What's in a retarded rectangle?
Not too many Texans drive out of state very often, or at least I wouldn't think so. After all, it's a big state and you could drive for 14 hours straight and still be in Texas. I suppose this doesn't apply to you if you live near the border. Anyway, being a Texan that doesn't get out much it's no surprise I'm not very used to seeing other state's highway signs. Every time I make it across the border I always notice something odd about them but usually pick up on the difference fairly quickly, not so with Arkansas. This was my first time in Arkansas and noticed the odd highway signs but couldn't pick up on what it was. At first I didn't pay too much attention and they were flying by very quickly. But then I became curious and became consciously aware and wanted to know what was so different about them. I kept seeing the highway number with some weird box background. I remember thinking it was a retarded looking rectangle. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that was no retarded rectangle but the outline of the state of Arkansas. When I go to Louisiana I don't have this problem, but maybe that's because it has a distinct shape. It kind of resembles a little boot. For a little while I thought Arkansans failed that part in school where they went over shapes. Ha ha, the joke's on me.
So what's the difference between a retarded rectangle and Arkansas? I dunno actually, but I will tell you three things that I noticed about the state. Once we got far enough from the Texas-Arkansas border that it was evident we were not in Texas anymore, I realized they didn't call this the "Natural State" for no reason. The scenery was beautiful. The Ozark mountains, which aren't really mountains at all, just really big hills, were a welcomed sight. This natural beauty made my second observation painfully obvious. Every local has some sort of fascination with junk and making it clash with the scenery. Every beat up house, trailer, run down business we passed had some crap on their property. Be it from broke down cars, car parts, piles of wood and stone, and just crap in general, it was there. I remember thinking I've never seen such a large gathering of old broken down school busses in my life, it's like some of the locals collected these things or something. If this wasn't bad enough, they were all trying to sell some shit too. Every few miles we would see some homemade cardboard sign advertising something from pecans, car parts, fruits, socks, wood, and rocks. These people were saying, "Welcome to beautiful Arkansas! Look at my collection of crap and please buy something from me!". I began to wonder if these people didn't have actual jobs and maybe they just tried to sell their crap to each other. It would also seem that the most abundant commodity in those parts were wood and rocks. One more thing I noticed was the lack of brown people past Little Rock, I was an alien in these parts. This was a little worrisome since we'd be very close to Harrison and this guy.
Well, considering I am writing this entry right now it's safe to assume I made it out of Arkansas OK. It took almost 12 hours to get to my girlfriends parents house which is tucked away far far away from civilization. The nearest "large" town had less than 15,000 people. While we were only about half an hour from the Missouri border we were still 5 hours away from St Louis, which sucks because it would have been cool to check that place out.
Thanksgiving was nice. A few random things that happened. We were at some place and this girl asks, "You're not from around here are ya?". Is it really that obvious? We told her we were from Austin, she said she thought we were from San Francisco? I wasn't sure if she meant that as a compliment or a put down. I come to find out there is actually an Austin Arkansas, I wonder if she thought we meant that? At one point I was over 1250 feet above sea level looking over the Ozark "Mountains". I went hunting for the very first time in my life. It was actually kind of fun. I camped out in a deer blind listening to my iPod and watching some deer. The longer I sat there the hunter in me started waking up. I wanted to shoot a deer, or maybe I just wanted to shoot the rifle, I dunno. I saw lots of babies and does but no bucks. Even if you were allowed to shoot them I still don't think I could have the heart to shoot a baby deer. I kept waiting to see a big ol buck so I could claim on my first try hunting I bagged myself a 10 point deer. I never shot the rifle, I don't even know if you can really call it hunting if you don't kill something. But I guess it wouldn't be hunting if you killed something every time, then it would just be called killing.
The drive back home sucked. It was made under cover of night with constant rain for the last 8 hours. Somewhere in Texas, I don't remember where, I saw something burning in the median. It looked like a car at first but then just looked like a burning trash can. As we got a little closer we realized it was, in fact, a burning car and it was upside down. Pretty crazy stuff.
I'm glad to be back home. Arkansas is a nice place... to visit.