December 3 – 5, 2014: After crossing the border into Arkansas from Missouri, we stopped around 4:30pm at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. This museum was founded by Sam Walton’s daughter. Sam Walton is the founder of WalMart – not an establishment that I care to support.
However, admission was free (sponsored by WalMart) and we could use some culture. The museum was surprisingly good – the older American Art was better than the old masters (which I never love) and, best of all, there was a special exhibit of current talent from around the United States. A lot of the ‘current talent’ was super modern and mixed media which I really enjoyed.
After enjoying this break, we continued to the Fort Smith / Alma KOA for the night. We could tell the KOA was a total shithole but didn’t realize the extent until our sleep was interrupted by an alarm going off throughout the night and then, the next morning, I saw the truck with a confederate flag license plate and four back tires. And the bathroom plastered with pictures and newspaper articles presumably glorifying Bonnie and Clyde (they killed the city marshal of Alma).
After hastily departing, we drove to downtown Little Rock. We ate lunch at Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro because Arkansas is supposed be renowned for its cheese dip so we figured we had to partake. It was indeed quite good. We then headed into the Clinton Presidential Center where we saw the back of Bill Clinton’s head, less than 30 feet away, as he departed the lobby into the elevator! We missed him by less than one minute! We spent the rest of the day browsing the exhibits and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent there. The interesting tidbit for me – I didn’t realize that it was so recent, during Bill’s presidency in 1993, that FMLA was enacted. Another sad reminder of how slow the progress is in this county.
Accommodation:
- Fort Smith / Alma KOA, Alma, Arkansas, United States (UPDATE: thankfully, this campground no longer appears to be part of the KOA family!)
- Little Rock North / Jct. I-40 KOA, North Little Rock, Arkansas, United States