June 12: Little Rock

Our camping spot. Nice big area. A huge Sycamore on this side and a huge Pecan tree on the other side. Lots of Pecan trees in this area. I saw an Armadillo last night when I stepped out to lock the truck. It didn't seem to care that I was even in the area - just nosed around and moved on. Also, today we saw that they are cutting wheat here. The wheat actually looks past needing to be cut but it's been pretty wet down here.


Yesterday, we drove into Little Rock to see what we could see. We walked their Riverwalk area and ate lunch there at one of their buildings that houses several different eating places. We then rode the trolley. When the trolley gets to one end of it's route, the operator goes out and disconnects the front bar that reaches up to the electric line and walks to the other end and connects that end of the trolley to the electric line, comes inside and sits at the new front of the trolley. All of us passengers stand up, pull the back of the seat to the other side of the seat and now we're all facing forward again. Pretty cool operation. The woodwork in the trolley was very impressive. We went from Little Rock, across the Arkansas River into N. Little Rock and back. In the picture of the trolley going across the river, you'll see the Peabody Hotel in the background. This hotel houses 4 Mallard ducks - one male and 3 females. They live in the hotel, with full access, including the elevators, for 3 months. Then they are released back to the farm to live out their lives. Another 4 ducks comes in for another 3 months. Apparently they have done this for years. This bridge is a walking bridge. We walked across it and that's where I took the picture of the trolley on the other bridge.



We then drove by the Capitol building, the Governor's mansion and the Quapaw Quarter which is the oldest section of Little Rock with really old homes. The Governor's mansion is in the area. One of the homes (we didn't find it) was featured as the home in Designing Women. That pretty much was our day in Little Rock. We weren't too interested in doing the President Clinton Library but it was a very beautiful and large building. It is located at the end of the trolley line where we had to change over our seats.



The May flies were back today. I took an early morning photo of the side of the camper. They got much thicker by evening. When I walked out to take this picture, apparently I stirred them up because they swarmed me. I had them in my hair, under the bill of my cap, all over my clothes and some on my face. I pretty much just flipped them out of my way and proceeded to take pictures. That evening, we found out that the gray/black flies emerge into another one that looks just like it but is brown. Larry and I called those "newby's". Now we're hoping for rain because all the old shells are stuck to the camper, truck, the jet ski, our bikes and lawn chairs.

Also, the Memosa trees are huge down here AND in full bloom. We can smell them as we ride or walk around the park. We drove by one that went up about 6' before it broke out into branches. I'm more used to them coming up from the ground in about 6 different branches and looking more like a bush. They're really pretty here. And the Magnolia's are big. I saw one today as big as any Cottonwood back in Kansas. They're pretty much past blooming at this point but there are still a few flowers on them.