Two More Roads

Continuing from my last post, here are the other two drives between Washington, D.C. and Lincoln, NE that stood out:

The third notable drive, and my favorite of the bunch, was the drive from Little Rock through the Ozarks in northwest Arkansas.

Near the beginning of this drive, before I reached the Ozark Mountains, I stopped at Hendrix College, where a good friend of mine used to teach.  I think it's been a while since he's been there, so I don't know if the campus looks like it did in his time, but it was really pretty.  It's a small school in a small town, but was a nice place to stroll around for a while before setting off on my drive for the day.

The Ozarks are not particularly large mountains, but are a very pretty area.  The roads are twisty and turny, with some ups and downs, but until the drive through the Smokey Mountains, are fun to drive, not teeth-clenchingly  stressful.  It felt kind of like someone grabbed U.S. 129 at each end stretched it out just a bit.

If you read my post on Little Rock, you'll know that Arkansas has long been mocked as the home of drunken hillbillies (well, maybe you already knew this).  A lot of this stereotype comes from early depictions of the Ozarks and the people who lived there.  They were poor.  From what I saw, the area is not so poor any more, but I did see a share of trailers and really beaten-up homes along the way.

I stopped for lunch at the Burger Barn, which apparently has been around for a long time and is a local famous place.  It's just a roadside drive-in where you order at the counter then eat in your car or under a tent.  And it was good.  I'm glad I stopped!  While there, I got to talking with a couple from California who'd just moved to the area because the lady's mom had retired there.  They loved it.  They thought it was pretty and easy.

If you're ever in northwest Arkansas, stop at the Burger Barn!  The chef is gruff, but the burgers are good.

Finally, my last notable drive was between Kansas City, Missouri and Lincoln, Nebraska.  Not because the drive was particularly scenic (it was not) or full of neat things (it was not).  But because a huge swath of Interstate 29 and many surrounding roads were washed out by floods from the Missouri River.  Apparently, the states upstream of the Nebraska/Iowa area received significantly more snowfall than usual and, depending on who you listen to, the Army Corp of Engineers may or may not have managed the dams properly to prevent or reduce flooding down river.  (I'm inclined to think that when you have a massive record snowfall, there's going to be a flood later, no matter how well it's managed.)

Anyway, for me the flooding meant about a 90 minute detour, which actually allowed me to see more of country and small towns around the Missouri/Iowa/Nebraska intersection.  But for the people who live there, it meant at best a massive inconvenience every day or at worst, the loss of their homes or farms or businesses.  Ironically, that whole swath of North America also suffered it worst draught and longest heatwave since the 1930s.  Many parts of the area got more than 30 days of over 100 degree heat this summer, and no rain.  So the area managed to get hit with draught and flooding.  Man.

The area looked like this for miles around.