Escaping Texas

We knew that the driving days would be tough. They would be long and they would be boring, but we would have that reward of a soft bed in the friendly confines of a Hampton Inn.

But it was lunch time, and we were still in Texas. Like I said in my last post, Texas is one big (expletive deleted) State. Finally, about an hour after we had stopped to refuel our vehicle and ourselves, we saw a ray of hope:

TEXARKANA!

"The City So Great It Took Two States"


"Twice As Nice"


Texarkana was founded in 1873 at the junction of two railroads. The original surveyors believed the town would share land from TEXas, ARKansas, and LouisiANA, hence the city's name, but after all the politics were done, Texas and Arkansas came out the victors. Texarkana is still a major transportation hub for this region of the US, and the home to the sole remaining Kmart in Texas (we saw it, but didn't stop). More importantly, reaching Texarkana meant we were finally on the cusp of a new state: Arkansas!

As stoked as we were to finally have made it out of Texas, we were rather disappointed to discover that Arkansas look a whole lot like East Texas. Trees. A whole lot of them. But we had set a mini-goal of Little Rock, where there was a nice mall and an Eddie Bauer store we wanted to visit.




What? We're women. We like to shop. Don't judge.

Stopping at the mall turned out to be a really good idea, because we were a bit road weary at that time, and we were able to really get up and stretch our legs. We also got to see a Chik-fil-a firecow!

As exciting as our break was, we had to get back on the road, because our nice, comfy bed was still 140 miles away. So we got back on I-40, passing, for the third time, this dude:






A flat-bed truck transporting a military vehicle.

It certainly wasn't the only vehicle we passed multiple times on our trip, but it was one of the most interesting ones. In fact, spotting vehicles we passed more than once became a bit of a game, as did identifying license plates from different states. And of course, the classic cars making a cross-country trip!


Things were pretty uneventful (code for tree-filled view) for much of the state. Until we were just West of the Arkansas/Tennessee border, when we ran into a thunderstorm. Now, being from Texas, we are accustomed to storms that appear out of nowhere, drop anywhere from three drops to three inches of rain and then disappear just as quickly, so we were not alarmed in the slightest by the appearance of rain and thunder. What scared the bejeebus out of us was how the natives reacted to the challenge of wet weather.


Apparently, the "thing" to do in Western Tennessee is to pull over onto the shoulder and stop and wait until the rain has passed. Or, if you're in a hurry, then you don't pull over. You reduce your speed to no more than ten miles per hour and drive with your hazards on. I feel very confident in sharing with all of you that if you were to do either of these in Texas, you would get squashed like a bug on a windshield of a car going eighty. It's dangerous and stupid. And the rain really wasn't that bad. Sure, there were patches where the drops were pretty big and the rain was thick, but overall, not impossible to navigate.