February 22, 2005 - Volksmarch in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Our goal for the day was to walk the Volksmarch in Little Rock, so we drove in the Visitor Center after breakfast. A lot across the street from the center offered free parking, and the center itself was in a historic 19th Century mansion that had been refurbished and decorated with many nice period pieces. I thought they had done an excellent job of creating a very pleasant place to sit and chat, but we were anxious to begin our walk so we signed up, took the instructions and map, and were on our way.

Monika was still favoring her ankle, so we proceeded slowly down to the riverfront where we turned right to walk out to President Clinton's library. The library looked absolutely enormous to me, and I couldn't for the life of me understand why they had the bulk of the building supported in mid air by pillars. It looked something like a huge coal barge propped up on stilts, but I surmised it was an architectural statement of some kind, which turned out to be correct. Monika later informed me that it symbolized "The Bridge to the 21st Century", Clinton's theme for his second term. From my (jaundiced) view of the building, his theme could just as well have been "Barging into the Future", but that probably would not have won as many votes.

But I never did find out anything more about the building because there was a security screening required to enter and I knew I would be prohibited because of the 2-inch long Swiss Army knife I was carrying on my key chain. Besides, these journals are supposed to represent what you can still see in Free America, which are the places where you can freely walk around and take as many pictures as you like. Clearly the Clinton library, like the White House and the U.S. Congress, didn't qualify for Free America, so I just turned around and left.

We next headed westward along the riverfront where the city had built a very nice, if short, river walk. Several restaurants/bars lined the walk to our left but we had great views of the Arkansas River to our right. I enjoyed looking at the various statues displayed hither and yon, so all together it was a pleasant segment of the walk.

From the river walk we headed further to the west along a city street, passing a very nice auditorium that was home to the city symphony, ballet company, and so forth. Since the river walk had also featured a waterfront amphitheater under a tent-like canopy, I suspected that the symphony gave outdoor concerts there at some time during their season.

The capitol building was built in the traditional central dome and 2 wings style of the U.S. Capitol, but at the top they had a golden knob rather than a statue. The doors, however, were absolutely gorgeous bronze polished to the point that they shined in the sun like brilliant gold plate. A nice touch, that. I would have liked to walk in and see if this capitol was part of Free America or not because it's hard to guess from the outside. The Texas state capitol we visited earlier in the trip was definitely part of Free America, for example, but the Louisiana state capitol was not. In any case, Monika's ankle was limiting our mobility and I did not get the chance to check it out.

From the capitol we wended our way back to the east. I walked north through a small college campus guarded on all sides by a high fence made of sturdy iron bars. It was the first campus I had ever seen with a complete perimeter fence, and I was curious as to just who they were afraid off and trying to keep out. It's possible, I suppose, that they were trying to keep the students in, but the students certainly seemed friendly enough as I was passing through. From the campus I zigzagged a bit to get to the Governor's Mansion. The drive was closed off by large, artistic wrought-iron gate, but at least there wasn't any guardhouse with armed and hostile sentries to harass me as I took pictures.

As I walked back toward the starting point from the Governor's Mansion, I passed some of the nicest old houses you could imagine. One old Victorian in particular was so perfectly kept and intricately painted that I was really attracted to it. It featured what looked like 1900s era stained glass transoms over some of the original curved windows, but one semi-circular piece of stained glass looked suspiciously modern. I yearned to knock on the door and ask about that odd-man-out piece of stained glass, but Monika was waiting so I continued on my way.

The final leg of the walk passed MacArthur Park, which included the MacArthur Military History Museum. I was curious as to whether this museum had anything to do with Douglas MacArthur of WWII and Korea fame, but nothing on the outside enlightened me and I couldn't take the time to stop in for a look. Given my weakness for museums, stopping in for a look could take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours or so!

All in all, we liked the Little Rock Volksmarch. The terrain was flat and the route was entirely on sidewalks, so tennis shoes would probably be OK. While we just had a pleasant, sunny day in the 60s, I expect with all the pavement that in the summer this walk could be wretchedly hot, so you should take heat precautions and carry plenty of water if you do it in warm weather. However, in the spring, the flowers are beautiful.

After the walk we drove off in search of lunch, finally settling on Arby's as they featured a 2 sub sandwiches for $5 deal and we have always liked their French dip sub. The nice lady at the counter also loaned me a phone book so that I could look up the nearest Toyota dealer, and I found one on the north side of the city where we were camped. So we drove there to prepare the Tundra for the next 5,000 miles with an oil change and tire rotation, and returned to camp for the rest of the afternoon.

Besides our normal computer tasks, we also had to decide whether to end the trip with a drive straight north to Lois's place, where we would store the trailer on her pad, or head straight east to Virginia where we would store the trailer in our driveway. Since we planned to go back to Yellowstone or Alaska in the summer, storing it at Lois's place would save us a drive through the Appalachian Mountains to Virginia and then back again in the summer. The only fly in the ointment was that Lois was trying to sell her house, and if she did so in the interim we would have to move the trailer to some storage area around Burlington. Also, we knew we would enjoy seeing my sister again, but on the other hand I didn't want to face driving the rig in snow and flurries were being forecast for the southern Wisconsin area. All together, this was not an easy decision.