Trip North: From Mena, Arkansas, to Newton, Kansas

We were up and on the road early enough the next morning that we got to see the Ouachita Mountains in all their glory, with the light of the rising sun shining on pastures and woods sparkling with frost.

Did someone tip the house over and spill it?

Wow

So much frost, it almost looked like snow.

The random stand-alone gate

The random pagoda

The random lighthouse

The random giant bowling pin

The random stone wall

The random airport

The random cowboy church

The tractor is bringing Larry's loader pieces to load onto the pickup

Heading back north again.

The random bale of hay traveling through town

Larry lubricating the window

Double-crested cormorant

Hooded merganser

Hooded merganser

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Common goldeneye

Double-crested cormorants

Double-crested cormorants

Double-crested cormorants

Double-crested cormorants

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorant

Double-crested cormorants

Double-crested cormorants

Double-crested cormorants

Double-crested cormorants

Crow

A buck and two does

Remember the bright fuchsia shoes Larry got me in October?  Well, there we were in the southeast corner of Oklahoma, and I walked into a junky little Kwik shop, where I got a big, soft banana nut muffin for breakfast. 

A black man watched me walk in, eyes glued to my shoes, never glancing at my face --- and then he grinned a great, big, white-toothed grin, ear-to-ear ....... still staring at my shoes.  :-D

I grinned back, but I’m not sure he saw me, fixated on my shoes as he was.

I decided, on the strength of that reaction, that what I needed was a pair of fuchsia gloves to go with them.

There's the Southern Belle Family Diner, where we ate last night.  It's not quite 3:00 p.m., though.  We'll wait and eat supper at the Cracker Barrel in Wichita.

Amish wedding

Ugh

Next to the toll booth -- a prickly pear cactus.

Submarine USS Batfish at Muskogee War Memorial Park

We proceeded on to White Water, picked up the trailer with the Suburban, went a few miles north to Newton, Kansas, and stayed overnight, somehow winding up with a second-floor, two-room suite, including a large ‘living room’ with a little kitchenette, without paying ‘suite’ rates, probably because it was one of the last rooms left. 

Looked impressive, at first glance. 

A second glance at the ‘extra’ room – a living room with a small kitchenette and a big half-round window – revealed it to be a bit threadbare, however.  Literally.  The couches and chairs were of a woven fabric whose weave was nearly separated, and someone had stitched the armrest upholstery back together with gigantic, uh, whatever the opposite of ‘blind stitches’ is.  The half-round window had a long, crooked, diagonal crack running through it, although it looked like someone had tried to ‘repair’ it (possibly with Elmer’s School Glue).  One of the plastic strips that was supposed to make it look like a multi-paned glass had fallen off, and when they painted the sill, they got the paint (peas-porridge-in-the-pot-nine-days-old green) all over the pane.  

One wall of each room was the darker green; the other walls were lighter, um, let’s call it ‘corn blight’.  At the corners where dark met light, the junction was not pretty.  (Looks pretty good in the photo, though, doesn’t it?)

But the bed was comfortable, the heating system worked, the water was hot, ... everything we needed was there, and we didn’t have to pay extra for the threadbare room.  One cannot complain about it, when one did not pay extra for it, can one?  (Yes, one can.  I just did.  Didn’t I?)

This time, there was free breakfast.  Larry brought me a waffle, yogurt, and a banana the next morning, since I was curling my hair, and the breakfast area closed early.