memphis to little rock to fort smith to shawnee
at the end of day 2 i can say driving across the country is really quite easy, provided you have books on cd. total miles traveled so far: 1228. percent of trip complete: 34.
after lunch i headed out of memphis, crossing the wide mississippi into arkansas. the thing that struck me about arkansas was the number of dead armadillos along the side of the road. i didn’t quite realize there were armadillos living that far out of texas.
i took a slight detour to see about visiting the clinton presidential library. unfortunately i got there at 4:30pm—they closed at 5pm and weren’t letting anyone in.
having driven into little rock on i-30, i thought the city looked cool and worth exploring, but the sun was beating down as they turned me away at the library, so i bid little rock adieu and continued on my way, towards a town called fort smith, on the border with oklahoma.
fort smith was my goal to reach for dinner, i arrived around 7pm, navigated my way towards the downtown in search of a local restaurant (or similar establishment), and found myself struggling to find just one. eventually after driving down a depressing commercial strip, i stopped at juan’s mexican restaurant. here’s an actual review i just found online:
the “salsa” of which they speak was almost indistinguishable from ketchup. i literally did a double take. i ordered some queso, which i used in place of the ketchup-salsa and had a reasonable fajita salad.
with that meal consumed, i was ready to leave fort smith forever, but not before parking out in front of a closed coffee shop, in the deserted downtown i’d previously driven through, where i’d seen a “free wifi” sign in the door. which begot the previous post.
after which i was off to oklahoma city, and i almost made it, but i started feeling sleepy, so i pulled off the highway in a place called shawnee. landing myself in the last room at a hampton inn. with free wireless internet.
next leg: shawnee to amarillo
Well, you are pretty much single handedly proving the ubiquity of Free Wi-Fi. :-)
Drive safe.