Little Rock, Arkansas

We left West Memphis, Arkansas this past Thursday after a great visit with our friends the Cover’s who met up with us in their RV.  We now begin our two and half week trip to Southern California where we will spend the winter.  Our first stop was just a short distance as we wanted to see the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.  If you are an avid follower of this blog you will remember reading about our goal to see all the Presidential libraries.  I have four to go (Both Bush libraries, Clinton and Ford) and Fran has five as she has not seen the Johnson library (I caught it while on a business trip).

We found an RV park that is just across the river from the library.  It is in North Little Rock and is adjacent to a pedestrian bridge that goes directly to the library.  The little park is owned by the city and is nothing special except for its location to downtown Little Rock and the great rates they charge.  They offer every discount and accept all membership clubs so for 4 nights it cost us $50 for a full hook up site with free Wi-Fi. 

  Picture of the park from the bridge to the library.  We are against the wall, fourth up from the bottom.

Here is the bridge that takes you directly to the Clinton Library.

The library has been called a double wide on stilts as it is box shaped and raised so that it looks over the river and is above the flood plain.

Here is a front view

Here is a view that shows you why it gets its nickname.

It is a beautiful library both inside and out and is very informative in presenting information on his presidency.

His Presidential limo

Inside of the library from the the third floor. 

A recreation of the White House Cabinet Room with Fran sitting in the President’s chair.

Replica of the Clinton Oval Office

Following our tour of the library we went to the River Market area of Little Rock which is only a couple of blocks away.  Here we had lunch and then took a walk to the Old State House.  This is where Clinton announced his candidacy to become President and where he gave his speech after winning the first election.

We leave on Monday with stops in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and then into California.  The route is one that we have traveled many times and a couple of the stops are at parks we have been at before, so probably not much to report for the next couple of weeks.

Stink Bugs!

Lovely title and I will talk about it, but first let me get you caught up.

Since my last post we spent another couple of weeks in Knoxville and did a couple of great events.  The first was an event called Wine on the Water.  Our daughter found out about this event and it sounded fun.  It was a family night as both our daughters joined us to taste wine and food on a terrace over the river in downtown Knoxville.  It was a perfect night for such an event and we enjoyed sampling the wines and trying the various food offerings.

The next day was our next event, tailgating for the University of Tennessee game.  Now I previously mentioned my nephew and his tailgating prowess, well on this day he chose to take it to a new level.  He went in with a couple of friends and rented a party tent that was placed on a grassy hill overlooking the parking lot.  Under the tent was a large screen TV, many tables and catered food.  Outside the tent was a singer to keep you entertained.  The tailgate started at around 11am for a 3:30pm game and was attended by dozens of people.  As the site was near the restrooms it was interesting to see people come over to watch the singer and then decide if they could crash the party for drinks and food.

That finished up our stay in Knoxville which went by way to fast.  We moved onto Nashville for a couple of days to visit with our friends the Sherwood’s who had just returned from a month long trip to Australia.  They had great pictures, especially underwater pictures from the Great Barrier Reef where they went diving for a week.

From Nashville we have moved to West Memphis, Arkansas where we will be for the next two weeks.  We are at Tom Sawyer’s RV park.   I have written about this RV park on a couple of occasions.  It is right on the banks of the Mississippi River just outside of Memphis.  The sites are right next to the river so you have great views and it is fun to watch the barges go by.  This ranks as one of the best parks we have stayed in and is the only park in our RV history that we have returned to so many times.  This is our fourth visit.

OK, now the stink bugs.  You may remember a couple of years ago I wrote about the moths of Tucumcari.  Well now it is the stinkbugs of Knoxville.  From what I am reading this is a banner year for the brown stink bug and we are experiencing it.  The RV park we stay at in the Smokies was heavily infested with these bugs and they would be all over the outside of the RV.  The bad part is that it is very easy for them to get inside the RV besides just coming through  the door.  They seem to be able to get their bodies through the tiniest of openings.  Fortunately they will usually just stay in one place and may fly once, so it is easy to catch them.  The problem is they are into everything.  I pulled in the slides on our RV one day and they were all over the seals of the slide.  We have found them in our clothes and in the cabinets.  As we have moved on we do not seem to be getting any new ones in this area but continue to find the ones that hitch hiked.  Based on what I am reading we may continue to find them for months as they come inside during the fall to hibernate for the winter.  Lucky us!

Here is a picture of the bug for your enjoyment