On to Arkansas
You can imagine how excited we were to be in AK, home of our favorite current president of the US, Bill Clinton. This photo was taken at the visitor center on I-40 just east of the state line. We couldn't resist it. I must say though that the parts of AK we saw were among the prettiest in the country and the people among the friendliest. We camped in the Ozark National Forest for three nights and couldn't believe the size and density of the TREES! Who needs the tropical rain forests with all the trees we have in this country east of the Mississippi? It's a forest out there!
From left to right we have our camp spot in the Ozarks, yours truly posing with ax, martini and cigar after successfully starting a campfire that would shortly be doused by a granddaddy thunderstorm, and finally, by popular demand, me skinny dipping in the Mulberry River. The two National Forest Service campgrounds we visited in the Ozarks were virtually deserted, just us, the woods, the birds, the creek, the thunderstorms, the bugs, the humidity... almost heaven...wait! that's a different state, but you get the idea.
Leaving the Ozarks and heading down through "banjo players on the porch country" we were stopped by two dangerous looking dudes in slickers and cowboy hats that, instead of robbing us, informed us that we would have to wait until the Hillbilly Daze Parade did its u-turn right in front of us and headed back down the road to town. They told us that if the weather had been good there would have been 8,000 people crowding the streets. Being my usual diplomatic self, I looked around through the surrounding woods and mentioned that it didn't look to me like there were 8,000 people within 100 miles of the place. They said that there certainly are because once a year they come down out of the woods (if the weather's good) for this parade and you better believe it! I didn't go skinny dipping any more. Here is a photo of our two traffic control friends and our favorite float from the Hillbilly Daze Parade (that's their spelling, not mine).
Next we went to Fairview Bay, AK, to visit my long lost Aunt Barbara and Uncle Jim. No, they don't play banjo on the porch. Fairview Bay is a cozy golf resort built on the shores of beautiful Greers Ferry Lake. Their photos will appear on the family page, soon to be incorporated herein.