Day 3 - Memphis to Tulsa, Oklahoma by way of Northern Arkansas and a little Missouri
Today we learned that Missouri exerts a powerful force on Stephen's subconscious.
Looking at the weather map as we left Memphis, I saw a large blue blob ominously filled with purple covering the whole of the center of Arkansas, centered right above Little Rock. Our estimated travel time was in the 6 hour range so we felt we had time to veer from the main path. Changing course, we headed to northern Arkansas to take 412 west into Tulsa. Not a bad plan, really. We intended to get off the main highway a little, stop at some small town spots and see what the locals were like.
We crossed the Great Mississippi without incident. Typing "river" into the search function on Stephen's iPod we came up with a list of suitable songs. We started with "River Theme" by Bob Dylan and followed that with "Big River" by Johnny Cash. Johnny mentions Memphis in that one! Perfect. The Carter family singing "River of Jordan" was the conclusion to that short game.
Stephen was driving the first leg of the trip and in the warmth of the cab I began to nod off. I felt a tapping on my leg and opened my eyes to see the largest, flattest expanse I have seen yet.
The one major difficulty with this new route was its level of complexity. Every stretch of road seemed to share two, three or four route names. Immediately west of Memphis we got onto Route 64, Route 55, Route 61 and Route 63 simultaneously! As one or two routes split off on their own course we would invariably pick up another route. Apparently no route in Arkansas can stand to be single for long. I know people like that, though I have never seen the reconfiguring in human relationships move along so seemlessly and unfortunately in our case. almost invisibly.
The breakup of the family of routes 62, 63 and 412 in Hardy, Arkansas, transpired without tears or even comment. Stephen, driving happily. certainly didn't notice. The next time I checked into Google Maps I found we were in Missouri, 19 miles north of off our route. Oops. Route 63 had silently stolen us away.
At times the road was more like a highway and we could maintain an average speed around 60mph. But it would occasionally slow down, winding through hills and past small settlements of immobile mobile homes in forests of barren trees. The landscape felt almost monochromatically brown. Beautiful in a harsh way.
On a whim passing through a more populated part of the road we pulled into a place called "Dairy King." Not quite sure if it was a restaurant or a convenience store, we were just curious. The room was one large rectangle set up like a high-school cafeteria. The customers were predominantly men in hunting gear - unshaven in dirty boots, khaki and camouflage. On the wall hung large photographic portraits which came in two distinct varieties: women in conservatively nice clothing with their hair done up lounging on rocks in a river or men dressed in hunting garb, holding a rifle proudly in two hands, with or without a dog perched in front of them. I felt see-through in my grockle status, like "yankee liberal outsider" was beaming from my eyes. Neither of us was hungry so for an awkward moment we tried to decide if we should sit down while the hostess eyed us with a cocked eyebrow. We sat with the menus for a moment, Stephen bought a Gatorade. We both went to the bathroom then got back on the road. Those are exactly the kinds of experiences I want to have while travelling - to feel like I am really out of my element, like I am visiting a place I most definitely do not belong.
We ate a late lunch at a place along the rode in Yellville, Arkansas. No one else was in the restaurant which I didn't think much of at first. The buffet looked promising, lots of southern cuisine choices and not everything was fried. But it didn.t live up to its potential. In fact it was mostly inedible. I think everything must've come out of cans. Bland and tepid. The black-eyed peas were in a sickly-sweet sauce that may have been going bad. Oh well. the mashed potatoes were edible. While sitting there a police car pulled into the parking lot behind two other cars. For a moment the waitress was excited, thinking they had more customers, but then realized what was giong on. "That's the only way we can get customers these days! When a cop pulls them over!" No kidding.
Looking out the window at the restaurant:
While paying our tab at the register our waitress, a short woman with a confederate flag tattoo on her lower arm arm engaged us in conversation. The odd, younger bus boy with a slow way of talking stood at her side. We were the only people around. She said she had lived in Illinois and Arizona. She missed Arizona. She told us how the weather was much colder than usual and they didn't often get snow. Her house had been without electricity for 10 days in the last storm. She kept talking to us long past the point of polite conversation, I kept making small gestures as if I wanted to leave, but neither of them seemed to be picking up on it. They must get bored and lonely all day in that empty restaurant. Finally we escaped.
The most interesting part of the day, though, was arriving in Tulsa and meeting Stephen's old friend Brian. More on that in the next post.
Looking at the weather map as we left Memphis, I saw a large blue blob ominously filled with purple covering the whole of the center of Arkansas, centered right above Little Rock. Our estimated travel time was in the 6 hour range so we felt we had time to veer from the main path. Changing course, we headed to northern Arkansas to take 412 west into Tulsa. Not a bad plan, really. We intended to get off the main highway a little, stop at some small town spots and see what the locals were like.
We crossed the Great Mississippi without incident. Typing "river" into the search function on Stephen's iPod we came up with a list of suitable songs. We started with "River Theme" by Bob Dylan and followed that with "Big River" by Johnny Cash. Johnny mentions Memphis in that one! Perfect. The Carter family singing "River of Jordan" was the conclusion to that short game.
Stephen was driving the first leg of the trip and in the warmth of the cab I began to nod off. I felt a tapping on my leg and opened my eyes to see the largest, flattest expanse I have seen yet.
The one major difficulty with this new route was its level of complexity. Every stretch of road seemed to share two, three or four route names. Immediately west of Memphis we got onto Route 64, Route 55, Route 61 and Route 63 simultaneously! As one or two routes split off on their own course we would invariably pick up another route. Apparently no route in Arkansas can stand to be single for long. I know people like that, though I have never seen the reconfiguring in human relationships move along so seemlessly and unfortunately in our case. almost invisibly.
The breakup of the family of routes 62, 63 and 412 in Hardy, Arkansas, transpired without tears or even comment. Stephen, driving happily. certainly didn't notice. The next time I checked into Google Maps I found we were in Missouri, 19 miles north of off our route. Oops. Route 63 had silently stolen us away.
At times the road was more like a highway and we could maintain an average speed around 60mph. But it would occasionally slow down, winding through hills and past small settlements of immobile mobile homes in forests of barren trees. The landscape felt almost monochromatically brown. Beautiful in a harsh way.
On a whim passing through a more populated part of the road we pulled into a place called "Dairy King." Not quite sure if it was a restaurant or a convenience store, we were just curious. The room was one large rectangle set up like a high-school cafeteria. The customers were predominantly men in hunting gear - unshaven in dirty boots, khaki and camouflage. On the wall hung large photographic portraits which came in two distinct varieties: women in conservatively nice clothing with their hair done up lounging on rocks in a river or men dressed in hunting garb, holding a rifle proudly in two hands, with or without a dog perched in front of them. I felt see-through in my grockle status, like "yankee liberal outsider" was beaming from my eyes. Neither of us was hungry so for an awkward moment we tried to decide if we should sit down while the hostess eyed us with a cocked eyebrow. We sat with the menus for a moment, Stephen bought a Gatorade. We both went to the bathroom then got back on the road. Those are exactly the kinds of experiences I want to have while travelling - to feel like I am really out of my element, like I am visiting a place I most definitely do not belong.
We ate a late lunch at a place along the rode in Yellville, Arkansas. No one else was in the restaurant which I didn't think much of at first. The buffet looked promising, lots of southern cuisine choices and not everything was fried. But it didn.t live up to its potential. In fact it was mostly inedible. I think everything must've come out of cans. Bland and tepid. The black-eyed peas were in a sickly-sweet sauce that may have been going bad. Oh well. the mashed potatoes were edible. While sitting there a police car pulled into the parking lot behind two other cars. For a moment the waitress was excited, thinking they had more customers, but then realized what was giong on. "That's the only way we can get customers these days! When a cop pulls them over!" No kidding.
Looking out the window at the restaurant:
While paying our tab at the register our waitress, a short woman with a confederate flag tattoo on her lower arm arm engaged us in conversation. The odd, younger bus boy with a slow way of talking stood at her side. We were the only people around. She said she had lived in Illinois and Arizona. She missed Arizona. She told us how the weather was much colder than usual and they didn't often get snow. Her house had been without electricity for 10 days in the last storm. She kept talking to us long past the point of polite conversation, I kept making small gestures as if I wanted to leave, but neither of them seemed to be picking up on it. They must get bored and lonely all day in that empty restaurant. Finally we escaped.
The most interesting part of the day, though, was arriving in Tulsa and meeting Stephen's old friend Brian. More on that in the next post.