On to Arkansas

June 27, 2010. What you don't want to hear 1500 miles into your 3400 mile trip is your dashboard beeping at you. Beep and beep. NO. PLEASE. But no idiot lights came on. Ever cautious, we pulled off the road not 20 minutes after leaving Memphis. I would have kept going, relegating the sound to my cellphone, but Ray says a car never fixes itself. He got out and checked under the hood. The oil was fine. I was assigned to the VW manual. They did not list "Beep" in the index. However under "Warning" they cross referenced "Chime." It's 8:30 and it's 92 degrees. We don't want to play word games. Chimes yielded nothing that helped us and the mystery remained unsolved, but being the desperadoes that we are, we decided to get back on the road.

The up side of this potential mishap was that we did all this checking at a LOVE's Travel Stop. Wow, this place had everything. Remember we are on Interstate 40 now, a main cross country route. So this is what a serious travel stop looks like! It has a Subway for those like Jared shunning grease, a full convenience store, decent restrooms and SHOWERS! Lucky truckers. I wonder if non-truckers can shower? When your number flashes on the large electronic screen, it's your turn to clean up.

A half hour down the pike and beep again. It's GOT to be my phone, Ray's phone, the I pad, the Tom Tom or maybe that smart new camera. I'm to check them all, now that Ray is driving. Wait, a clue. It happens right around 78 mph. Ah ha! Indeed the Tom Tom is the guilty party. When I was putting in our destination this morning (without my glasses) I inadvertantly initiated the warning for going "too fast." How Tom knew we were going too fast beats me. Problem solved.

It was smooth sailing after that. The Ozarks are lovely. Lots of very green farmland. Thankfully the Bill Clinton Library was closed on Sunday morning so we didn't have to pretend we wanted to stop. There were multiple Adult XXX Stores advertised on bill boards, but they were outnumbered by the many mega churches we saw along the highway. A land of contrasts. We decided to stop in North Little Rock at the Old Mill Park on a small lake. It was used in the opening scenes of Gone With the Wind. See the pics of me and Ray.

This was a beautiful, shaded spot with carefully tended flower gardens among the "rocks." All those rocks and bridges you see are actually cement! The trees were real and many had tags identifying them. We read the Sunday paper at a picnic table and took a call from Emily. Then we pushed on to the local Starbucks! Yes, a most civilized spot. Most impressive was that local artists painted the electrical traffic boxes. We have those huge utilitarian structures on many corners in WH now. I think we should do the same.









painted traffic box in North Little Rock


Best highway sign post: Toad Suck Park It just didn't lure us in.