Ozark Roadtrip Part 4: The Little Rock Experience

Note:  This series is in multiple parts; you may wish to read parts 1-3 first.

Day 5 Continued 

We were driving down from the highest point in Arkansas towards its capital city, Little Rock.  With a population similar to that of Windsor, we more or less knew what to expect.  Great cafes, brewpubs, restaurants, and a welcoming riverside park.  The bonus here was that I knew someone.  Luke and I had met on-line when I was writing my Ballantine Fantasy literature blog.  Luke had an interest in these offbeat fantasy novels published in the late 1960s and 1970s and edited by Lin Carter.  We later joined up on FB and kept loosely in touch.  Though our trip would certainly have included the Crystal Bridges gallery and the Arkansas high point, we likely would have skipped out on Little Rock without Luke there saying he would meet up with us.  I have a similar contact in Paris, France, and hope to meet up with him, too, someday.

 

Anyway, we had some really fun times in Little Rock on this trip, so I'm glad we came this far south after all.  We were heading for a 5 pm meetup with Luke at Lost 40 Brewing Company, on his recommendation.  We arrived one day after the tornadoes, but people were still packed into the brewery on our arrival.  Deb and I shared a flight, and we ordered two vegan sides of food.  We bought Luke a beer and his dinner, and had a great discussion about books, Little Rock, ourselves, and various other topics which I cannot even remember.  But we all seemed to get along just fine, despite the vast age difference.  His wife was having a weekend with girlfriends.  They had rented a cabin in a park somewhere, and she would be back tomorrow afternoon.

 

It was a couple of thirsty Canadian travellers who happily pulled into the parking lot here just after 5 pm.

 

Two literature specialists meet up to discuss world events (and to drink some fine ale).  One of them caught some sun today.  Luke is originally from the northeast US, but found himself in Little Rock, where he seems happy and very well settled.  We would meet Jenna, his wife, tomorrow, and get a (free!) tour of their unbelievably fun home. 

 

Day Six 

 

We were spending two nights in Little Rock, the first and only time on this journey where we would stay in one place so long.  Of course it went very fast.  We really only had that Saturday evening pub stop, and all day Sunday, to visit here, before departing for home Monday morning.  We began at the riverside on Sunday morning.  Spring was well advanced here, and the temps would reach 80 F later on.  The park was quiet, but there were people out and about.  We entered the park near the City Market (closed today) and performance stage, and spent a pleasant hour or so enjoying the views of the river, the gardens, and a lot of fun sculptures.  This was our fourth riverfront park of the trip so far (others included Terre Haute, St. Louis, and Fort Smith).  Except for the arch itself in St Louis, I think I enjoyed this park the most.  It had a cozy feel to it, but it did help that the vegetation was quite advanced here.  The Arkansas River isn't the Mississippi, but it is pretty wide, and several bridges cross it, including an old lift bridge now used only for pedestrians.  On the other side is North Little Rock, which is beginning to become a pretty hip area.  Downtown Little Rock itself, however, is pretty empty of fun places.  Despite several tall buildings and the State Capitol building, there are not many people places here to go yet, except  near the river.

 

Riverside park in downtown Little Rock, AR.

 

 

Old lift bridge now serves as a pedestrian crossing to North Little Rock.

One of many appealing sculptures in the park.

 

Little Rock Amtrak station, with a daily train to Chicago and Texas.  It was outside train hours, so it was closed. 

 

We are sitting at Muggs Cafe in North Little Rock, after our downtown park visit.  The free trolley started up at 11:40, coming out of its barn across the street.  We had no time to go for a ride on this visit. 

 

With some time to kill before our next archaeology centre opened up, we visited Muggs Cafe in  North Little Rock.  The mound site opened at 1 pm on Sunday, and it was only twenty minutes away.  Once called Toltec Mounds, since the discoverers did not suspect that the local natives could have built such a place, it is now referred to as Plum Bayou Mounds, and is looked after by the state.  We arrived shortly after opening.  The mounds are situated on an old course of the Arkansas River, in effect a small, curving lake.  Unlike Spiro Mounds, these were not dug up by looters, and so are in pretty good shape.  Two rangers were in the building, and there was a gift shop!  At the end I bought a tee-shirt.  The museum was good, and we lingered indoors for some time before hitting the trails.

Again this is a large site, with several miles of walking.  We chose the shorter Knapp Trail, which came with a free guide booklet.  It covered all the main mounds and included a boardwalk over the water, which lies just behind the largest mound.  Only 50 people lived within the embankment walls here, indicating that this was likely a major ceremonial centre for local tribes, with a small priest population on site.  It was populated and used between 650 AD and 1050 AD.  There are more than 20 mounds on site.  We ended up extending the Knapp Trail with another nature trail, this one a lot less dangerous and taxing than the one at Spiro.

 

Our trail.

One of the main mounds.

 

 

 Soltices and equinoxes were observed using one mound as the sighting platform and others as the line of sight.  Upon first glance the mounds seemed to be in an odd formation, but once standing on the central mound, the alignment can be understood perfectly.

 

Short boardwalk and main mound.

The boardwalk was a highlight of the trip.  The trees are cypress.

 

These are cypress knees, part of the root system.  Pretty damn cool!!

 

This marks my final photo, as my camera locked after this and became unusable.  So far I'd lost a precious ring, and now my main camera was kaput.  I was paying a price for my travels.  From hereon in, all photos are from Deb and our American phone camera.

 

 

Turtles on a log.

 

Rat snake in a tree, sunning itself, with main mound in behind.

Monsieur snake, very relaxed and enjoying the fine weather.  It was at eye level with us on the boardwalk. 

 

We were back in Little Rock close to our 3 pm coffee time.  On advice from Luke, we headed to Fidel and Company's Cafe and Roastery.  It was a fine day, and the main window was open to the world.  It was fairly busy but also quiet, and we enjoyed a longish rest.  We came away with a bag of coffee beans.  By a weird turn of fate, Luke was helping Fidel and others do some storm cleanup in North Little Rock at that time.

The hippest of hipsters enjoys a brew at Fidel's, in Little Rock. So did I.

 

Next stop was our second brewery of our stay here, this one back in North Little Rock, not far from Muggs Cafe.  Flyway Brewery had some very tasty offerings on tap, and we enjoyed our shared flight quite a lot.  We had a very friendly wait person, and we chatted with him at some length.  We kept in touch via text messages with Luke, and eventually headed to a restaurant back in Little Rock to be meet him and Jenna for dinner.  The Root Cafe had some delicious sounding vegan options, and Deb and I went splits on a generously portioned grilled tofu sandwich.  Jenna is a grade school teacher, and an artist and a music major, so we had a lot to talk about at dinner.  It was a beautiful evening, and the doors and windows were open wide.

 

Afterwards, it was a short stroll back to Luke and Jenna's home, where we got the grand tour.  I will just say that this older house is totally funky and livable, and would make a young couple in unaffordable Toronto extremely jealous.  I got to see Luke's Ballantine book collection on a bookshelf.  These were the books that had caused us to connect on-line many years ago.  His set is far from complete, but hopefully not for too much longer.  Even more special, we got to see his incredible collection of Transformers.  And I mean a collection!  An entire room with many shelves and too many Transformers to count.  A bit overwhelming on a quick visit.

Jenna and Deb, in their backyard.

 

 

It was getting late, they both had to work tomorrow, and we had a long drive ahead of us as we turned around and pointed ourselves northeast towards home.  Deb and I walked back to the restaurant where our car was parked, and then drove to the hotel.  For all intents and purposes the trip was now over.  However, we still had a fun stop or two ahead of us, as it would take two days to drive home.  So yes, there is a Part 5.  But it's mostly about breweries.  Join me if you so desire.

 

Mapman Mike