Monday, September 4, 2017

Little Rock

We took the camper to Little Rock for the Labor Day weekend.  We had originally planned to go to Galveston, but due to some unforeseeable events and Hurricane Harvey, those plans went out the window.  Little Rock seemed to be the next best thing.  We have to stay within a 1-2 hour radius on weekends that are "normal" i.e. Saturday and Sunday, but for those weekends that are either a 3 or 4 day weekend (as was this case this time) we'll go out a little further.  Little Rock is a little over 3 hours from our house.

We left on Thursday and arrived at the campground around 3.  We stayed in the North Little Rock KOA and it isn't a place we'd recommend.

The first two pictures show how small our camper is.  We always park in the 50 amp slots (because we have the portable a/c since the unit that came in it doesn't get that cold and we have Buddy, so...).  Anyway, we always look like the odd balls parked next to the big ones.  Once we got settled on Thursday night, we went to Gus' Fried Chicken for dinner.


 
 Friday, we were up bright and early to give Buddy his shot.  Once we were finished with that, we headed out.  Our first stop was a ''farmer's market" that I found in one of the top 20 things to do in Little Rock list.  It was called McGee and Me and it was really just a farm stand.  We ended up getting some zucchini and jalapenos to cook on the grill for dinner.


Next up was the William Jefferson Clinton presidential library.  We've been to the George Bush one in Dallas previously so we wanted to see how they compared.  The Clinton library was much bigger, but had less people and seemed to have less exhibits to look at.  One nice thing though was that we got it for free because J is retired military.  I guess it was a special weekend because retirees usually pay a lower rate.




Our tour guide.  There is a replica of the room the president holds meetings in so the group in the tour (they had a free 1.5 hour tour here that discussed historical aspects of the 8 years Clinton was in office).


 Picture of one of the halls:


These boxes contained the archives of his official papers:


 View of the outside.  The bridge is a walking bridge:


What a table would look like during a state dinner:


The next few pictures are of his oval office.  You were not allowed to take pictures in the room, but you could stand in the doorway and take them (makes a whole lot of sense):









This building is also on the grounds:



More of the bridge:



After visiting the library, we walked downtown for a bit and eventually caught a ride on the streetcar.  It was free and took you around the whole city.




After touring the city, we went to the Big Dam bridge.  It was only about 2 miles from the campground, but it took us about half an hour to get here because it was nothing but hills and curves (through a residential area).  We walked to the middle of the bridge and then turned around.















After the bridge, we called it a day and went back to the campground.   Here's our cooking set up (we do have a oooktop in the camper, but it's easier just to use the grill-that I got on Amazon Prime Day):


Buddy just hanging out:
 

Our dinner:



Saturday morning, we got up and went to The Purple Cow for breakfast.  It looks like a diner, but is definitely a dive.  The service was terrible and the food was just okay.  You can see the "seasoned potatoes" otherwise known as frozen french fries in the picture below.  We both had the same thing, but J ordered some cheesy grits.  Those were fine (he doesn't like sweet grits and these were not):




After breakfast, we went back to downtown Little Rock and hit the Farmer's Market located on the River Walk:

 




From there we went to see Little Rock Central High School where the Little Rock nine came from:


A gas station located on the corner near the school:



After visiting the school, we went to the state capital building.  We walked right in and there was nobody there.  We did see a security guard and we asked him if we were allowed in and he said yes:





From there, we went to the Arkansas Historical Museum and I took no pictures.  It was disappointing but at least we didn't pay an admission fee as part of the museum was closed for lunch so we walked through the free gallery part.  Our last stop of the day was the Little Rock outlet mall where we picked up a light jacket for J.

We also made a trip to Little Rock Air Force Base and did a bit of shopping there.   We loaded the up the camper on Sunday and headed back home.

Our next trip is scheduled for Columbus Day weekend.  Since J starts his new job this week and I am supposed to go to San Antonio for the last 2 weeks of September, we'll just stick close to home for the rest of the month.

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