My Arkansas Travelogue - part 2

We actually made two trips to Arkansas. We were supposed to go in April when the Steampunk Festival was in Van Buren, but I got the flu and we had to reschedule. We figured we'd wait until after Mother's Day. The plan was to enjoy the ride over, shop the little town, spend the night and take the train excursion the next day.

Most people who know me think I'm fairly organized and would probably be surprised that I'm not much of a trip planner. I always assume we can figure it out when we get there. That has rarely worked out, by the way. You would think I would learn.

#1 -- if there's no special event in Van Buren, it's pretty much a ghost town. We only found 2 antique stores open. In fact, it was so slow, the shop owner of one place wasn't even in the store! We wandered all around his establishment thinking how odd it was open but apparently deserted. We found him visiting another owner down the street. Must be a trusting guy.

Then we went to the depot to get our tickets for the next day and found out the train doesn't run on Sundays from Van Buren! The depot had some nice vintage displays and a big ol' running train set. I took a few phone pix and picked up a little brochure with a schedule that said the train leaves Sundays at 12:30 from Springdale to VB round trip.

That's not so far away - just an hour's drive, so the plan was to go to Springdale the next day and hop the train for the round-trip Springdale-Van Buren run (which sounds goofy, since we were staying in VB!). Well, apparently that brochure was incorrect because when we got to Springdale the next morning, the depot was closed up and that area of town totally deserted, not a soul in sight. The only thing worth seeing was this old fashioned sign at Tyson's chicken hatchery.

After that failed attempt, we started looking for something else to do. That's when we stumbled on the botanical garden, which I posted here. Actually my whole Arkansas Travelogue is out of order - kinda like the first trip was! Hope you're following my train of thought ok. (no pun intended)

Anyway, after the botanical garden visit, we said, "hey! let's drive out and see what this big ol' mountain is all about!" That would be Mt. Magazine. It's the highest point in the state.
 

It was a pretty drive out there and would be gorgeous in the fall. It turned out to be farther than expected (again, you would think I would learn). We mini-hiked to an observation area, enjoyed the view, and headed back to the car to begin the next quest - DINNER! Trust me, coming from Tulsa with its overwhelming choices of restaurants, we might as well have been in the desert. I did see a couple spots on the way that might have been interesting photo ops, but decided to go easy on hubby. (Usually, it's "STOP! I want a picture of that!" as he obligingly slams on the breaks). Here's a link to the website in case you ever want to check it out. Mt. Magazine State Park.

Next post - JunkFest!

My Arkansas Travelogue - part 3

So now you know about our first trip to Arkansas which, at best, was serendipitous. The good news, besides seeing some really beautiful scenery, was we found out the following week was JunkFest in Van Buren. That sounded promising. Determined to get that train ride in, we had a new and better plan.

We reserved our tickets online and decided we could do this in one day, rather than have another hotel & dog boarding expense. We got on the road early, armed with coffee and granola bars, and headed back to Springdale.

The station was alive this time - completely opposite of the previous week. We enjoyed the little museum. The station was decorated for Memorial Day and the Veterans did a color guard presentation before the boarding call. It was a  heartwarming start to our adventure.
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All aboard!

All the pictures on this post are from the cell phone. I didn't want to carry my big ol' camera & try to shop at the same time.

We love train rides. Two ladies, at least in their mid-70s were the hostesses. Bless their hearts, they worked hard juggling coffee and snacks. One of them gave a running commentary on the things to see along the way.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot to see between the two towns. Just a lot of the backside of the small towns the train passes by and hills in the distance. Again, it would be much prettier in the fall.

We arrived in Van Buren! Had a yummy lunch at Boomerang Cafe and then began the junk-festing.

Clearly, we were in Trump Country :)

The architecture is cool. 1800s kind of stuff.

There's so much wonderful history in these old towns west of the Mississippi. It's too bad most of them faded away. They were once thriving with business, outlaws, steamboats, gambling, music, hopes & dreams.

Junking was fun. Here's what I got...

This is the kind of phone we had growing up. I used to have nightmares that there was some kind of danger and I was desperately trying to call the operator but couldn't get the dial to go all the way around to 0. I told the shop clerk about it and she said she wouldn't want anything around that reminded her of a nightmare. I said I'll use it to face my fear, lol. If nothing else, these things are so heavy, you could knock someone out with it!

This vase is Polish crystal and it was only $6. I bought cobalt crystal candlesticks at a factory store when we visited Poland in the 90's. I thought it would go great with them, plus I loved the color & shape of the vase.

Here's the vase in my china cabinet.

I think this might have been a 45 record case back in the day. I'm going to clean off the rust & spray paint it to hold my embroidery software CDs.

What the heck is this and why would you buy it? Why, these are rusted bed springs! Who wouldn't want a few of these! Some enterprising individual knew somebody like me would come along and pay a buck apiece for them. They had a whole big basket of them.

I don't know why I'm drawn to rusted things. I love to photograph old, rusty junk. Maybe it's the color and texture. Maybe it's the history it holds.  I can see these springs with beads & stuff woven thru them for forest fairy dolls. That's the plan right now, anyway.

As you can see, I'm not a true antiquer and definitely not a big spender! I just like to find stuff that can be repurposed for storage, art assemblage, or funky art dolls.

Depending on whether you scroll up or down, the last post is about Ft. Smith.

My Arkansas Travelogue - part 4 (final)

This post shows some pictures from Ft Smith. And actually, we stopped here on the way home from our weekend in AR, not the single day-trip.

It was one of those "since it's on the way, let's stop real quick..." kind of site-seeing moments.

And since it was so quick, I barely remember the details. There's quite a bit to see here and a day-trip to Ft Smith would be worthwhile.

At this point we were standing at the dividing line between Arkansas & the old Indian Territory.

I believe this was the old courthouse where one of those famous hangin' judges dispensed justice during those wild times when Indian Territory was opening up.

Yes, now I remember as I'm looking at these pictures. Above & below are pix of the jail cells from the outside.

I quickly glanced through one info sign that mentioned how soldiers labored to build this fort on the Arkansas River, only to be ordered to abandon it & move to Ft Gibson in Oklahoma. Sounds like the government, doesn't it? Some things never change!

I was expecting to see a real fort because the guy at the courthouse info desk said, "go out this door, take a right, walk towards the river to see the old fort."

What he failed to mention is that all that's left of the old fort is an outline of the foundation. DETAILS, PEOPLE, DETAILS!

If you want to see a real fort, though, check out Ft Gibson (the same one I mentioned above).

The grounds are very pretty and it's a lovely walk on the trail by the river.

Hey, more trains! I thought these were retired & sitting here for that old time effect. I'm standing on the tracks, taking various pictures and then we continued our tour. I hear the familiar sounds of a train whistle and lo & behold, there it goes on the tracks I had just vacated. Well, that was close!

As I said, one of those famous hangin' judges was posted here. Judge Parker. The gallows is still standing, even if the fort isn't.

Imagine being in that courtroom just across the yard and pronounced guilty. You saw Justice waiting for you right there.

 This is the text of a recording you could choose to play. It was vocally acted out, accents and all.

I stood underneath the platform for this shot. Kinda eerie.

A bit of metaphorical wisdom for y'all - Be a good person and avoid life's gallows. Heaven knows, there's still a bunch of Judge Parkers out there in this harsh world!

Saturday Morning Rambling

So this rainy morning, I started watching “The Post,” then decided to stop and write this.

I’ll pick it up in a few minutes and brush Khaleesi while watching. It looks like something I can listen to and half watch while doing something productive.

When I was a teenager, I read two newspapers every day. I don't know about you, but I haven't known many teens who even read one paper! But don’t be too impressed; they were small town, local papers that my Gramps subscribed to. What got me started was a sensational story about the death of a local woman and the ensuing trial of her accused murderer.

The woman’s name happened to be the same as mine.

Her husband’s name happened to be the same as my boyfriend’s. 

My boyfriend and I happened to be in the same class.

And it just so happened that this class was taught by this man before he was accused of killing his wife.

Yep, that's what I'm sayin'. The accused murderer was our history teacher. He used to tease us about being a couple with the same name as he and his newlywed wife. He talked about her all the time in class. It was clear he deeply loved her.

I was approached by his attorney and asked to be a character witness. At the age of 16, I had no idea what that would be like and I was too scared to agree. I felt bad about that for years.

That’s how my love of reading the newspaper began. In fact, fast forward, my only request for Mother’s Day every year was that I be allowed to read the Sunday paper front to back with no disruptions.

Back to the movie - the 10 minutes I watched got me to thinking again about the book I recently read, called “The Smear” by Sharyl Attkisson. The dirty tricks and smear campaigns she wrote about were not new to me. It’s something we’ve known of for decades; just maybe not with such contemporary details. Something she wrote stuck with me...

In the days of print, people easily recognized the difference between legitimate news and “fake news.” Junk news was found at the grocery checkout endcaps, like The National Enquirer or The Globe. The headlines were extreme, the artwork was dark and cheap, and the whole look of the paper was cheesy. It had creepy, Godzilla worthy photographs. People bought these rags because they were sensational and entertaining. You knew the information inside was like junk food – full of non-nutritional calories but fun to consume.

In the online world we now inhabit, The Enquirer and its ilk have been replaced by numerous websites that look and read like authentic news pages. BUT THEY’RE NOT. They’re the Enquirer, or the Globe, or some other rag dressed up to look respectable. BUT THEY’RE NOT.  You know the old saying: “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

As news consumers, we have a harder job and a bigger responsibility now to know the difference.

Half-truth reporting, what used to be called “lying” is now a billion dollar Industry. Yes. Billion. Yes. Industry. There are real, legitimate corporations and non-profits whose sole purpose is to destroy others for the highest bidder. They’re invested in or backed by some of the world’s most nefarious billionaires. People make entire careers out of digging for dirt and selling it.  It’s not just about politics; both the predators and victims include corporations, lobbyists, and the entertainment industry. 

Where do you think the bulk of this information is deployed? Exactly!

There are extreme liberals AND extreme conservatives who want to take control of the information you can access. They don’t think you can discern the truth from a lie. They want to do it for you. For your protection. For the good of the people. Do you buy that?

If we really believe in the First Amendment, if we really want to protect our First Amendment rights, we are going to have to grow up and take responsibility for what we share online.

You have got to start paying attention and educating yourself. All the buzz and energy right now is being directed towards protecting the Second Amendment and yes, that’s important too. Has it occurred to you that it might also be a misdirect? Something to take your attention away from what they’re trying to do with the First A?

Every word of the Constitution is precious. All I’m saying is be well informed, know the source of your information, and be responsible with your knowledge. We’re still going to disagree on many social issues but that’s ok. It’s what keeps us balanced!

EPILOGUE: The history teacher. According to testimony, they had a fight and he grabbed her roughly to try to kiss her.  She supposedly died of strangulation but three experts could not conclude that. I’m not sure but I think he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and may have served some time. I ran into him in another city, a couple years after graduation. He looked sad, but was professionally dressed and on his way somewhere. We exchanged pleasantries. I asked how he was. He asked about me and boyfriend. I was glad to have had that moment of closure.

Just a Photo

I was tempted to caption this "Oklahoma Classroom."

I saw this spot several months ago while walking Khaleesi and have been wanting to come back and photograph it. I was envisioning an early morning sunrise, maybe with some rising fog. But I had the time this morning, so this is what I got.

It really might be an outdoor classroom of sorts. It's located on school property. A very nice elementary school, I might add. Maybe they use it for science class, like when they have to identify bugs and leaves. Or maybe when they teach state history. Or maybe it's a secret club meeting place. I doubt it has anything to do with religious services, though it looks like what I would imagine as an old prairie church.

Our state's teachers started the 2nd week of their walkout today. They have good reasons, but I really don't condone their method. I think this should have been handled differently.

I don't have any personal experience with our public schools. But from what I've seen or heard about, they run the gamut from shoddy to excellent. Our school problem is a ridiculous mess of ridiculous reasons. Oops, I'm slipping into a rant and really all I wanted to do was present this photo.

On a lighter note...

I did a real estate photo shoot last week and this pretty kitty decided he was the perfect accessory for the master suite. Although I don't blame him for hiding out in the bedroom - his people were dog sitting 2 pooches in addition to their own 3. There were 5 excited pooches of various sizes clamoring at the back door while I did the interior shoot. What a circus when the owner brought them in so I could photograph the back yard!