A 28 year-old's haphazard attempt to get a life

Since I know you’re probably curious, here are some fun facts about my new city:

* There’s a street in 1950’s theme that has a traditional diner and acapella singing group.

* There are shops that sell everything from pancake mix to pop guns to tin can banjos on every corner.

* The local cuisine includes funnel cakes, ice cream floats, corn dogs, and sausage on a stick.

* Everyone is accommodating, helpful and unfailingly polite.

* Games line the streets and prizes are awarded readily.

* There are mines, log cabins, bald eagles, and a locomotive within a two mile radius.

* Pie is served by the pound.

* There is a Titanic replica down the street.

* Several roller coasters without any lines line the perimeter.

* There is a queen and a museum dedicated solely to her life.

That’s right everyone.  Forget Nashville.  I’m going to the greatest place in the country.  I’ve decided to move to Dollywood.

Dollywood is one of the nicest theme parks that I’ve visited.  Everyone is Disney-friendly, but instead of peddling hats with Mickey ears on them, Dollywood offers coonskin caps… much more my speed.  The rides are fun.  The lines are short, and the park is hidden within the Smoky Mountains, so you have no idea where you’re going.  As a result, each turn of the corner offers yet another surprise.  You might as well be walking around wearing a blindfold.  Above all though, the people-watching at Dollywood simply can’t be beat.  In every way, Dollywood is head and shoulders above the rest.

Upon our arrival in Pigeon Forge, I knew that I was in love with the place the moment that I saw the Titanic on the side of the road.  No explanation.  Just the Titanic.  Apparently, it’s quite an elaborate museum dedicated to the ship’s artifacts.  Had I known about this ahead of time, I would have adjusted my schedule for additional time in the Smoky Mountains.  Luckily though, after today, I know I’ll be back.

Once we finally arrived at the park, parked the car, and took the tram all the way to the entrance, we proceeded to wait in line for twenty minutes to purchase our tickets.  “Was it that crowded?” you ask.  No.  No it wasn’t.  It turns out that for a person of a certain age, the employment choices are Wal-Mart greeter or manning the ticket booth at Dollywood.  For some reason though, we didn’t mind.  It was clear right away that time knows no existence in Dollywood, and this feeling seemed to miraculously transfer to me upon stepping onto the premises.  I’ve never been as patient in my life as I was in Dollywood.

After entering the gates of Heaven, confusion set in.  First off, how have I never been here before?  This place might as well be called Cathiwood.  Second, is this a practical joke?  The map is written in hieroglyphics and the only things visible are the trees.  Do we follow the trees to the left?  Or the trees to the right?  I had never been in a theme park that I couldn’t see before.  After going to the museum (where again, no photography is allowed.  Dollywood Museum, meet Dealey Plaza…), my mom suggested that we take the train to “get a feel of the park.”  I agreed.  A nice ride around the park sounded like a good idea.

In the words of my marketing professor, Dr. Adler, “wrongo buddy.”  We waited for twenty minutes to get onto the train, all the while thinking, “well, we’ve waited this long..” I now know for the next time that the moment it starts to occur to me, “I’ve already waited this long…” is exactly when I should make a swift about face.  Things will not improve.  While in line for the train, I checked out the map to figure out where we would be let off on the other side of the park.  The map was extremely confusing, so I couldn’t figure it out.  We eventually boarded, and about fifteen minutes later, we were finally on our way out of the station.

The conductor greeted us, “Is everyone ready to enjoy our tour into the Smoky Mountains?” Huh?!  Tour into the Smoky Mountains?!  It couldn’t be.  “No,” my mom assured me, “that’s not what they mean.”  Next thing I know, she tells me that she hates to be the one to break the news to me.  The map specifies, “five mile round trip tour of the Smoky Mountains.”  Five miles?  Round trip?  Can you say, “time suck?”  But, like I said before, time has no place in Dollywood.  And besides, it’s not the park’s fault that I can’t read a map.  Tip: When the train tracks are drawn going off the page, there’s a larger meaning to consider.

I love Dollywood.  As if the rides, food, and shops weren’t enough, the presence of several bald eagles cemented a lifelong infatuation for me.  What’s more American than a coonskin cap and a couple of bald eagles?  Even Wal-Mart’s torch starts to flicker when compared to the light of Americana that shines through Dollywood.  One piece of apple pie from this place could feed a family of ten (or, based on appearances, one typical guest of Dollywood), and the feeling of the American dream is nowhere more evident than this theme park.  Just one look at the replica of Dolly’s two room childhood log cabin that she shared with her parents and ten brothers and sisters cements that fact.  You see the rags, and then you turn around and realize that you’re literally standing in the riches.

Being in close proximity to Dollywood is already worth living in Tennessee for me.  I’m officially obsessed with the Volunteer State, show me no more.  As if the day wasn’t enough, while driving to Nashville tonight, I witnessed one of the best sunsets that I’ve seen in a long time.  Of course, I was too busy trying to take pictures of it to really enjoy it, but hey, that’s a different story.

Tomorrow I will explore Nashville and attempt to start putting a life somewhat together.  I think that I might be beginning to forget that I won’t be a nomad forever (so I assume…).  It’s gotten to the point where I see “200 miles” on the schedule for the day and I think, “oh, just around the block.”  I’m happy to report though that both the civic, my mom, and me are doing well.  She returns back to Massachusetts tomorrow, and on Wednesday, I will proceed onto Georgia.

Thanks for reading!

Distance Traveled: 497 Miles; Current Location: Loudon, TN

A while back, after traveling through Texas, I mentioned that I don’t have a navigation system in my car.  I was doing well with my system, looking up directions online before leaving for the next destination, and after 4,000 miles, I had run into very few issues with this way of doing things.  Today, however, I changed things up.  I brought a navigation system with me into the car, and just as I had suspected it would, the navigator lead me completely astray.  It told me that my directions were wrong.  It told me to turn right when I knew that I should turn left.  It’s constant voice told me where I wanted to go and the places that I wanted to avoid, even when it’s advice didn’t prove to be accurate at all.  Finally, with thirty miles to go, I had had enough.  I looked at the navigational device and said (in my always perfectly pleasant tone of voice), “please be quiet, mom.”

Luckily, for the most part though, things continue to carry on quite smoothly, and the time in the car does seem to go by faster when someone is along for the ride.  I was happy to have my mom with me on this leg of the trip especially because along our drive from Sandusky to Knoxville, I had planned to stop off to experience the thing that I was most looking forward to on the entire journey (hopefully that doesn’t mean that it’s all downhill from here).  I had planned to stop off in Cincinnati to see the house that I lived in from age five to age seven.  I had never been back to Cincinnati since we moved to Georgia in 1993, and I have long been curious to find out exactly how my recollections would stack up to reality.

In preparation to see the house and our old neighborhood, I would often snap back to an argument that I vividly recall having with my mother when I was about seven years old.  In it, I was insisting that the tennis courts that I had played on as a toddler had a taller net than the tennis courts that I was currently taking lessons on.  “Yes huh, mom!  The net went over my head!”  With more patience than I would have had, she tried to explain to me that I had grown.  I refused to believe her.  In the back of my mind, leading up to today’s voyage to Cincinnati, I wondered if in seeing the street corner where I sometimes sat and ate my dinner so that I didn’t miss the ice cream man, or in looking at the elementary school that I attended, or in driving by our old Kroger, that I would notice a bunch of very short nets.  I wondered exactly how eye opening it would be to see the land that I lived in as a child through an adult’s eyes.

Turns out, not very.  Not very eye opening at all.  On this trip, I have experienced time travel by going to the Wal-Mart museum, and I’ve experience time change by driving through each time zone in the country, but it wasn’t until today that I experienced a total time freeze.  It wasn’t until today, when I went to Cincinnati, that I realized the meaning behind the phrase, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”  My house, my neighborhood, my street corner bus stop where I would sit and wait for the ice cream man, none of it could have looked anymore similar to the way that I had remembered it.  Everything was exactly the same.   Sure, there were a couple new houses here and there, but there were no tiny backyard fences, there was no magical rainbow with a pot of gold there to greet me, there were no short nets.  It was exactly as I had remembered.

Immediately after getting to the old country, I was glad that I had visited it.  I now realize that I can stop wondering what our old neighborhood looks like because I lived there for a year and a half, so I already know what it looks like, and besides, what’s the difference anyway?  I also now know that I never have to go back there again. I can focus completely on starting my current life so that I have some other place to visit twenty years down the road, and I can tell my kids, “you know, there used to be a very tall net here.”  Visiting Cincinnati again was one of my main goals for this trip, and I’m happy that I accomplished it.  Although it seems like a great city and I lived there once,  it also became clear to me today that just like the other places that I’ve been so far on this adventure, Cincinnati isn’t my city.

My experience with the Ghost of Cathi Past leads me into the next milestone of today’s trip, the brush with the Ghost of Cathi Future.  Today, we entered Tennessee.  My trip across America will continue on after this point by going to Georgia and up the East Coast to Massachusetts, but I thought that I should come to Tennessee on a scouting mission ahead of time rather than simply showing up in July with all my stuff and a really confused look on my face.  I’m 100% certain that this feeling was consciously created in my head, but as soon as I saw the sign that says, “Tennessee welcomes you,” it felt like I was being welcomed home.  Well, maybe not “home” per se, but at least to a place that I knew could one day become my home.

And that’s what I’m going with from here on out.  Throughout my trip, at various stops along the way, I have been asked where I’m coming from or have had to sign into a place, listing a hometown along with my name.  Although I have sometimes responded, “none,” it will be nice to have a simple answer to this expectedly simple question.  Though I am wholeheartedly from Marietta, Georgia, it hasn’t seemed appropriate to tell people that that’s where I’m coming from since I haven’t lived there in seven years.  Likewise, telling people that I’m coming from Los Angeles implies that I plan to return to it before hell freezes over.  So, from now on, I’m going with Tennessee.  As of today, I come from Tennessee.  After all, the rest of the drive will take place after my jaunt here, so this is technically where I am “coming from” anyway.

Tomorrow, we are off to experience Dollywood in Pigeon Forge!  While in my heart, Dolly Parton will never be The Judds, I still think she’s pretty fantastic, so I can’t wait to see what her kingdom has to offer.  Afterwards, we’ll be driving to Nashville for my first look in several years at the place where I’ll be living (ha!)…. hopefully I will feel more of an attachment to it there than I have thus far along my journey… if not, I’ll learn to love it I’m sure.

I hope everyone has a great week!  My trip officially has less than two weeks to go!

Current Location: Sandusky, OH

How much would you pay for the luxury of spending a day standing around in a moshpit of strangers, some of whom look like they’re one bad decision away from Cops, if you’re promised that for each hour spent doing absolutely nothing, you’ll be rewarded with two to three minutes of entertainment?  Today, for me, the answer to this question turned out to be $47.99.  That’s the amount that I paid to enter Cedar Point.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved roller coasters.  While some kids have trepidation over going on big rides, my only concern was whether or not I would be tall enough for them.  Not that I have any lasting memories of being too young to ride or anything, (1989 – Storyland, 1991 – King’s Island and Typhoon Lagoon) and not that I have any doubt that I took this news in stride and simply picked a different ride without any tears, complaining, or argument – I was a dream child.  But I do remember that the more daunting an attraction appeared, the more I wanted to go on it. Sure, Disneyland is fun, but to continue with the theme of Clark Griswold, “enough with this kid’s stuff.  Where are the big rides?”

Luckily, thanks to my videotape of the top ten best coasters in the country that I watched repeatedly as a child, I knew exactly where to find the big rides.  The big rides are in Sandusky, Ohio.  The big rides are at Cedar Point.  I wanted to come here to experience the thrills that I have heard tales of, but more importantly, I wanted to make the trek to Cedar Point so that the next time I remark that I enjoy roller coasters and on cue, someone asks me whether or not I have ever been to Cedar Point, I can avoid the speech that unfailingly follows my response and begins with, “Dude!  You gotta go to Cedar Point!”

Sure enough, I now know that Cedar Point has some great rides.  I loved Milennium, Gemini, and Top Thrill Dragster especially, but there were several others that I enjoyed too.  Even the random Space Mountain rip off that takes place in a warehouse on the park’s edge turned out to be a good time.  Of course, based on the rickety nature of this particular ride, I’m guessing the warehouse obstructs it from view for a reason.  Overall though, I would say that Cedar Point is certainly a park for roller coaster enthusiasts.  I wouldn’t necessarily suggest traveling great distances to experience it, but hey, you guys probably weren’t in danger of doing that anyway.

As much fun as Cedar Point turned out to be, it did point out some ways to me in which it appears I might have changed a bit.  For instance, I found myself ready to leave the park at about 5:00.  5:00?!  Isn’t that when the lame putzes are just starting to leave?  Am I a lame putz?!  Secondly, some of the rides felt to me like what I would imagine it feels like to be in a literal train wreck.  Now, I’ve been “a train wreck” before, but I’ve never actually been in a train wreck, so I can’t say for sure, but I think that Cedar Point’s wooden coaster, Mean Streak, is a pretty standard virtualization. Before I got onto that particular ride, I had read that it’s the longest coaster at Cedar Point.  “Sweet!” the ten year-old voice inside me thought, “the longest ride!”  Moments into the experience however, my current voice took hold and yelled, “holy shit,  I’m one of the dice in the Yahtzee can, and this is the longest ride…!”

Even though I love roller coasters, being at a theme park can still be draining for me.  Typically, I try to engage in as little physical activity as possible, so having the opportunity to walk and stand for ten straight hours isn’t something that I would ordinarily offer to exchange money for.  I also prefer to spend the majority of my time indoors and am not one to mess with the elements of heat, rain, humidity, sleeveless shirts… etc. so spending an entire day outside doesn’t usually interest me either. Furthermore, I don’t necessarily strive for virtue, so though “patience” is listed as one, I don’t gravitate towards it.  Despite all of these negative factors though, I do love roller coasters, so every once in a while, I’ll put up with these drawbacks in order to ride them.  If you want to know why someone would pay this money to walk around, wait, and read all day though, you’ll have to ask my mother.

My mom doesn’t go on roller coasters, or any rides for that matter.  Actually, that’s unfair, she did ride both the train and the cable car that took us from one side of the park to the other.  She said she preferred the cable car.  After all, there is more of a daring element to that one.  The good news about having her join me at Cedar Point though was that I had someone to walk from one ride to the next with, and she was there to hold my stuff.  Major bonus on that one.  She also took pictures, even of a group of people in Amish dress riding the Mantis, but she took them on her camera, the one we don’t have the computer cord for.  When I suggested to my mother that she had never been on a roller coaster before and might want to try one, she got very defensive and corrected the record. “I went on Thunder Mountain Railroad!”  Well, that’s true, so I’ll let you all be the judges on that one.

Overall, we had a good time at Cedar Point, and I think we are both glad that we came here.  Tomorrow, we are off to experience the thing that I’ve been anticipating the most about my trip, so I am very excited, and I will tell you all about it once we arrive in Knoxville, TN tomorrow night.  And If I didn’t have my fill of theme parks for the week, Dollywood is scheduled for Monday!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Miles Traveled: 367; Current Location: Sandusky, OH

June 17, 2011

McDonald’s Corporation
2111 McDonald’s Drive
Oak Brook, IL 60523

To Whom It May Concern:

I had a gray carseat in the late 1980’s. Today, my nieces have beautiful carseats with flower designs complimented by bright colors and patterns, but when I was a kid, my carseat was gray. I didn’t have any designs. I didn’t have any flowers. But I was happy riding along in my carseat, listening to Raffi or the Beach Boys or whatever the heck else children listened to back then. I was happy, because at a very young age, I learned that there was one thing that I could depend on whilst strapped into my gray seat. There was one thing that would make any long trip fun. There was one thing that never let me down. And that one thing was my Chicken McNugget Happy Meal with an orange soda from McDonald’s. From a very young age, McDonald’s, I knew that I could depend on you.

It was with great joy and anticipation then that when I decided to take a “car trip” across the entire country, I added Chicago to my list of destinations in order to visit you, McDonald’s, my buddy of twenty-five years. Not only do I enjoy museums that recreate experiences from the past, I knew that embarking on a trek of modern day America without including the McDonald’s Museum on that tour would be unconscionable. What, aside from Wal-Mart perhaps, could possibly be “more American” than McDonald’s? I knew that I had to pay tribute to the great American franchise and to Ray Kroc’s dream.

I researched the museum prior to my departure. I read the reviews. I checked the hours. I scanned the Internet for information on Store #1. It all looked perfect. The original scene of McDonald’s. Vintage cars in the parking lot and all. After a journey of 3,300 miles from Los Angeles to Chicago to see your museum, I was high on anticipation for today.

I’m sure then, that you can understand the disappointment that I felt this morning when I arrived at your museum, camera in hand, and found large padlocks across the gate and tarps covering each one of the vintage cars. I’m sure you can understand the disappointment that I faced, after driving all the way to Chicago simply for your museum, to find that it was closed without explanation or warning. In addition to bitter disappointment, I’m sure you can also understand the confusion that I went on to feel after reading the sign outside noting that the store is open from Memorial Day through Labor Day, with the exception of July 4th. Does June 17th not match this criteria? Are we not currently in the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day?

With the look of disbelief strewn across my face, I went to the currently operating McDonald’s restaurant across the street and demanded answers. One of the workers there told me to try back on July 4th and proceeded to inform me that the museum had been permanently closed to visitors. A “museum that’s closed to visitors?”…. I ask you, McDonald’s, is that not just storage? And July 4th? The specific date for which your sign indicates closure?

Should the museum truly be “closed to visitors,” I’d like to offer this bit of information to you. So far, on my trip, I have passed museums dedicated to toys, old gas station signs, candy, barns, tractors, and pieces of tin. I have been to museums for UFOs, alien statues, and the replication of Bedrock City, Fred Flintstone’s hometown in the Hanna-Barbara cartoon. Does it then not make sense for McDonald’s, the world’s largest chain of fast food restaurants that serves over 58 million people each day, to have a functional museum that’s “open to visitors?” You’d think, after all, that you could afford the maintenance of such an undertaking.

I’d like you to know that we proceeded to have McDonald’s for lunch because it was the most convenient option, and I’m a sucker for convenience, but in the future, I will think long and hard before dining at one of your fine establishments again. Unless, of course, you would like to send me some coupons or reimburse me for the hundreds of dollars that I spent on gas driving to your nicely decorated storage facility.

I am willing to guess that I am the only one, of the 58 million customers that you serve each day, who has ever driven through nine states to visit your museum. So, as your most loyal customer, I think that a year’s worth of free McDonald’s would be a fair repentance for your wrongdoing in this matter… unless of course, you were thinking “lifetime supply,” which I would also accept.

I look forward to hearing from you and to speaking with you about my thoughts and plans for your future museum. Please let me know which date and time I should arrive for the ribbon cutting ceremony. I am happy to provide my own scissors.

Do the right thing, McDonald’s. Do not go the way of Mighty Casey’s. “What’s Mighty Casey’s?” you ask. To which I reply, “exactly.” And you should know that they didn’t have a museum either.

Good Day to You,

Catherine Sinkel

Miles Traveled: 303; Current City: Chicago, IL

I vividly recall seeing A League of Their Own in the theater.  I was six years old and spent the entire time trying to figure out which character Madonna was playing.  I knew Madonna as a blonde, and at that age, it never occurred to me that a person’s hair color can be changed.  Obviously, I wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box.  This frustrating experience is also memorable for me because I had to go to the bathroom throughout the entire movie, but I was so enthralled in it that I didn’t want to get up and miss anything.  Talk about a predicament.  A League of Their Own is the first movie that had really impressed me, and I remember that when we got back into the car, my family all agreed that it was great and that Madonna had been good in the film.  I nodded along with this proclamation.  After all, everyone had been good, and there was certainly no way that I was going to fess up to not being able to recognize Madonna.

I’m sure that today will be prove to be equally memorable in the long run although it didn’t matter which color Madonna’s hair was or which scene I might miss.  Today, I was on my time.  Today, It was all me at Bosse Field. Built in 1915, Bosse is the third oldest baseball field in the country behind Wrigley and Fenway, so it looks exactly as it did in 1992 for the film.  A sign that says “Support the Racine Belles” even remains in the stands, and the cement dugouts, in which among other things we all learned that “there’s no crying in baseball,” appear identically to the way they did in the movie.  They didn’t let me run the bases, which is unfortunate because I had been practicing my splits for the occasion, but I loved seeing the field, and so far, it’s up there with Dealey Plaza as the top thing I’ve visited.

When I woke up this morning in Evansville, I’m happy to report that despite some outside concerns, my car hadn’t been touched.  Sadly, this also meant that no one had come along to fix the dent that my car incurred when I hit a pole several months ago, but other than this rusting eyesore, everything looked good.  Then I proceeded to visit a local Starbucks and get my car’s oil changed, and I started to feel silly for having had any doubts about the town.  Everyone was exceedingly friendly and polite, and being admitted into Bosse Field turned out to be the icing on the cake.  In general, I became a big fan of Indiana today.  I drove through the state for about four hours, and the skies were so blue that Grover could have used the backdrop as camouflage.

As I drove through Indiana, my path took me through several small towns.  Each of these towns comes equipped with the necessities – shops, restaurants, schools, movies theaters – and for the most part, they all have some very nice, newly built houses.  People seem to really want to live in these places.  The state is beautiful, so I can understand this feeling to an extent, but like with all of the small towns that I’ve seen over the last 3,000 miles, it occurred to me that there is virtually only one way in and one way out of these areas.  They are free of airports and each of these locations is limited to one major thoroughfare.  Essentially, there are few places to go and ever fewer ways to do it. I realized today that the people who live in these places must really love them.  Then I wondered if that explains the abundance of freeways and airports in LA…

As I continued on with my drive, I was glad that I didn’t get the $4.99 lunch that I saw being advertised at a Citgo because shortly after seeing this incredibly tempting offer, I passed a Fazolis.  For those of you who don’t know, Fazolis is a fast food Italian chain, and aside from Chilis which is impossible to compete with, it’s my all-time favorite restaurant.  When I saw that the Fazolis was next to a Burlington Coat Factory, I almost put an end to my journey altogether to set up a permanent camp in Indiana.  Fazolis and Burlington Coat Factory.  What the hell else could anyone need?

Aside from the small snafu with Lubbock, Google maps hasn’t failed me yet, so I was surprised to find that the road it was guiding me onto in order to cross over to Illinois was made of gravel.  In fact, I initially passed it, stupidly assuming that the route to Chicago would have some kind of visible marker.  As I bumped along Indiana’s back roads (and I mean back roads), I started to wonder if there might have been a more efficient path from Evansville to the Windy City.  My suspicions were confirmed when I finally merged onto a paved street and saw a truck carting twelve brand new Toyotas of various models pull up along side me.  I had initially whizzed by this same vehicle hours earlier while feasting on my kill from Fazolis.  C’est La Vie.

The path to Chicago doubled as the path to meet up with my mom who flew here today to join me on the next portion of the trip.  As I was driving along, I was reminded of Chelsea, my favorite girl on 2006’s smash hit, Cheerleader Nation.  One of the producers had asked her if she was excited that her mother was traveling along with the team to Orlando for Nationals, and she cheerfully replied, “Yes!  I’m very excited that my mom is coming with us!  She can, like, pay for things.”  Of course, there are other reasons that I’m glad to have my mother accompanying me, but I will tell you that the hotel we’re staying in tonight is certainly a ladder up from last night’s Econolodge.

My mom also reminded me how wonderful the next part of the trek will be when I told her about the small towns that I saw in Indiana and that I find it interesting that they only have one major road going through them.  She looked at me intently and responded, “Cincinnati isn’t like that.”  Right… neither are New York City or Detroit or about a thousand other places in America.  Not to mention the fact that Cincinnati isn’t even in Indiana, something I assume she knows since we once lived there.

In all seriousness though, it will be nice to have to someone other than The Judds experience the drive with me, so I’m excited for the upcoming weekend.  Tomorrow we head to Sandusky in order to have a full day on Saturday at Cedar Point.  “Dear Ohio, Saturday is not the day that I want rain to befall me on my trip.  Thank you for understanding.”  Tomorrow, I also hope to avoid the Chicago traffic that plagued me today.  Apparently news hasn’t spread to Chicago that LA is supposed to have the worst traffic in the country.

Like always, thanks for following along, and stay tuned for more tales from my mom, America, and me over the next few days!

Miles Traveled: 525; Current Location: Evansville, IN

As of today, I have officially driven over 3,000 miles, and believe it or not, it wasn’t until this leg of my journey that I started to entertain the thought that this undertaking might be a tad bit crazy.  It wasn’t until today, when I was in the middle of an eight hour drive to see a house that was used as an exterior for a television show that debuted over twenty years ago, that I allowed myself to wonder, “am I a total lunatic for doing this?”  I’ll allow you to answer that question for me.

Yesterday, while Melanie and I shot cans with our BB guns (she hit many more than I did), I felt like I was finally in my element.  It wasn’t as much about the shooting (although that was fun) as it was about hanging out with friends, in what seems like a very nice town, and doing everyday things.  Today, as I was driving towards Evansville, completely fixated on my goal of getting to the house from Roseanne, I realized that being in an element is a “here today, gone tomorrow” kind of thing for me.  I felt less “in my element” and more “Chevy Chase – the moose says you’re closed, I say you’re open.”  To say the least, I felt a little insane.

I’m sure that I don’t have to spell this out for you, but I’m borderline obsessed with Middle America.  I love the people who make up such a large portion of the population in this country, their values, and the patriotic spirit that permeates throughout this region.  All of these factors, along with the fact that I find it hysterical, have made me a lifelong fan of the show, Roseanne.  I appreciate the show specifically because it gave a national voice and platform to a group of people who often evade the American spotlight, and because of Roseanne, I have long wondered if there is something that I can do (on a miniscule scale) to bring a bit of that voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t hear it.  Initially, I thought that maybe I could live in the geographical middle of the country for a year and relate my experiences to others, but when I decided that that might not be much fun, I put the whole idea on the back burner and kept living my life as usual.  And then…. Then one day, I found myself on a mission to get to Evansville, Indiana.

While driving to Evansville today, I shook my head slightly as I passed several legitimate landmarks in order to make good time to get to Roseanne’s house.  I flew by Grant’s Tomb, Mt. Vernon, and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, all the while focused on getting to a neighborhood just inside Evansville’s city limits.  I’m sure that by this point, the question of why I wanted to see this house has been raised by some of you.  I wonder that myself, but I keep coming back to the fact that while I was living in LA, I suspected that I could personally be just as happy living a simpler life.  I’m not suggesting that people in LA are not happy or that everyone should pack up and head for the interior, but when I was living there, I would often look up smaller towns on Google maps and wonder what it would be like to visit or live in one of them.  I couldn’t think of anything more illustrative of this feeling than the town that helped influence Roseanne, so I decided that the place with that house was the town that I must see.

All that “I love America” sunshine and rainbows aside, I did have some personal concerns about Evansville.  For starters, the town once protested Madonna during the 1992 filming of A League of Their Own after she compared Evansville to Prague because she couldn’t get cable TV.  Well, not only was I certainly not interested in visiting a town that doesn’t have cable TV, I generally adhere to a personal mission statement that begins with “any foe of Madonna’s is a foe of mine.” For that reason, I publicly rebuked Courtney Love during my middle school years despite the fact that I enjoyed Hole’s album, “Celebrity Skin,” and at this point, I have stuck by Madonna through a British accent and Swept Away.  I didn’t like the idea of Evansville, Indiana tearing us apart.

My next concern stemmed from a point that my father had raised.  He once came to Evansville for business several years ago, and not only was he the lone person in a group of twenty who hailed from New York, he was the only one who had ever even been there.  I don’t think that visiting New York determines anything about a person, but I always have my Massachusetts license plates in the back of my mind.  I can’t help but feel like there are some places where Massachusetts license plates might make someone stand out a bit more than he or she would like.  I was slightly worried about what it would mean to be an outsider in Evansville.

The next thing that jumped out at me as a potential red flag was the increasing number of politically charged signs that I was seeing along the route to Evansville.  I’ll share the message from the kindest of the signs with you.  “Obama – 11.5.08.  Gas – $1.87.”  More frightening, in addition to the signs, I was also starting to see a couple Confederate flags here and there.  Of course, I know that there is “one in every crowd,” and I never thought to blame the entire town of Evansville, or Indiana, or any of the states that I had driven through…. That being said, where the hell was I sending myself?! … and to see a house from a television show that ended when I was trading pogs in elementary school??

Luckily, once I arrived in Evansville, my fears were alleviated.  As I drove through the neighborhood that serves as home to “the house,” I was thrilled to see children riding bikes and families sitting on front porches, overlooking beautifully manicured yards, one of which even had a sign in support of Obama.  The high school was picturesque, and I understood the welcome sign’s declaration that Evansville is “an all-American city.”  When I finally got to the house, it looked as though Dan and Roseanne had done some work on it over the years.  It was the same but even better.  Overall, the experience was perfect.  This place was exactly the kind of apple pie America that I had been in search of.  I wanted to tie a bow around it.

High off the thrill of seeing the house from the show, I headed off to another one of its exterior landmarks, a pizza place that served as The Lobo Lounge.  I figured that I could get some pizza and take it back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow’s voyage to Chicago.  A perfect visit to Indiana. Unfortunately, the three mile drive from the house to the pizza place took me from Leave it to Beaver to Eminem’s 8 Mile in about five minutes flat, and when I arrived at the restaurant, I realized that there was no way that I could get out of the car.  I snapped a few pictures and rode like hell.

So…I suppose the moral of the story is that nothing is perfect.  So far, I have been to or through nine states, and each one has its own pros and cons lists.  Of course, I am currently putting “sitting in hotel with a BB gun, hoping that my car’s windows are intact in the morning” in the cons column for Evansville.  I’m feeling generous, so here’s an extra piece of advice from lucky number day 13 of my travels: just because you read one review that says “city has no bad areas,” further substantiation of such a claim is never a bad idea.  Although, on the plus side, I do have cable TV.

On that note, tomorrow I will meet up with my mother in Chicago, and she will travel with me over the next five days…  If you have found any of this slightly humorous up until this point, I have high hopes for our upcoming adventures with Ohio and Cedar Point next at bat.  Thank you for continuing to follow along with me on my trek as I approach the halfway point!  I really appreciate it!

Current Location: Fayetteville, AR

Appropriately, I am sitting here recounting our experience today at the Wal-Mart museum while watching Where the Heart Is, a movie in which Wal-Mart plays a central role, a characteristic that can certainly be extended to Bentonville, Arkansas.  Bentonville has a small-town vibe with a charming square and a population that’s nearly doubled in size over the past ten years to just under 40,000 people.  In the middle of Bentonville is Walton’s 5 & 10, now the visitor’s center dedicated to America’s largest retail chain, just a few miles down the road from the supercenter’s headquarters.

Stepping into Walton’s is like waltzing through a time warp, something that I’ve been hoping to experience for quite a while.  For this reason, I’m especially glad that I stopped off in Bentonville as it saved me the $20,000 or so that likely would have been necessary to restore an old Delorean to its tip top, flux capacitor-running condition.  Fortunately today, no such vehicle was required for this trip back to yesteryear.  The storefront features penny candy, comic books, and hula hoops among other popular items such as sock monkeys and BB guns.  Unfortunately though, some items such as the “Bear Brand Hosiery” that we would later see in the museum, weren’t available for sale.

After passing through the storefront, we entered the museum dedicated to Sam Walton’s life and Wal-Mart’s history.  Something that struck me about the museum is the obvious dichotomy between Sam’s vision for his stores and the image that many people project onto them.  Sam’s goal, to open stores throughout America that offer goods for the lowest prices, was put into place with the intention of helping Americans to save money on an individual basis in an effort to lower the cost of living for the country as a whole.  It’s a common belief that Wal-Mart has hurt the American economy and culture by closing down local shops that couldn’t offer competitive prices, but Sam saw the casualties of these stores as sacrifices for the overall betterment of the nation.  Whether or not someone agrees with Wal-Mart, Sam’s patriotic spirit always told him that he was working for the greater good of the consumer, and he clearly felt pride in this success throughout his lifetime.

We walked through many interesting exhibits, one of the highlights for me being the display of items that had been returned to Wal-Mart over the years along with the explanations given upon their return. One tennis racket that had been destroyed by a customer was returned because he “could not serve well with it.”  Similarly, a kitchen mixer was sent back for being “possessed.”  Sam believed that Wal-Mart’s only true boss is the consumer, and he made it a store goal to receive “zero complaints.”  Because of this policy, Sam personally responded to letters from displeased shoppers and items such as a Stanley vacuum bottle, produced in 1954 before the first Wal-Mart store was opened, were taken back for full refunds.

The museum also features a recreation of Sam Walton’s office.  I enjoyed this display, particularly because I have now seen a couple of replicated offices over the past two weeks, so I am starting to understand that this practice is somewhat of a “thing” in the American museum culture.  I think that so far out of all of them, Fred Flintstone’s office is my personal favorite although Sam’s isn’t too far off.  Sam’s office appears slightly cluttered and is filled with remarkably modest furnishings including a desk that I suspect he picked up at his local Wal-Mart.  Though he became the richest man in America at one point, Sam continued to drive his 1979 Ford pickup truck, remarking to critics, “what do you want me to drive my dogs around in?  A Rolls-Royce?”

In addition to Sam’s personal things, the museum also houses many of the original items sold in the first stores of Wal-Mart as well as special edition items, such as a 25th anniversary commemorative edition Barbie doll.  Although some of these items are still sold today, Sam’s prices have evidently gone up over the years because the standard broom currently sold in the storefront portion of the museum retails at $25.00.  Perhaps this particular model comes with a Quiddich lesson from Harry Potter.

After checking out the museum, Melanie, my dad, and I went next door to Station Cafe where they sell “the best cheeseburger in town.”  I thought that this proclamation was curious because on Saturday, we went to a different place that also offers “the best cheeseburger.”  This contradiction initially confused me, but then I realized that in a booming town like this one, the rankings must change overnight.

Station Cafe had great cheeseburgers but even better service.  The service was so great, in fact, that we didn’t have to suffer through more than three consecutive minutes of conversation before one of the servers came to check on us or ask us if we needed anything.  The workers were so overly accommodating at Station Cafe that I was tempted to ask for a bucket of gold just to see what they came up with.  It was nice to be in a place that catered so intently to the customer though and even nicer to see that they had received the Reader’s Choice Award for “Best Freedom Fry” in Benton County.  Ah, the Freedom Fry.  I wonder if there is a similar stance in Paris to avoid all food with connections to Arkansas.

The purpose of my trip across America is to see the country, and I personally believe that it’s impossible to get closer to the “American dream” than Sam Walton did, so I feel like seeing his museum was one of the best experiences that I will have in an effort to meet my goal.  I am very glad that I visited this store and its exhibits because it reaffirms the notion for me that if a person presses on with the things that he or she enjoys and takes pride in, great success can follow.  To honor Sam’s legacy and because Bentonville is also close to the Daisy BB Gun Headquarters in nearby Rogers, Arkansas, Melanie and I decided that we would be remiss in failing to purchase our own Walton’s 5 & 10 Edition BB guns. Don’t worry though, we haven’t shot our eyes out yet.

Today wraps up my time in Arkansas, and tomorrow, I will proceed along with my tour of Middle America by heading to Evansville, Indiana where among other things, I will see the house that was used in the exterior shots in the show, Roseanne.  Though I don’t expect that Dan or Roseanne will be there to open the door for me, I do hope that I will get a good sense of the town that kicked off one of the longest running shows focused on portraying “quintessential America.”  I hope you all check it out with me when I post the pictures tomorrow! Thanks for reading about our time today at Wal-Mart – I hope everyone is having a good week!

Current Location: Fayetteville, AR

Today, Melanie and I decided to take a trip to the local mall.  Although we weren’t completely sure on the directions, I sensed that we were nearing our destination when we saw a store called “$1 Jewelry Galore.”  “Here we are!” I exclaimed, “high end shopping at it’s finest!”  We went into the mall through a Dillards, and I figured that so far, things were looking good.  Then we entered the rest of the mall, and I noticed that something seemed amiss.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I scanned the area for an escalator.  There wasn’t one.  I realized that this mall packs all of it’s brilliance into just one floor.  Suddenly, I felt like all of those years playing Mall Madness had turned out to be a waste, but then again, Ty wouldn’t have seen her life flash before her eyes in Clueless if that mall had thought to contain itself to only one level.

We walked around the shops and saw many of the typical mall staples.  Sears, Bath & Body Works, Banana Republic, The Razorback Shop.  I was glad to see that one as I had been in the market for a new razorback for quite sometime, and it was nice to find an entire storefront dedicated to their sale.  Forget dogs and cats, the real ace in the family pet industry is the razorback.  You just can’t go wrong with a wild boar whose roots trace back to 16th century America.  That’s right.  Before there was a George Washington or a Declaration of Independence or an angry mob of men dressed as Indians throwing tea into a certain harbor, there was the razorback.

Unfortunately, as many of you might have guessed, The Razorback Shop was not filled with a hearty selection of feral pigs, but instead turned out to be a one stop shop for all things University of Arkansas.  The town of Fayetteville is in a very serious long-term relationship with the University of Arkansas.  They’re in love.  And they want everyone to know about it.  Restaurants feature signs urging people to “Go Hog Wild,” and most items for sale around town come in red, white, or razorback.  The University of Arkansas hometown pride is palpable in Fayetteville, and now that I think about it, the main street that’s devoted entirely to bars and nightlife doesn’t seem so out of place after all.

After looking around The Razorback Shop for a while and realizing that we had enough hog glassware as it is (being none), we walked towards the food court as it was getting close to my 1:00 lunch time.  It was on this particular mission that we came face to face with a hurricane simulator, right in the middle of the mall.  Huh?  A hurricane simulator?  In a mall?  In Arkansas?

A couple of things struck me as odd about the presence of the hurricane simulator.  The first being that I had no idea what the point of a hurricane simulator might be.  I already knew that I didn’t want to find myself standing in the middle of a hurricane.  Thanks chamber, but I figured that one out on my own.  Hurricanes are not a fun place to be stationed.  Got it.  The second thing that felt weird to me about the chamber situated in the middle of the Arkansas mall is that Arkansas doesn’t contend with the threat of hurricanes.  It’s nowhere near the coast!  Just to verify this theory of mine, I double checked it with the all-knowing Wikipedia, and sure enough: “While being sufficiently away from the coast to be safe from a direct hit from a hurricane, Arkansas can often get the remnants of a tropical system which dumps tremendous amounts of rain in a short time.”  Tremendous amounts of rain. Big deal, Arkansas.  Take that complaint to Louisiana or Mississippi. I’m sure it will evoke tremendous amounts of sympathy.  Maybe that’s the point of the chamber, “wow these winds are strong. I’m glad that I don’t live somewhere like this!”  Next thing you know, there will be a whole series of chambers in the Northwest Arkansas Mall.  A tsumani simulator, an earthquake simulator, traffic, smog, profanity, burglary…  “wow,” everyone will say, “the rest of the world blows.”

It goes without saying that I paid the $2.00 for a turn in the chamber.  It was awesome.  Awesome if you think that getting pelted by the sting of 150 mph winds is your idea of a good time.  After leaving the chamber, and on the verge of passing out from my experience, I still had no idea which purpose the hurricane simulator was intended to serve.  If someone is thinking about going out in seek of a hurricane to experience, I doubt that a chamber will serve as a deterrent, and it’s not a good experience on it’s own – probably because as I already suspected, it’s not fun to be trapped in the middle of a hurricane.

Tonight, Melanie and I are going to meet my dad for dinner, and then tomorrow, we all head over to the Walmart museum to see a historical recreation of the original store.  Talk about the true “American Experience.”  After that, my trek will take me to Indiana and around the Midwest for a couple of days.  Stay tuned for future adventures!

Current Location: Fayetteville, AR

We were off to a bit of a slow start this morning in formulating plans for the day.  Driving back from breakfast, I still wasn’t sure where the afternoon would take us, but I did start to get a better feeling for Fayetteville.  It’s funny to me that there are things about Fayetteville that I would have absolutely not expected, like a main street that’s dedicated entirely to bars and nightlife, and then there are things about Fayetteville that I absolutely did expect, like being the only people at the restaurant this morning not outfitted in church clothes.

In general, Fayetteville seems like a wonderful place to live.  If I thought that the people in Austin were nice, the people in Fayetteville are headed for sainthood.  Each time we’ve entered a restaurant, a store, or just pass someone walking down the street, a wave of friendliness falls upon us.  Being the capital of Walmart, Northwest Arkansas has taken the chain to new levels, and I was glad to experience Walmart Market today, the grocery store version of one-stop shopping.  In addition to Walmart, Fayetteville, in my eyes, is also known for local banks, which along with a church, there seems to be approximately one of per citizen.  God must really create prosperity in life because evidently, the people of Northwest Arkansas necessitate a bank on each and every street corner.

After coming back from breakfast and our thrilling adventure at Walmart Market, we were still somewhat unsure about our next destination.  We searched online for “things to do in Fayetteville”  and were directed to “make hummus.”  Not exactly what I had in mind.  Then we attempted to search for museums in Fayetteville and were presented with the link, “how to work in a museum in Fayetteville.”  I guess Google got word of my current state of unemployment.

Finally, we found out about the Clinton House, which is just around the corner from where Melanie and Kyle live.  The Clinton House is an old house where Bill used to reside and where he and Hillary were married.  After the success that I had with other presidential locales, we decided that this museum might be worth checking out.  Unfortunately, we had forgotten the other cardinal rule about life in Arkansas – #1, you go to church, # 2, nothing is open on Sunday.  Feeling defeated, we decided to check out something else that Melanie had heard about, the Christ of the Ozarks.  We weren’t sure exactly what to expect, but she had been told that it’s worth a visit.  And being a church, it was likely to be open on Sunday.

The Church of the Ozarks is about an hour away, so because of that, we were hesitant to make the drive.  “How awesome could a church be?” we wondered.  It would be a while before we uncovered the answer. Before making it to the church, we winded through the hills of Arkansas and saw beautiful farmlands as well as old country stores and kids playing in fields and riding tractors.  Fayetteville is a Mayberry kind of town.  Time seems to have marched on throughout the rest of the world but for whatever reason, stopped abruptly when it hit Northwest Arkansas.  When we decided to stop for lunch, we were instantly drawn to Sister’s Cafe, a family run restaurant with four tables in the living room of the owner’s home.  The menu features three selections and though each one is great, the best part of the experience is dining in a room that proudly displays a large photo of Elvis.  The sisters had come from Memphis, and they didn’t want to move without the King.

After lunch, we proceeded along with our drive, and though tempted by signs advertising “100 large cats,” we decided to press on for the Church of the Ozarks.  To our dismay, when we finally arrived, the area looked closed.  How could this be?  It’s Arkansas. It’s a Sunday.  It’s a church.  Undeterred, we kept driving through the parking lot which guided us along a left-hand turn.  It was just after we made the turn that we saw it.  It wasn’t just a church.  It was the world’s largest statue of Jesus.  It was the best thing that I had ever seen.

The statue of Jesus is sixty-seven feet tall and every bit as amazing as it sounds.  It’s a gigantic sculpture of Christ that stands atop a hill dubbed, Magnetic Mountain.  And magnetic it is.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the thing.  We took many pictures (in several of which we attempted to create the allusion of high-fiving with our Lord and Savior) and sat in the statue’s remarkable presence for quite sometime.  Although, for us, the sculpture was breathtaking, we overheard another visitor voice his displeasure in the depiction by exclaiming that “Jesus should have bangs.”  Let me suggest a suggestion box, sir.

I hadn’t been sure if I would be able to find something as remarkable as Bedrock City or something as historical as Dealey Plaza, but somehow, I managed to stumble upon the mothership with the Church of the Ozarks.  On the drive home, we noticed a white Dodge Caravan that had been decorated like a NASA space shuttle, but after coming face to face with Jesus, my heart just wasn’t in the rocket.  I can say that, without hesitation, a trip to Northwest Arkansas is incomplete without a visit to the Church of the Ozarks.  And in my opinion, that rule extends to a drive across America too.

I’ve posted the photos below, but unfortunately, they don’t do justice to the experience of viewing this incredible wonder firsthand.  I hope though, that you can get an idea for the majesty that we encountered today.  I couldn’t ask for a better 25-and-a-half birthday present.  I couldn’t ask for anything more from Arkansas.

Like had been the case today, I’m not sure what tomorrow will have in store for us, but I can now say with certainty that I have 100% faith in Fayetteville.  I will be here for another two days, and I can’t wait to share my future experiences with you.  I can’t promise anymore towering likenesses, but I can promise some interesting times along the way.  I hope that you all have a great week, and thank you for reading!

Miles Traveled: 321; Current Location: Fayetteville, AR

Before I proceed with my next statement, I’d like to go on the record as saying that I’ve never met a person from Oklahoma who I don’t like.  This statistic also includes one of my very best friends in the world as well as the people that I’ve hung out with while visiting her there.  In general, I’m a big fan of Oklahoma.  That being said, driving through the state today was unequivocally the worst leg of the trip thus far, and I caution anyone out there whose travel plans might include a trek through the Sooner State.  Don’t do it.

I know what you’re wondering, and yes, the drive through Oklahoma, for only a couple hundred miles, was worse than spending nine hours in the fields of Texas.  Way worse.  The nice thing about driving through the fields, in retrospect, was that after I bid adieu to the police in New Mexico, nothing whatsoever stood in my way.  There were no other cars, no traffic lights, no distracting billboards reminding me that without Jesus, I might as well get used to living in the hot climate as I prepare for my eternity in hell…there was nothing.  Nothing but blue skies and freedom.  Nothing but the exact opposite of what I experienced today.  For instance, when I initially missed getting a picture of the sign welcoming me to Texas, I simply made a u-turn on the two-laned road and was on my way again.  That would not be case for me in Oklahoma. For Oklahoma, there would be no picture.

I’ve driven across the country a couple of times before, so I knew to be aware of the constant presence of the Oklahoma State Troopers.  I try very hard not to speed as it is, so it didn’t bother me that I would be monitored closely.  What did bother me though, was the realization that the speed limit in Oklahoma changes just about every 100 yards.  It goes from 70 to 55 to 65 to 60 over the course of ten or fifteen minutes.  And then the cycle repeats.  And continues in this pattern throughout the entire state.  Meanwhile, every fifth mile winds through a construction zone with big orange cones and concrete barriers.  Naturally, these areas have an even slower speed limit and an increase in traffic fines.  I saw no fewer than five cars that had been pulled over throughout my drive in Oklahoma – five times the number of cars that I’d seen stopped in four other states and over the course of 2,000 miles… and that’s including my own brush with the law.

Another thing that became instantly clear to me about Oklahoma is that the state is in a bitter battle with Texas for most roadside churches per capita.  Here’s a thought guys…. just go to a church that’s there already!  You don’t need to start your own!  There are plenty to go around!  I saw churches in shopping centers, free standing churches, churches in barns, signs for churches not visible from the highway… churches everywhere.  How can there possibly be enough people to fill each one of these churches?!

Along with the churches, of course, come the billboards offering life-changing information.  “Watch and pray for we don’t know what hour, but the son of God will return.”  I’ll watch the East.  Someone else should grab the West.  We should also probably come up with a code word to call out as an alert to everyone when we see him coming.  Get your neighbors involved.  We’ll make it a community thing.  Another nugget of truth that I enjoyed is that, “a wise child follows his father’s instruction.”  And who, may I ask, wouldn’t like to be wise?  My favorite sign of all though is the one listing the Ten Commandments.  I pulled over so that I could read each one aloud.

Some of you might wonder if I get bored sitting in the car for hours at a time, and before I left, I had the same concern.  Since I had turned down my father’s offer to give me a GPS device, I asked him if I could use that money for a new ipod, one that could hold my itunes library in its entirety.  After he had ignored my request for a couple of days, I got the hint and loaded up my two 8gb ipods with new playlists and podcasts.  I also went through stacks of old CDs and packed my car with a careful selection that I thought I might want to sample on the ride.

As it’s turned out, I could have learned something from Christmas 1996 when I listened to my Deep Blue Something single of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on a constant stream.  The CDs, the thoughts of a new ipod – all completely unnecessary.  In reality, when my songs by The Judds finish, I simply restart the three hour playlist over again.  And again.  And again.  I’m a person who can literally quote entire episodes of Full House, so the good news for this trip is that when I like something, my loyalty runs deep.  There are times when I actually can’t wait to get back in the car so that I can listen to The Judds again. Occasionally though, I will give the duo a break.  Such was the case when I drove through Checotah, Oklahoma and played Carrie Underwood’s, “I Aint in Checotah Anymore.”  Besides seeming appropriate, it was fun for me to drive through Checotah all the while belting out a song that claimed I wasn’t there.  See, this incredibly low threshold that I have for amusement is the reason that I don’t get bored in the car.

I also enjoyed driving through Checotah because there are at least three signs reminding me to “reach for the stars just like our own Carrie Underwood.”  All this fanfare from what Carrie calls, “a single stoplight town.”  Of course, being cursed by Oklahoma, my camera managed to miss each of these signs.  In general though, with the exception of the wiles of Checotah, my time in Oklahoma was not filled with much excitement.  For this reason, I was particularly thankful to have The Judds along with me for this portion of the drive.

When I finally arrived in Arkansas, I instantly understood the meaning behind its nickname as the Natural State.  The trees and rivers are beautiful and a marked contrast to the geography of the other places that I’ve driven through, and I’m very excited to explore the area over the next couple of days.  I hope that everyone is having a great weekend, and I can’t wait to update everyone about my time in Arkansas!  (Hint: We will be checking out the Walmart Museum on Tuesday.  If you love the “people of Walmart,” I can only imagine what the “people of the Walmart Museum” might be like!)