Road Trip 2018 - Day Twenty Five, Little Rock

Wow we are on the countdown to the finish. Today was another of those days where we descended into a city/town with not much in the way of expectations but ended up far exceeding those expectations.

The more time we have spent in the Deep South, the more I have come to realize just how badly our stereotypes color our thinking. And I have come to understand that even within an area like the South how one cannot assume that each state's characteristics are the same. We understand that in our home regions but for some reason we do not carry that understanding when we think about the areas we are not familiar with.

We had originally planned to just stop over in Little Rock for the purpose of checking the 'visit the state capitol' box off. But a combination of wonderful weather and serendipity changed our schedule and we will be spending another day here.

Here as in a number of other states we've visited there is an historic Old Capitol and the current one that is in use. I don't think Little Rock is much of a tourist destination. Yet from talking to numerous people we ran into, we found a feeling that this was a pretty enjoyable city to live in. Not without its problems of course, but pretty nice. As we wandered the downtown area, we pretty much had the city to ourselves except for the natives. Not another tourist to be seen.

We found that we could attend a Rotary Club meeting while we were here. Well this was an experience by itself. Rotary Club of Little Rock is #99 mean it is one of the oldest. It is a BIG, RICH club. There were hundreds of people at the meeting. It must have taken 3/4's of an hour just for everyone to come in, get their food and be seated. And it is held at a grand meeting room of the Clinton Presidential Library. Compared to our little club in Albuquerque that brown bags its meals and the little club in Hattiesburg Mississippi that didn't even know what to do with a guest, it was a bit overwhelming.

However, it was our very good fortune to be there on a day when the speaker was the principal of Little Rock Central. Now many of you may be too young to remember the Civil Rights story about desegregation of Little Rock schools and the brave souls known as the Little Rock Nine - the first black students in that school. And as is so often the case, as we found with the memory of George Wallace in Alabama, all that is remembered is the crisis. Well in short, this principal who has been there for the last 17 years had created something just short of miracle. This is now a school that embraces a vast range of races and nationalities. Despite being an 'inner city' school, it has some of the best graduation rates in the state. It has embraced its history to the extent that every freshman coming in learns about that history. And it is already a National Heritage Site and is being considered as a World Heritage Site. To hear all the stories of how this institution has turned things around and how it has done so is truly inspiring. You wish you could bottle it up and bring it to so many other places, not least our own community of Albuquerque.

A combination of it being so beautiful out with great picture taking opportunities along with a need I had to do some business calls in the evening led to us changing our schedule and adding another day here to get in some of the places we wanted to still visit.

Les Photos

Where are we?

 First Stop Tourist Office

Cynthia, very helpful, didn't look like she got lots of activity, very different let's say than Nashville

Yes Little Rock has a Trolley like New Orleans. After our experience with that one, we decided we did not need to do the same here

First stop

The historic Old Capitol

Very refreshing to read the history of their grandiose initial ideas and the design for a Greek revival design by an architect from Tennessee. However, they immediately ran into problems with the resources available being nowhere near what would be needed to carry out that plan. The result was a variety of compromises which led to the building being very unstable from the very beginning. It is a minor miracle that over time enough people cared that restoration was done to make it a viable structure as a museum

 

Ahem - please note the capitals on the top of the columns in the first picture

Those would be _________?

If you answer that and the next one correct, you get a custom, handmade pasta diner from yours truly

Put your answers in the comments

 Grounds

 

Stairways and balconies

Rooms done in the style 'as they were' in the mid-19th century

House of Delegates

A Safe

AGH! Late for Rotary Meeting

Tiffany, Uber driver, to the rescue

At the Clinton Presidential Library for the meeting

You're not in Kansas or the Albuquerque Sandia Club meeting any more de-I

 After the meeting we got into serious photo mode

First on the Railroad bridge that was purchased as part of the Library and Park complex

Statues

Water Sports

Alone

Turtle! Come to the Light!

Fall Color and Misc

The Arkansas River is a breeding area for endangered Cranes

We were to meet up with the Doctor

But sadly he had just been handcuffed and taken by the local police