Well, Robert Burns once said the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. (actually, he said "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley." but nobody this side of Glasgow has a clue what any of that means... I'll stick with the American version. Please forgive the misquote.)
Today started in Fulton, MS. Being that close to Elvis' birthplace there are two things you can count on. No... not death and taxes. Barbeque and WalMart. We've had nearly our fill of barbeque and it was too early in the day anyway, so we headed to WalMart to re-provision. (remember the Hershey bar crisis from two days ago? Well, WalMart has the solution to that problem and about 100,000 more!)
While at WalMart, Mrs. Cliche' realized that the nagging pain she's been having where a tooth was replaced several years ago was becoming a full blown dental crisis. We looked in the tooth crisis section at WalMart and found a remedy. You know how well that worked right? Seriously? Going to WalMart for a cure to serious tooth pain? We realized that we had been in Mississippi too long and rubbed elbows a little too hard with a few too many locals. It was time for action. It was time to head west again.
I'd like to tell you that the "scheme" we had devised before getting that phone call from Robert Burns still happened. If so, I would have told you about the stop we made in Memphis for barbeque at Central Barbeque (the second highest rated barbeque in Memphis according to TripAdvisor!) was fantastic. And that we chose their downtown location because it was near Tom Lee Park where we watched the muddy water of the Mississippi flow by while walking the dogs and eating pulled pork in the trailer. I would have said that while in Tom Lee Park I showed off my intimate knowledge of the dialogue from the movie "Vacation" by quoting Chevy Chase "Ah, that's the Mississippi. The mighty Missisip. Hee, hee, hee. The ole' Miss. The old man.". Or that directly across the street from Central Barbeque is the National Civil Rights Museum which is built around the Lorraine Motel (If you are old enough you know what I'm referring to. If not, Google it and stop being so smug about your youth.You see, you don't know everything. And sit up straight and respect your elders!). Anyway, none of that happened.
Instead, Mrs. Cliche' used "the force" by placing a telephone to an oral surgeon in the Lake Charles, Arkansas metropolitan area. She got an appointment for this afternoon with Dr. Rebecca Edwards that required us to drive through Memphis lickity split to get into Arkansas, have time for a fuel stop with dog walking and make it to Dr. Edwards in Walnut Ridge. Oh, a minor detail. The Dr. Edwards who Google lists clearly as an oral surgeon is in fact a family dentist and a damn fine one I'd add. Geez... maybe they got the barbeque rankings and the Chevy Chase quote wrong too. If you can't trust Google to get a professional's license correct what can you trust them for?
So, what did we see of Memphis? Here is a pic from Mrs. Cliche's iPad that we will cherish. It says everything you need to know about Memphis:
Let's start with the background. Look closely. Do you see that glass pyramid? That is the worst architectural pun in the United States of America. You see, "Memphis" is also a place in Egypt. In fact, they used the name first. Get it? No... you've spent too much time in Tennessee then. Let me continue. The city of Memphis, TN is named after that place in Egypt and what do they have there? Right! Pyramids! So what did the city of Memphis, TN and Shelby County decide their city needed? A pyramid! Funny, huh? The only thing funnier would have been two pyramids! Let's move to the mid-ground of the photo above. That brown stretch is the Mississippi River, the most significant geographic feature in the heartland of America. And in the foreground is crumbling infrastructure. This city has the worst sections of interstate highway I have ever driven on. Our truck and trailer are in perfect condition for long distance, highway driving (and not too shabby for dirt and gravel either). I had to drive below the speed limit in Memphis and West Memphis (AR) to prevent a perfectly good Airstream from being shaken to bits. Let me put it this way: If this is America's heartland, America better keep a defibrillator handy.
Ok... enough of a rant on Memphis... back to our story. We sped through eastern Arkansas and headed for Dr. Edwards 3:00 appointment. What an amazing tour of US agriculture in that 80 miles! We saw more corn than I've ever seen before (I'm thinking that personal high water mark of corn viewing will fall in three days in Kansas, but for now let me soak it in), soybeans as far as the eye could see, rice paddies (I couldn't stop thinking that Robert Duval might appear in a Huey at any moment) and some other stuff that I couldn't identify (aloe? ginsing? weed? ... no that comes later in the trip... in Colorado... I don't know... it was something green and bushy and it grows aplenty in Arkansas.) We thought you might like to see these sights and a panoramic picture would have done wonders to convey the sense of wonder that we had but like I said, we were speeding toward a rendezvous with Dr. Edwards in Walnut Ridge and had no time to stop. Mrs. Cliche' pulled out the trusty iPad, dropped the passenger side window of the Tundra (drove the dogs nuts... I think they smelled Arkansas full force for the first time and it scared them) and took this picture. We hope you like it:
So, that's the story of how we got here to Lake Charles State Park, Powhatan, AR. Here are some shots from the park.
Our camping spot:
Nice place. I'm hoping with a good night's sleep and some magic pills from the pharmacy (don't get ahead of the story... we are in Arkansas, not Colorado) that Mrs. C' will be feeling her old self in the morning. More on that tomorrow... from Missouri.
S.C.
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