state by state with....arkansas

[SwampG8r]

another state i have visited
beautiful mountains great food
went to winrock farms to see the santa getrudis cattle
best biscuits ever

[Little Star]

1. The first thing about Arkansas that comes to mind for me is….

William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum



http://www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org/

[hootinholler]

23. WOW Don't they have architects there?

That is one fugly building. Maybe it's better in person, but damn in that photo it's just fugly.

[Little Star]

26. I'm not fond of the modern building either but..

there seems to be a lot of interesting stuff inside!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. From the photo it looks like a giant boxcar.

Yuk.

[MineralMan]

2. One of the few states I have not visited.

It was just never on my path.

[SwampG8r]

3. forgot that part

birthplace of an american president

[SwampG8r]

4. arkansas is

a mineral treasure chest from diamonds to rare quartz

[Renew Deal]

5. I once crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas

I looked around and went back the other way. I think I just wanted to check out the bridge in Memphis. I'd love to check out the food scene there. Other than that, Arkansas is way out of my way.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Every now and again I have to drive down I540 from Fayetteville

to Ft. Smith just to look out over the 'mountain' tops and remember why I moved here.

[Art_from_Ark]

21. I would suggest taking Old US 71 instead

It's much more scenic, although there are lots of curves and steep grades.

[Arkansas Granny]

24. That's true, but without the heavy traffic and big trucks, you can really enjoy the scenery.

It was such a dangerous road before that you could hardly take your eyes off the road long enough to see the beauty. It's much better now and you can drive at a leisurely pace without people sitting on your bumper.

[sinkingfeeling]

27. Yeah, I used to drive up and down old 71 twice a week for my job.

[madinmaryland]

7. The oldest building in Little Rock Arkansas..

http://www.msbarnett.com/michael/hinderliter.htm

[WI_DEM]

8. Two things come to mind to me with Arkansas--Little Rock (1957) and Bill Clinton.

the state came a long way.

[Mopar151]

9. Arkies need some upgrades

I know some Arkies - the "education" they've received (at least what stuck) curses them from the cradle. You can have the best heart in the world (and many do), but overcoming a mountain of "KKKristian" bullshit is hard in the best of times.

It may explain things a bit that the Arkies I knew were from Texarkana's bar culture - Is the Cedar Shake still going?

[Little Star]

10. Arkansas looks pretty darn interesting…

They have a very nice tourism website: http://www.arkansas.com/

They also have some of those interesting scenic drives that I like:
http://www.arkansas.com/places-to-go/scenic-byways/

And I especially was impressed with their list of famous Arkansans which include Johnny Cash and John Grisham plus many more:
http://www.arkansas.com/uniquely-arkansas/famous-arkansans/

We sure do live in one beautiful country!

SwampG8r, Thanks for doing this series. It is making me look into states that I never would have before. It's been enlightening
to read the posts from people who either live there now, lived there before or have visited. Those posts add flavor about each state.

[SwampG8r]

12. one of my goals has been met then

thanks

[Art_from_Ark]

11. Although the town wasn't named after him,

Will Rogers had close ties with Rogers, Arkansas. His wife, Betty Blake, was from Rogers, and that is where they were married.

Fayetteville, Arkansas, 20 miles south of Rogers, was home to one of the most famous US Senators of the 1960s--J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, author of the book "The Arrogance of Power" (as pertinent today as it was when it came out in 1966), and the namesake of the Fulbright scholarship program. Fayetteville is also where Bill and Hillary Clinton spent their first few years as a married couple.

Leetown, a town no longer in existence that was about 13 miles north of Rogers, was the site of the largest Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi-- the Battle of Pea Ridge. The 3-day battle could have been won by the Confederates had it not been for the ineptness of Confederate General Earl van Dorn.

Benton County in the extreme northwest is home to many caves and springs, and many towns in the county have "spring" or "springs" in their name, including Siloam Springs, Sulphur Springs, Cave Springs, Healing Springs, Springtown, and Springdale. In neighboring Carroll County is the resort town of Eureka Springs, which seems to have more hotel rooms than full-time residents.

[justabob]

13. great place for rock hounds

I have driven through many times and it is a beautiful place. We had a great field trip there for a geology class I took. Cool road cuts, digging and finding lots of quartz in the clay off cast from Coleman's (?) mine, hot springs and other geology.... I don't know much else about the state, but it is definitely a cool place if you are interested in rocks and related fields.

[Art_from_Ark]

16. I don't know if they still do it, but

When I was a kid, I got a very nice box of Arkansas minerals by writing to the state's Geological Survey. Samples included kimberlite (diamond-bearing mineral), gypsum, quartz, bauxite (aluminum ore), and kaolinite, which were all color-coded for easy identification.

[justabob]

18. I'd bet they still do

wavelite and calcite too, could be in your box. I love minerals. I want to take my son back there and do the quartz dig again. That was big fun, but very messy. There is a place to do the same for diamonds, but I heard from fellow students that it is very unlikely to actually find anything.

[Art_from_Ark]

19. I've actually been to the diamond site

It's called Crater of Diamonds State Park, in the SW part of the state near Murfreesboro, and not too far from Hope (Bill Clinton's birthplace and home of America's largest watermelons). If you want to find any diamonds there, you have to go just after they plow it up (the state does that on a fairly regular basis). And no, I didn't find anything worthwhile, although someone who had been there a few weeks before was lucky enough to find a 5 or 6 carat diamond.

[Arkansas Granny]

25. I went there once with a friend and we were sure we would get filthy rich.

We got the filthy part right.

[Art_from_Ark]

28. Ain't that the truth?

I got some "prospecting equipment" at the shop in the park and proceeded to hunt for valuable diamonds, only to be overwhelmed by the huge expanse of bare dirt. Oh well, maybe next time I will strike it rich.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. Yeah, there was also calcite

and zinc ore in the box. I don't remember if there was any wavelite.

[The Genealogist]

14. Arkansas: Close By

Arkansas is the closest state to me. I am about 50 miles from it. A favorite activity to do is to go down to Arkansas and visit Eureka Springs. Very interesting place, very earthy there. Lots of old hippies, and new age people, but also very conservative Christians. There is a big statue of Jesus, high on a hill, overlooking Eureka Springs. He was tall enough that they would have to put a red light on his head for planes. Rather than do this blasphemy, they cut out a chunk of his middle, so now the statue is a squatty Jesus. NW Arkansas is very hilly, so if you get carsick, be prepared for some really twisty roads. I also enjoy going to Fayetteville. Great college town! There is a fantastic (or was) used book store there, but walking around the University of Arkansas is an interesting experience.

One of the most interesting geographic changes is there, at least it is interesting to me. The Mississippi embayment is very very flat and full of cotton and other fields. At Black Rock, Arkansas this very flat area meets the Ozark Mountains, and you go, in the space of a mile, from pancake flat to twisty, turny, up and down road in the hills on US 63, where it crosses the Black River.

If you want scenic, Arkansas is for you.

[pamela]

15. Beautiful state

My husband and I are frequent cross-country roadtrippers. We like nothing better than to get in our camper van and drive coast to coast and then back again. We both particularly love the Southwest. What does that have to do with Arkansas, you ask?

Route 40 is our favorite cross country route and though we try to take different routes on the east to west leg, we often find ourselves taking 40 back on the west to east leg. I always start getting depressed around the Oklahoma/Arkansas border. The trip feels almost over at that point even though we are still several days from home. The landscape changes dramatically and you know you aren't out west any more. It always makes me sad. But then, Arkansas is so lush and green and beautiful that I snap out of it.

We haven't explored much of Arkansas but I've seen the Clinton library. It was just a day or two before it opened so I didn't get to tour it so that's a bucket list item for me. Another bucket list item from Arkansas is the state park where you can look for diamonds. And, I want to see the statue in Little Rock of the Little Rock Nine.



I love crossing the Mississippi on the bridge from West Memphis to Memphis. I always play "Graceland" as we cross although that's another place we've only driven past and not toured.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Never been there.

I do Like Bill Clinton, though.

[Blue_In_AK]

22. Arkansas is really pretty in the fall.

[Art_from_Ark]

29. One of the most fantastic sights I ever saw in Arkansas

was at Lake Chicot, an oxbow lake in the southeastern part of the state. One December, I had stayed at a motel on the shore of the lake, and was awakened in the morning by a cacophony of quacking. I went outside and was amazed to see thousands and thousands of ducks skimming across the lake in a spectacular display of avian aviation

[Art_from_Ark]

31. Take a virtual tour of Arkansas,

set to the haunting melody of the state song, "Arkansas, You Run Deep In Me"

&feature=related

[roody]

32. It is beautiful! Anywhere off the path

is full of ticks and chiggers 5 or 6 months per year.