Come With Me ... To Arkansas ...

For many years I could tell people I'd traveled through all of the 48 contiguous states but one – Arkansas. Secretly, true as it was, I wondered, why was that? How did I manage to get all over the country and somehow miss this one vast place?

Maps show Arkansas more in the middle (if more south) than most American states. It's crossed by two major interstate highways, including the mighty bi-coastal I-40. An even mightier passage, the Mississippi River, forms its eastern border. Mountainous regions such as the Ozarks and the larger Ouachita Forest dominate its texture.

I once bought 4,000 feet of pine flooring from Arkansas due to a particularly thick and large board (tree) width we needed, and because Arkansas pine was renowned for its first-growth hardness. I would have been happier not knowing this wood came from a national forest – though travel ads and literature showed Arkansas beckoning not just with its large, lush mountains and forests but across deep, moist, fertile farmlands, rich with the goodness of growth and of lore.

Working hand-in-hand with our contractor, slicing and smelling and laying the thick, meaty butterscotch colored pine boards carefully down, I remembered imagining what those tall trees were like. I vowed to make to visit and to explore Arkansas. Last summer, I did – in grand style too.

Memphis, Tennessee, which borders Arkansas, can easily be understood as a westward gateway. It may not have a big arch like its sister city upstream, but its bridges soar elegantly over the Mississippi River. The city offers a larger-than-life notoriety, birthplace of so much that's deeply and uniquely American. I wouldn't stay long, yet before leaving I would pawn a wedding ring, take pictures of bluesy churches and rows of bail bondsmen offices downtown, and find the biggest blossoming magnolias I've ever seen.

Driving toward the river and Arkansas beyond, I remember Downtown Memphis feeling like it was laying and baking there, steaming and gleaming in summer's delta heat. The city's musical groove says it all. I crossed over the Mississippi on the I-40 bridge and watched the sprawling breadbasket of Arkansas's heartland unfold before me. I would be here for three days.

I'm not much of a history buff throughout my web site writings, but misspelling "Arkansaw" enough times made me wonder where the name came from. Must have been Indian. It was, in an odd way. French explorers met a group of Native Americans, known as the Ugakhpah, which means "people who live downstream". These Native Americans later were called the Quapaw, who were also called the Arkansaw, the name came to be used for the land where these Native Americans lived.

The Indians were gone. I skipped Little Rock altogether and stopped at Russellville, staying at a brand new franchise hotel – strange but telling the Indians – the Asian kind – had bought a brand new hotel this far in. This wasn't far from Magazine Mountain, highest point in the state – though, weighing in at only 2,753 feet above sea level, that's not saying much.

Arkansas' mountains roll, soft and low. But the lakes? Aaaaah, so beautiful! Yet nearly all of them are fake. This is the state of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers exhibition to the great potential of water projects. Why here? I'm not sure, but I'm sure it has something to do with geology. The inland Ozark Plateau is a large uplifted expanse, covering Northwestern Arkansas and three other states. The lower Ouachita Mountains are related but different, deeply folded and inviting runoff sowthward toward the Mississippi Delta. Dams stop up the flow, and beautiful fingers of lake bodies form in the deep woods.

A geology teacher long ago taught us that lakes are ephemeral geographical features. Then mankind arrived and made more. But we are newcomers here on Earth; our story is only now being written (though incredibly there are already more than six billion of us). Technology and industry and expansiveness have wiped out frontiers and render borders meaningless. Indians, the Asian kind, menace with their nuclear weapons, and so do their neighbors, and so do we. It's early yet. But you and I don't fancy ourselves paranoid soothsayers. It's soothing to visit American farmland in the warm sunshine to make visions of Armageddon go away.

Like a tourist now, I crossed the Ouachita and into Hot Springs, "The Boyhood Home Of President Bill Clinton." Now there's a president that got away without a major war and with a grand prosperous age. The modern, affable (or gaffable), carefree (or careless) Bill Clinton. Loved and Hated. There's another story needing writing.

Here in Hot Springs, it's almost impossible to imagine the story of such extremes, whimsy and loathing, prosperity and impeachment, could possibly begin here. It is a quiet honky-tonk of a town, a grand era of hotels and hot soothing baths long gone. What were these fat cats doing living it up in this town – much less bathing together? How odd. Maybe there is funny stuff in that bubbly water. Maybe Bill Clinton knows something he's not telling?

No matter; a more serious time is upon us. The row of public bath houses in Hot Springs have been lovingly restored, at least on the outside, but they're clearly anachronistic. Gazing down an other-century Central Avenue, you feel you are not revisiting our history, but looking into it from elsewhere.

Like a tourist I took the perfunctory bath house photos, got an ice cream. The traffic bustled by, and in leaving I remember wondering -- what do people do here in real time? I'd have to come back and find out for, that day, I was hieding dack out into the country.

I saw my beautiful tall pines; and I saw where they were being nearly clear-cut too. But mostly, here was the beautiful of unspoiled mountain vistas, the undulating green of forest against blue sky. I had my pick of camping spots; I picked a far-out spot on a quiet, totally uninhabited lake, all to myself. That was a first; camping as if I was in my own outdoor bedroom, my dog Buster wandering wherever he liked.

The sun set so gloriously, melting away before glistening stars, painting the perfect lake glisten and shimmer, etching a pristine memory. The night recalled this sublime time, and then the sun rose the same way (my pictures are at the bottom of the page). I was back in my own timeless time, which wouldn't last – but what joy it would give. And gives. I won't tell you where I was – my secret, I guess – and so you'll just have to find your own perfect Arkansas lakeside. They are there, believe me.

Finally packed up to leave, I then drove slowly through the rural Arkansas, savoring every mile. There were more virgin forests and little farms and lovely tiny towns, each having its own secrets – a bakery here, a quirky variety store there, a noble street with such delicate southern, rural touches. Arkansas was about free love, love of the Earth, of nature, and love of each other. No wonder Bill Clinton had such unbridled passion!

But then, he and his quietly spiteful First Lady have moved off to New York City, far, far away. Magnificent buildings would fall, innocence lost far below the rubble. Hot Springs, indeed.

Inadvertently, I''ve gotten ahead of myself. It's a story, and time needn't march on ruthlessly.

Then again, entering the vast green expanse of the Mississippi Delta, I would myself pass into a different place and time, toward a next day, passing into Mississippi. Innocence lost here too – it usually is– pushing through the sprawling hot day, a Mississippi state trooper stopped me on one of these incredibly vast, long, straight roads. The usual crap. Speeding, yes, just give me the damn ticket.

Don't bother saving my seat, Mississippi. I'm off to Louisiana.