Got up early and started watching the weather channel, also web doppler radar for the area showing rain fall predictions. Left about 1030 with a plan to turn north about 20 miles down the road, just inside of Louisiana. I ended up on a bone straight agricultural road that was just the way I like 'em; smooth new asphalt scarcely traffic'ed.

Louisiana is broken up into parishes, not counties, and there are a great many churches all around, and bordering this road. I hope the choir voices were loud enough to drown out the sound of my pipes as I roared by these houses of worship at a buck forty!

I don't think I was in Louisiana for more than an hour, having just cut the corner on it, then I passed into Arkansas. I stopped in Eudora, a small town of just under 300 ppl, for gas and across the road, there was the Great American Dream, and my new obsessive fixation...........apparently!



I have also crossed a line somewhere, the Arkansas border I believe, where every person involved in a retail setting has dropped 15 IQ points and become slack jawed. After I gas up, paying at the pump first, I looked around for the windshield cleaning squeegee. Seeing none I go inside and ask the slack jawed Deltayeller lady. When I ask her for the squeegee she just stares at me, literally slack jawed, for a long 30 seconds. Just as I am turning to go she says "Whadayall lookin fer?" I start to repeat myself, but decide to just leave instead.

Subsequent retail experiences that day all have a similar theme, slack jawed Deltayeller ladies staring at me for extended periods of time.

Several hours later, deep in Arkansas I pulled into a gas station just as this dude was leaving. I wish I would have been 30 seconds sooner so I could show you what he looked like, 4'5" pants around his knees, ball cap on side-ways, huge bundle of gold chains around his neck, a serious gang-sta! I don't understand what these guys are thinking, but pretty nice ride! I wonder if he sits on a booster seat? I was filming him on the sly, didn't want to have a confrontation with this wee hood!



One side effect of the perpetual nice weather in the US south is every vehicle that I see that has some type of an alloy spoked wheel is the front wheels are covered in the bronzed patina of brake pad dust. I realized that car washes are few and far between, not like the ubiquituous dollar store. I Googled the dollar store phenomenon in 'Merica and found there are over 45 000 stores of that retail classification on the lower 50. That's over 10 times as many stores as Wal-Marts!

Eventually I drove the entire vertical height (in my map book) of Arkansas, and just inside Missouri, stopped in the small town of Branson, MO. Although Branson is a somewhat non descript small town, they had numerous venues advertising shows of a Las Vegas nature including Les Miserables, Fiddler on the Roof and a Beatle tribute band, amongst others.

Also when I was checking-in the hotel lady made sure I knew about A) The Arts District, and B) the fact that they had hired the same guy that designed the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, to design a lights, sound and water fountain show for a small lake in the town's center. Anything to put you on the map, eh? Guess its not any worse than a huge Pyrogy, or UFO Landing Pad like some Alberta towns.

Speaking of Alberta, I saw a Saskatchewan license plate on a motor home today. That makes the first Canadian plate of any province since I left Alberta 26 days ago. I am homesick, I miss my beautiful wife, my doggies, my king sized bed, home cooked meals. I am looking forward to going back to work as well.

I was going to go to Joe's Crab Shack in The Restaurant District but instead went to a Steak and Shake just around the corner. I had a small salad, a cheeseburger and fries, and a peanut butter shake, all for $7.87. I ask the waitress to double check it and it was correct! Cheap Date!

The mo'tel I am in is on a very steep hill with portions of the parking lot terraced and others very steep hills. I choose to park on a steep hill and leave The Rocket in gear so it doesn't roll away.