Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 7/29/22
The Great Meandering Edition
As of this writing, your Administrator finds himself in Peoria, Illinois, a city he never thought he’d ever get to visit for any reason in his entire life. There was simply no scenario he could have constructed that included even a whistle stop in this town of just over 115 thousand souls. And yet, here I am, kicking it, old school, at the Hampton Inn, where they have tried their level best to bring the funk in way that only corporate American can: ineptly.
Pupdate, Week 5
Sonya continues to rest and recover at the vet’s office. She is eating again, and in good spirits. Her front leg strength is improving and her back leg strength is not getting any worse, so, I guess, no news is good news. I miss her. I know she’s missing me. I just hope she’s in a better place when I get back so that I can take over being her caregiver.
Report From the Open Road: A Brief Recap
To describe this road trip as whirlwind would be an insult to aerial whether phenomenon. These people, my soon-to-be-wife and my In-Laws in the wings, move fast. Janice likened it to going to a nice restaurant, ordering the apps, and getting them to go. She’s not wrong. Bedouins on horseback don’t navigate the desert steppes as deftly and quickly as we have traveled.
This update will be presented in the form of bullet points, to better convey the scope of what we have done and where I am at the moment.
7/22 Hot Springs, Ar to Little Rock, Ar
Highlight: the Gangster Museum
A great tour featuring the town’s colorful history as a haven for lawlessness and a playground for the FBI’s most wanted list. The guy giving the tour is avuncular and knowledgeable and has his spiel down pat. It’s the perfect mix of someone talking, short videos, and displayed artifacts. Highly recommended.
Travel Notes: The humidity was indescribable. I am not sure what possessed us to venture into a town built on volcanically seasoned jets of boiling, steaming water, in July, in Arkansas, and then go walking around in broad daylight, with the temperature at 100 degrees, with 88 percent humidity.
I thought I was breaking into droplets of lard and water. It felt like an attack on my very soul. I would absolutely venture into Hot Springs again; it was a happening place, baby. Just, maybe, in October or November. Or December.
7/23 Little Rock, Ar to Fayetteville, Ar
Highlight: The Bill Clinton Library and Museum
This was my first ever visit to a Presidential Library and Museum, and I had no idea what to expect. I think the Clinton library was the first of such things I’d ever heard being mentioned.
I will say that I thought they did a great job preserving and cataloging Clinton’s books and papers. They especially did a good job with his extensive Playboy collection (I kid! I kid the former president!) and I was impressed to note that in the timeline of his presidential events, they didn’t shirk from any controversies. It was a warts and all presentation.
About this I will only add: Clinton got a lot more big things done in his eight years than any other president who preceded him. Something to consider.
Toad Suck, Arkansas was this tiny little town inside some knob or holler or somesuch. We drove into it because…you know, I don’t know why we drove into it. other than to say we’ve been to Toad Suck. Fun fact: most murders in Arkansas happen in knobs and hollers, and in places like Toad Suck!
Travel Notes: Highways in Arkansas are elusive. We tried to drive out of Toad Suck on our way to Fayetteville and found ourselves, with no warning, on a gravel road, arranged in a kind of slalom pattern, being driven by natives and locals at speeds no lower than 60 mph.
7/24 Fayetteville, Ar
I took a day with my oldest, bestest, big brudder John Lucas. We don’t get to see each other nearly enough, and he showed me around some of his regular haunts while Janice and her family went exploring at the Bluebird of Happiness at Terra Studios, outside of Fayetteville
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Travel Notes: Fayetteville reminds me of Austin, Texas, circa 1989. The vibe, the infrastructure, the traffic, all of it. It’s also a college town, so that makes a little sense. Lucas likens it to College Station.
7/25 Fayetteville, Ar to Eureka Springs, Ar
Along the way, we stopped in Bentonville, Ar, for a quick side trip into art and culture.
Highlight: Crystal Bridges Museum
This place is unbelievable. The museum is free, a gift from the Walton family, and very likely a tax write-off as a charitable deduction. There were two John Singer Sargent paintings, a Maxfield Parrish painting, several Georgia O’Keefe paintings, even a Diego Rivera painting, but the art installation I had the most questions about was this giant, saddled rooster.
Eureka Springs reminds me of some of the cities in Greece. It’s built on the steep slopes of several cliff-like hills, over two quarries, and literally festooned with springs with legendary healing properties.
We got a bungalow at the Crescent Hotel, one of the famous resorts that is haunted and full of stories and folklore. This place was fantastic. I could have stayed here for several days, exploring the town, drinking locally-brewed beverages, writing in coffee shops, etc.
Travel Notes: I think pizza may have replaced barbecue as the state food of Arkansas. We ran into more places slinging wood-fired, New York thin crust, gourmet pizza or some variation of it. For example, in the bar at the Crescent, their claim to fame was a “nearly” world famous crescent calzone. The innovation here being that it was crescent shaped. I have no idea what’s going on in Arkansas. Someone has given them bad intel that all tourists want pizza.
7/26 Eureka Springs, Ar to Kansas City, Mo
We got into town too late to shop downtown (the stores all close at 5 pm) so the next day, the family zigged and I zagged, down to the Carnegie Library for a little Eureka Springs historical research.
Highlight: The Eureka Springs Carnegie Library
Nearly all of the commercial and municipal buildings are 75 or more years old, including the crazy-cool local library, one of the many multi-story, stair-riddled buildings all over town. Everywhere you look, there’s neat things to look at. And the library is impressive, with a fireplace and comfy chairs, lots of wood, and helpful staff. I got what I was looking for in no time.
Travel Notes: This is another town that I could plant myself in and spend several days exploring, drinking, meeting people, etc. It’s one of those places that has really good energy. And the bungalow at the Crescent is on the edge of a cliff, built on stilts, and overlooking the tops of trees that were a couple hundred feet tall. I sat out on the terrace that morning and drank coffee and watched the squirrels give me the stink eye for daring to sit in their morning promenade space. Nice work, if you can get it.
7/27 Kansas City, Mo to Des Moines, Ia
We spent a little time in Kansas City and had to leave with the full knowledge that we’d only scratched the surface of what we could see and do.
Highlight: KS public library
This beautiful building is decorated with giant book spines on the outside and a cavernous, cathedral-like space on the inside.
Highlight: Hallmark Visitor’s Center
We only went to the Hallmark World Headquarters because we’d heard they have Salvador Dali art on display, only to find out that the paintings were warehoused during the pandemic and not yet back on display. Despite that setback, we decided to make the tour and we were all glad we did. The story of Mr. Hall and his postcard business, transforming over time into the company that makes 60 Christmas movies a year, and still be privately held, was way more fascinating than I thought it would be.
Highlight: Independence, Mo
The Harry S. Truman Library was the second presidential library and museum, and it delivered, as well. A fantastic exhibit, full of world war II history (of course) and also the Korean War. I was a bit surprised to find out how much I knew about Truman’s presidency already, due to my other interests in 20th century popular culture.
Once we crossed the border into Iowa, we pulled into an Amish Rest Stop and I had the sneaking suspicion that they were getting back at us for all of the Horse and Buggy Jokes. The place was enormous, and completely monetized out the wazoo. Not sure who brokered the deal with the Amish, but those bearded pilgrims are making fat bank.
Zombie-Burger, in downtown Des Moines, is one of those themed burger joints that has committed to the bit insofar as decor and menu is concerned, but stops short of everyone dressing up. Atlas Obscura showed it to us, and it looked fantastic. There was a picture of something called an undead Elvis, but once we got there, it was clear that this was a stunt burger: peanut butter, a banana, bacon, and an egg…come on, now. That’s not necessary. I ordered the Ray Gun, and it was delicious, but it’s also not anything I haven’t had on a burger before: fried jalapenos and an avocado, grilled onions.
7/28 Des Moines, Ia, to Peoria, Il
Highlight: Newton, Ia
The Capital II Theater is on the square, a completely refurbished and updated gem of a 1920s movie house with a structurally sound balcony and everything. It’s a beautiful gem of a place, but that’s not the star attraction here: the extensive renovations are upstaged by a pig named and Joy. She’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Tricks Done in one Minute by a Pig.
I spoke at length to Dawn, the theater owner and pig trainer, about the peccadillos of running a movie theater in a small town and we commiserated about the ups and downs.
Highlight: The Herbert Hoover Library
In West Branch, Ia, I toured my third Presidential library on this trip, and surprisingly, my favorite one. I’ve always been an appreciator of Hoover and felt, like most modern historians, that he got a bad rap for the Great Depression since he warned Calvin Coolidge that it was coming and his advice was roundly ignored.
I found out that there is a passport to all of the Presidential Libraries and you can get it stamped at each location. This was something I didn’t see at the first two, so I picked one up here, and got it stamped. It’s a small thing, kinda tourist-y, but there are a lot of people who do it as a record of what they’ve seen and what they’ve done. I also got a passport to the National Parks, which works more or less the same exact way. Every park you visit, you get your passport stamped. Fun!
More details, more thoughts, and a lot more photos, will appear on the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker website as soon as I can get back to the bunker and knock the dust of the road off of my weary carcass.
Your trip is basically my lottery dream: hit the lottery, get a good car, hit the road, and never stop. (With the exception that I could stay in a town for a few days if there was more to see.)
There's a reason "Roadmarks" is one of my top two favorite Roger Zelazny novels.
Thanks for sharing these bits so we can live the dream vicariously.
Scenery-wise, Arkansas is really underrated.