Miracles never cease!

Little Rock is really on top of things when it comes to the Arkansas River Trail, a 17 mile recreation trail on both sides of the Arkansas River.  This day we parked in NLR and rode over to the Clinton Bridge. The Clinton bridge is an old railroad bridge, built in 1899 for the Rock Island Line,  that opened to the public for pedestrians and bicycles in 2011.

At the far end of the bridge is the Clinton Presidential Library.

This is the oval office from Bill Clinton's presidency.

When Clinton announced that he was building his presidential library in this dilapidated area of Little Rock, which contained old warehouses and plenty of vagrants,  it helped to revitalize the downtown area.

Miracles never cease! Leon not only entered the library for the first time but tried out Clinton's chair in the cabinet room!

We explored the River Market area downtown and stopped in for some mideastern fare for lunch. We spotted a Game and Fish Museum we did not know was downtown and had a brief tour. After strolling in the park we took the bridge elevator up to ride back across the river on the Junction Bridge, another railroad bridge which was opened to the public in 2008.

What a glorious time we had with our bikes in Little Rock. We will do it again!

Big Dam Bridge

We have at last made it to Little Rock with the bicycles to enjoy the long awaited ride on the Big Dam Bridge - the bridge to health and fitness! We rode through Two Rivers Park and crossed the Two Rivers Bridge so names for the area where the Arkansas and Maumelle Rivers meet. This newly constructed bridge provides access to the Maumelle campground and on out to Pinnacle State Park.

The Big Dam Bridge crosses the Arkansas River and connects approximately 15 miles of scenic riverside trails in North Little Rock and Little Rock.  

After 14 years in the building process the bridge opened in 2006. A favorite is the 100 miles cycling tour held each year. We felt fortunate to ride ten miles but what a pleasant ride it was alongside the banks of the Arkansas River, all level except the access to the bridges!

The bridge is only for pedestrian and bicycle traffic and spans the Murray Lock and Dam. 

In the Two Rivers Park there is a community garden which I found intriguing. Lots of little spaces all fenced with their own gates and decorations. Several people were working their gardens but it appeared that these farmers spent more time sitting than hoeing.

Arkansas museum

Ka-ching! The guy called and told us he had the a/c running in the trailer so we were off and running to Little Rock and back to Maumelle campground. We will play during the weekend before Leon's Monday morning checkup at the eye doctor! The football games provided us a chance to discover Buffalo Wild Wings where they just happened to have wifi!

We strolled along the Arkansas River and toured the River Market area downtown. The revitalized area in Little Rock always seems so pleasant.

Yes, we will come back to town with our bikes and take them up the elevator and across the bridge between Little Rock and North Little Rock. 

Now this is an experienced dog walker. As we approached he quietly said stay and all the dogs halted in unison.

While in town we toured the old territorial restoration, now called the Arkansas museum. It was surprising to have one of my former students lead the tour. There are several old buildings on the property with guides dressed in period costume and a nice little museum. This building was brought from Scott to the restoration. Although it was built in the 1850s people were living in it until 1960. Life just hasn't moved that quickly in Scott, Arkansas.

A hot day in the rock

I had heard that the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a fun movie and we seemed to have missed it in Hot Springs. What better to do than on a hot day than head for Little Rock and sit in a cool theater.

Our first stop was at 7th and Main in the old downtown area at the DHS building. Why, there is my daughter Kay and it is lunchtime! It will be a treat for us to treat her.

I must be one of the few that has never heard of Homer's. We not only saw half of Little Rock in there but the people she usually eats with from work were there so it was nice to meet and visit with some co-workers. I even saw someone I went to high school with, but when I was ready to go say hello he was  gone!

Now we have a little time to kill and we are downtown after dropping Kay back at work. A few blocks away we stopped at the Old State House Museum. This is the oldest standing state capitol building west of the Mississippi. When Arkansas became a state in 1836, the government officials moved into the building even though it was still under construction and not completed until 1842. This building served as the state capitol until 1911. This is also where Bill Clinton announced his candidacy for the presidency and celebrated his victory in 1992.

We read about the history of government in Arkansas and the Capitol (but not too much) before seeing an amazing display of Civil War flags upstairs. Also we read some about notable Arkansans and saw one of the largest collections of first ladies' dresses.

By today's standards this seems to be quite a small capitol building.

The governors' displays were interesting. Mike Huckabee's guitar was there, as well as Bill Clinton's saxophone, but Sid McMath was always one of my favorite people. He may not have played an instrument but he sure played a large role in correcting corrupt politics in Hot Springs in the 1940s. My father was his deputy prosecutor in those early political days. 

We did not get to tour all of the building but we will return another day when we are looking for a cool spot to spend some time. After the movie it was 105 in Little Rock, but we were lucky. Two days ago it would have been 107, an all time record temperature in the rock for the month of June! It might be a long hot summer, not just in politics!

Little Rock Food Truck Festival

Bicycle shopping led us to Little Rock so we stopped downtown at the Food Truck Festival on Main Street.

The first order of business was to check the progress of the Arkansas - Texas A&M game!

Greg Dee and Leon seem to be happy to have found a vegetarian option!

Philly cheese without the cheese .. think what that could have been with cheese!

There were perhaps 10 food trucks there offering everything from fried snickers to Thai food.

Greg Dee stopped eating long enough to give a KARK weather report. I gave him a four and a one!

I might have bought a hot dog from this lady but we already had used our food tickets and I did not want to go stand in line to buy more.

It is hard to tell but above the Grills on Wheels lettering are 2 tv's. Nice! Overall, I was disappointed with the festival because there was little more than food trucks. It would have been nice to have lots of arts and crafts booths and other forms of entertainment which could have made for a really nice festival. Perhaps things picked up later in the day.

Had Kay been in the office this day she could have joined us, but it was a Saturday!

After a trip to Sherwood the mission was accomplished.