For my birthday this year, we decided to get out of town. The nearest racetrack is Oaklawn at Hot Springs, but they run in the spring. The nearest track with racing right now is at Blue Ribbon Downs in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. The racetrack is without booze, which seems to be a running theme in our move to The South. Luckily, we stayed in Fort Smith, bastion of wet counties in western Arkansas.

We checked out the downtown in Fort Smith on Friday. The town has a very complex mix of people of Vietnamese, Native American, Mexican, Caucasian, and other southeast Asian heritage. This made for a very wonderful trip to a Vietnamese Pho (delicious noodle soup) restaurant, as well as a very good Thai Curry place called Bangkok Cafe. Friday we went downtown, checking out places to eat, antique stores, and a yarn shop, where I got my birthday present from Ty. (I KNOW! The entire trip was a birthday present!) We went down to the banks of the Arkansas River, which was running fast and full and furious. Check it out, in the picture I’m wearing the yarn I got from Ty for my birthday 2 years ago!

On the night of my birthday, toasted champagne in our hotel room. Then we went a martini bar called 21 West End for dinner and creme brulee, and martinis of course.

Saturday morning we headed out to the western wear shop. I am enamored with a brand called Southern Threads. They have delicate, almost china-like patterns on the shirts for men. All of the women’s clothing had bright colors and too much glitter, or were too pastel in bad ways. Ty found some cool shirts though!

We drove on to the racetrack, and we stayed in the clubhouse since it was chilly outside. My only gripe with the track, besides the booze, was the exacta box betting scheme. At every other track we have been to, we have been allowed to bet $1 per exacta box bet, as long as the number of bets being bet were greater than two. We like boxing 3 horses, so it is normally a $6 bet. At Blue Ribbon downs, it is a $12 bet, a little too rich for my blood. It really didn’t matter, because we didn’t win anything until the 8th race, when I bet a $.10 superfecta and won!

Most of the races that day were quarter horses, appaloosas and paint horses. They only race the straightaway for 250-450 yards, which makes them hard races to handicap. We went back to Ft. Smith and had Thai food.

I got some really cool other gifts for my birthday, but those will have to wait for my next post!

If you’ve ever wanted to visit us down in Arkansas on the weekend, and it’s already Wednesday, just give us a call. That’s what Dave and Neal did, and we had a great time!

Like most of our guests, we took them on a tour of Lake Conway.

They also got the special bonus tour of our nearest border liquor store, Lake Liquor. Included was the unexpected bonus of the bulk ice machine. Dave said he would blog about it, but he hasn’t yet.

While the guys were down here, Ty let them know about his aspirations to purchase a boat. They were nothing but encouraging.

We ended up going to downtown Little Rock on Sunday. The Clinton Library was open, but not much else was open downtown on a Sunday.

Neal and Dave smuggled me back to Nebraska in their trunk, but we made one stop along the way. We stopped at the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, MO. We had no idea about the museum component and spent much more than the allotted 30 minute side-trip we had provisioned.

We had a great time in all of the gift shops, with the cement statues, and seeing all of the doe-eyed child figurine history of Sam Butcher. I didn’t realize how Japanese Anime inspired the drawings and figures were, and it was very interesting to find out.

When we get visitors, we love taking them out to see the bald cypress trees growing out of Lake Conway. Even though the trees are conifers, they loose their leaves during the winter making them look even creepier.

Jen had poison ivy, so she rigged up some cut socks and leggings to keep her from itching.

Another Arkansas highlight is the River Market in Little Rock. Right next to that is the Clinton Library. We should probably just get lifetime memberships, because that is the first place people know they want to see in Little Rock.

A new attraction in Little Rock is the Heifer International Heifer Village. I like the purpose of Heifer International, but it is so much fun to bring people to the educational center and show them how Heifer is helping people. My favorite is the rolling water container. As a child, I had to bring 5 gallon buckets of water to the hogs in our lot. At eight pounds per gallon, I carried just under 40 gallons of water as a child. The rolling container lets you leave much of that weight on the ground. This is water people need every day for drinking and cooking!

Aunt Carol really liked it. She liked it so much, she got us this awesome recycled candy wrapper dish at the Heifer International shop.

We also like to take people on the Little Rock trolley system. If they’re crafty, we stop off in Argenta for the art galleries or the bead store.

If you’re planning on visiting us or Little Rock anytime soon, you should make sure to visit between Sept 25 and July 5, 2010 for The World of the Pharaohs at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Finally, if you visit us in Conway, we’ll take you to one of the clubs in town. We have to go to a club because Conway is located in Faulkner County, a dry county. In the heart of it all is Toad Suck Square.

My mother Mary Lou, my sister Jen and my aunt Carol came down to visit a few weeks ago. We really got out and explored some of Arkansas. We took so many pictures, that the blog post became overwhelming! I’m going to split it up into parts.

One of the highlights of the visit was going to Mountain View, AR, the folk music capitol of the world. Ty had seen a feature on Mountain View in the Oxford American’s SoLost feature. The Ozark Folk Art Museum up there, but the real life of the town comes out at night when everyone sets up a chair and plays music at the parks and street corners.

We had a great time at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Each profession has a separate little hut where craftsmen and craftswomen in costume practice their art. I especially enjoyed the weaving, quilting, and sewing. The most delightful and unexpected building contained a bearded broom maker. He showed us his dried grass weaving technique, and had a wall full of turkey wing whisk brooms. It was totally unexpected for me.

Jen and Mom enjoyed the plants and the Heritage Herb Garden. Living up on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, Jennifer has learned much about natural herbs, healing, and ceremonial herbs. She was delighted to find an entire house full drying white sage. Jen also found a soap to help her deal with her poison ivy!

We got to the Ozark Folk Art Center at around noon or 1PM, and we had just enough time to make it through all of the buildings before closing time. We could have easily spent the entire day there.

For dinner, we picked up a bucket of chicken and sides and made our way down to the park. We moved a picnic table closer to the music and just enjoyed what Mountain View had to offer.

Lots of people gathered on the benches and movable chairs in Mountain View Park, but the regulars brought their own folding chairs, some with 2-3 inches of padding. I heard Elvis, I heard hymns, I heard songs sung once by one musician, and then sung again with completely different lyrics!

We made our way down to the “Pickin’ Porch” where a baptist minister from Louisiana played some funny songs about beans. He could tell we were tourists, so he asked us our names where we were from. From that he derived a song with the chorus “Julee and Jennifer,” which completely delighted us. Unfortunately, we had JUST decided to stay for one more song as the sun was going down and we had a long drive home. We are definitely going back, bringing musical instruments, and staying over night!