11th April 2026
Hello and greetings from Arkansas!
It wasn’t until recently that I realised this state was not pronounced like “Kansas” with an “Ar” at the beginning, but rather “AW-ken-ZAW”. It became my eighth and final new state visited on this trip, and this eight-states-in-one-trip has now become my record for my US visits, beating the seven I covered way back over Christmas and New Year 2011/12. I doubt this new record will be beaten to be honest, but you never know!
Now many US states have a nickname, often written on car number plates, and here Arkansas is called “The Natural State”. After a few days there, I saw that it indeed felt less built-up than other states I’d been to, and instead filled with rivers, lakes, mountains and forests. I wouldn’t call it spectacular, but it was certainly beautiful, more chilled, and the people continued to be so very welcoming and friendly, with that fantastic southern accent still.
After leaving Vicksburg, I crossed the Mississippi again, over another of its bridges. In fact, they all looked rather similar, modelled on the same style as the really big Mississippi River Bridge back in New Orleans. This was my fourth Bridge crossing of this type now, and I was getting used to crossing over this mighty river on this trip, as well as state borders.
I headed back into Louisiana for a bit, driving up north along the right bank of the River, through settlements with fascinating names, including Tallulah, Transylvania, and even a Mennonite one! I stopped by in the tiny settlement of Lake Providence for lunch at “Sonic”. Both last year in the south-west and again here in the south, I drove by so many of these fast-food joints that I felt really curious to see what they were about. Here I was going to find out, and it became my first ever American drive-in diner experience! You park up alongside a large touchscreen order board, one of many, and tap in your order there. After a short while, someone then comes out from the kitchen area in the middle and hands you your order on a tray. You can pay either the server directly, or on the touchscreen order board. I actually found this really convenient, especially on another one of my long drives through the south when I didn’t want to waste too much time not seeing the sights. The only down side to Sonic is that there are no toilets, and I actually quite like getting out, stretching my legs, and mingling with other diners during my US fast food experiences.
I finally headed over the border into Arkansas, and have just realised now that it was my 25th US state! I’m halfway through! I think I’m going to start counting American states now, as well as countries! From there it was nearly two hours of driving through practically nothing but vast flat farmland stretching as far as the eye could see in all directions – no settlements, traffic lights, or signs of other civilisation to speak of!
All of a sudden, and almost out of nowhere as I drove through a final forested area, I was pretty much already in the middle of the lovely state capital of Little Rock, excited to be somewhere that I quite frankly knew absolutely nothing about before this trip. I was excited to learn!
Little Rock, as its name suggests, is a lovely capital. It’s a cutie, with a manageable population of just under 800,000 people, yet still the largest city by far in the sparsely populated state of Arkansas, home to just three million people. As mentioned in my previous blog, a chance meeting with the former pastor of the Clinton family at the Vicksburg National Military Park indicated where I should head to in town, and that was the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. My fellow travel bloggers and friends Merry Jo and Dave have often written in their blogs about their visits to Presidential Libraries across the country. These are national archives and museums spread throughout the States, often located in the state where the president to which it is dedicated is from. They are filled with records, artefacts, documents, photographs and exhibits that define the work and time of the particular POTUS (President of the United States) to which is dedicated, and I can imagine you can learn so much in each one.
After the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Massachusetts, the Clinton Presidential Library is the third-most popular in the country, and I really enjoyed my visit there. Clinton was the 42nd POTUS, and in serving from 1993 to 2001 pretty much defined my formative teenage and young adult years, just at the time I was waking up to the great wide world around me that lies beyond Sheffield. My visit brought back so many memories for me of world events at this time, including the Good Friday Peace Agreement of Northern Ireland, the Balkan Conflict, Rwandan Genocide, and the Camp David Summit between Ehud Barak of Israel and Yasser Arafat of Palestine. All was presented really well, and I could have spent hours looking at the photos and reading the captions – I felt really quite emotional at the memories it all brought back for me. A particular highlight was having my photo taken in the replica of the Oval Office there, set up as it would have been during Clinton’s time in office. I’m a fan of Bill, I’m no fan of his wife.
I left the Centre at closing time, and still managed to visit both the State Capitol Building and Little Rock Central School from the outside before sundown. The former would have been interesting to learn about the state of Arkansas, the latter being home to the “Little Rock Nine”, famous in the school integration branch of the Civil Rights Movement. I found more than enough in the Clinton Library to learn about the latter, and the former was fulfilling enough to see from the outside. I felt content to have followed the right decision in having decided which of these three sights to see before closing time.
After a short drive north out of Little Rock, including a stock up at a Walmart in the small city of Conway, I checked into a very cosy and comfortable AirBnB in a very rural suburb of the even smaller city of Greenbrier. The hosts there were wonderful, and filled my room with all sorts of goodies and knick-knacks. I arrived just in time to be able to watch the Apollo 2 Mission’s landing back on earth live on TV! It felt a very proud moment to be in this country, and reminded of just how great the US of A is! It was incredible watching it while I was writing up the day’s notes for this travel blog entry!
The next day was a lovely one, exploring deep into the heart of “The Natural State”.
First up, I drove to quite possibly Arkansas’ most famous tourist attraction, the Hot Springs National Park. It was quite an unusual National Park, in that rather than being a vast expanse of rugged beautiful wilderness, it is in fact mostly a couple of small mountain areas centered upon a lovely little town in the middle. The town is quite naturally called Hot Springs, and running through it is Central Avenue, its most famous attraction. Lining one side of Central Avenue is a series of eight historic bathhouses dating back to the early 20th century, when the resort became the place to be for the rich and famous from all parts of the United States. This ranged from US presidents such as both the Roosevelts, to baseball legends like Babe Ruth, and most notoriously mobsters and gangsters including Al Capone and Bonny and Clyde. First discovered by the Native Americans for their healing properties, the mineral rich thermal waters springing from underground can still be bathed in today, and even drunk after being cooled from numerous free taps around town.
After the two-hour drive there from Greenbrier, I first drove to the prominent hill to the east of town for awesome views over the resort below and across the hilly, forested landscape stretching across all surrounding horizons, atop the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. I was quite pleasantly surprised when my multi-functional “America the Beautiful” National Park Pass got me a small discount there.
I then parked up in town and walked along lovely Central Avenue, also known as Bathhouse Row. It was beautifully quaint, with an Art Deco 1920s feel to it, and while fairly busy, I was relieved to see it wasn’t nearly so tacky as Gatlinburg in the Great Smoky Mountains earlier in my trip. I in fact went for an hour-long bath experience at the 1912 Buckstaff Baths, the oldest continuously-functioning joint in town. This was completely unplanned and spontaneous, and quite reasonably-priced and thoroughly-enjoyed. The attendants guided me along the usual route, from a whirlpool bath in the mineral-rich thermal waters, to a seat under which came a soothing fountain of hot water. Then a steam machine which acted like a mini-sauna just for the body, while the head remained stuck out of the top of it, and finally a hot and cold towel wrap. I told the attendant about my dodgy knees and stiff neck, so he put the hot towels there, and I must say both felt much better afterwards! It was a lovely, relaxing experience, and I explored the rest of Bathhouse Row walking on a cloud!
I drove up north next, through first the Ouachita National Forest, then the Ozark National Forest, stopping off for a lovely view over Nimrod Lake from Nimrod Dam, and then another smothered and covered hash brown experience at my new favourite US fast food place in between for lunch – Waffle House, in the rather backwater settlement of Russellville located in between the two National Forests. It was very much back to hillbilly country again.
US National Forests are a slight step down from National Parks, in that while these beautiful areas are still set aside for recreation and wilderness explorations, the former also allows managed logging, mining and grazing. Ouachita is a Native American word meaning “good hunting ground”, and is actually a Frenchified version of the original word “Washita”, following the French’s earlier involvement in the area. Ozark is in fact an Anglicised version of the French “Aux Arcs”, or “at the Bows”, referring to the Native American Arkansas people, whose name itself means “Bow Indians”, which also of course lends itself to the name of the state. I found researching all this really fascinating!
Ouachita was busier, and was filled with plenty of people driving flash cars, clearly out for the day and a good drive, as well as quite a few bikers, taking advantage of the awesome windy roads on this lovely Saturday afternoon. Ozark was much less busy, and most of the other drivers were hillbilly types in fact. I drove past a fair few homesteads I would not want to break down outside. I’m sure they are perfectly friendly people deep down, and in fact the very friendly Beverly Hillbillies themselves are said to have hailed from the Ozark Mountains just over the state border into Missouri to the north. This was of course before Jed struck black gold, “Texas Tea”, or oil that is, before shortly afterwards loading up the truck for their move to Bever-lee…!
Rather than fitting in a few episodes of Jed and all his kin, to get me in the mood for this trip, I instead thought it a good idea to watch the film “Deliverance” before I came, and probably shouldn’t have! At one point I parked up in a small driveway to walk back on myself about a quarter-of-a-mile back up the road to take a photo of an “Ozark National Forest” sign. On my way back to my car, an old clapped-out and rusted banger with an even rustier driver asked if I needed any help. I thanked him and said I was fine, that my car was just a bit further ahead. He then drove to my car, turned around, and drove back towards me heading back to where he had come from. I’m sure he was being friendly, but this did feel a bit odd, and my heart sank a bit when he turned around at my car to come back and pass me again. I felt quite relieved when he drove past me. It was an isolated place, I was of course alone, and to be honest all it really takes is a shotgun – something I’m sure people in these parts were not lacking. I was a little more cautious from thereon where I stopped.
I still parked up briefly to take in a few more sights. One with a river ford view, another over a single-lane bridge, and finally at a wonderful viewpoint over the rolling, forested hills, where I also got talking to a group of friendly bikers – not the hillbilly types!
I then drove back to my wonderful rural accommodation back in Greenbrier, to sit out on its porch for a bit, enjoying the warm evening air, the setting sun, and hearing the lovely sound of bird song all around as they were settling in for the night. I could definitely see why they call it “The Natural State” – it had been a lovely day.
The next day I was driving to Memphis, with a couple of stop-off points on the way. I was excited, and will relay more in my next.
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