Trip toward home turns into a Trail of Tears!

Arkansas is cool! Who knew?

We blew right through Oklahoma only stopping for about 6 hours in one campground and 1 hour at the Bass Pro Shops in Oklahoma City. We thought that Arkansas would be just about as boring as Oklahoma but were pleasantly surprised to find that Arkansas is really, well, pleasant.

The first best thing about Arkansas is their rest area and welcome center on I-40 as you enter the state from Oklahoma. Its housed in an authentic looking log cabin and is staffed with a lady to tell you everything you need to know to enjoy the state.

So we drove through the Ozarks in the morning and decided we would stop at a city park for some excercise in Little Rock. Well we got sort of lost on the way to the park but found ourselved in the midst of the nicest neighborhood we'd ever seen. We finally found the park and it was fantastic. In fact, most of the Arkansas River frontage in Little Rock is actually a series of parks with about 24 miles of walking trails under shady trees. Jack and I walked across the Arkansas River on their 1/2 mile bridge constructed just for pedestrians. Our impression of Little Rock is that other urban areas in the south should really take a look and steal some of their ideas.

We left Little Rock and camped two nights at Village Creek State Park in eastern Arkansas. Arkansas also has some really great state parks. One of the draws to Village Creek is their horse trails. All day long, horse trailers enter the park. The park even has stalls that you can rent for your horse while you camp nearby. Another draw to the park is that it contains the last visible evidence of the Trail of Tears. There is an old road within the park boundaries built by the military appropriately called "The Military Road". The road was constructed primarily to expedite and facilitate the removal of Native Americans from the East toward Oklahoma. Hayley is pictured above hiking the same trail that the Cherokee and Choctaw were forced to march in the 1800's.

And still another great attraction to this park were two beautiful lakes with swimming areas. Even though the water was cold, Hayley and Jack both went swimming. We also got the canoe wet again for several hours. While watching the kids swim, we also met two nice locals, Melvin and Carolyn who sat and talked with us for a while. Melvin is a bit of history buff and shed some light on Meriweather Lewis' demise (likely a suicide) on the Natchez Trace.

Overall, we determined that Arkansas was the "Sleeper" state of our trip because we really had no idea it would be so good.