fall in Arkansas

Last week, I travel to Arkansas. Not a new state, but a new part of the state for me. I was attending the Presbyterians for Earth Care conference at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center and Little Rock, which required a drive through Mississippi, the northeastern corner of Louisiana, and the southeastern corner of Arkansas.


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I admit I dozed till we were out of LA... and most of the rest of the day... (we left at 6:30AM and I was easily up till at least 2 the night before)...

But I was awake for northeastern LA, as well as most of the ride home. It was interesting to see what just a few hours' drive north does to the landscape and climate. For one, it was FALL in Arkansas!



 (It was still pretty warm in southern Louisiana when we left.) Also, there were rocks there!



(Southern Louisiana doesn't really have those occurring naturally. I'll gladly give you the geography lesson if you're curious.)

It was interesting to see how quickly the landscape would transition from small, fairly nice, well kept homes to run down trailers and dilapidated shacks. It was even more interesting to think, the latter are homes nonetheless.

I was also fascinated to look at the map later and see the the boundaries of Louisiana and Mississippi don't entirely follow the river, but are caught behind some remnant oxbow lakes leftover from the earlier days of the Mississippi River's meandering (more geography lessons for later, if you'd like).

Wide open spaces and vast agricultural land occasionally gave way to small towns, including Lake Village, AR, which had a bustling Chinese food restaurant that we stopped in (Kris asked a question about including some extra fresh ginger and garlic, which the very Caucasian server was very caught off guard by, before letting us know that they didn't have any of that but could add some garlic powder) (and man that was the saltiest Chinese food I've ever had).


Always and adventure, and always leaves me wanting to explore more.