from old tires. Along the way we saw several indigo buntings. Because of the mosquitos, we made dinner inside and listened to the rest of our audio story, The Trees by Percival Everetts, which is an interesting read while driving through the south. Thankfully the weather cooled off a bit and we were able to sleep comfortably.

April 28: Somewhere around 2:30 in the morning, we woke up to the call of a barred owl. It was really cool to hear, even though it woke us up twice. We had a pancake breakfast and drove into downtown Memphis. We drove first to the Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid. We knew we could park there for free and thought we could take a trolley in but the trolley does not seem to be running so we purchased a dog toy for our dog at home and drove into downtown. There is plenty of surface parking in downtown, but some of the areas looked a bit sketchy so we ended up parking right on the corner of Beale and Main, expensive but a seemingly safer option. We then walked down Beale Street which was mostly closed on a Monday morning, and then we walked over to the Edge District which we had read was kind of a cute area. Walking over was a bit sketchy and most of the stores were closed there to, although we saw some pride flags in the area, and Sun Studios. Seeing where so many famous musicians had recorded records was kinda neat to see. Then we walked back along union Street to the downtown area, past the Lorraine Motel and the Civil Rights Museum, with its overwhelming history of where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated. Continuing our walk,  we stopped to eat lunch at the Arcade Restaurant, which claims to be Memphis' oldest cafe. We enjoyed a delicious summer salad, really good french fries, and a mediocre veggie pizza with no cheese (due to us being vegan). We then walked down to the Historic Art District, which we found underwhelming, and then walked back along Main Street, the Tennessee Brewery, which is an amazing old building with an interesting history. Returning to the van, we decided to drive over to the Crosstown Concourse, which is a space that used to be a huge 2 1/2 acres Sears mail-order distribution center. After going defunked, they turned the building into an amazing space with shopping, a church, public radio, art spaces, and open spaces where people can hang out and do work. It reminded us quite a bit of Austin Community College's Hillside Campus that we visited earlier in our trip.  Then we headed over to the Broad Avenue Arts District, and found several a blocks cute stores, but most of them were closed, although we saw a pride flag in the bike shop window. Then we went to a local Whole Foods to do some shopping, The Whole Foods was clearly in a much wealthier part of town. It was surprising to see so much traffic there, as there was almost no traffic in the downtown area. On the way back to the campsite we were happy to fill our gas tank with $2.89 per gallon diesel. Upon arriving back at the campsite, we took showers, drank some good beer, ate a really good stir fry for dinner, and watched a movie. Two notes: Despite being very close by, we decided not to go to Graceland. We also were disappointed not to be able to go to the Chucalissa Indian Village located next to the campground, as it was closed while we were there.