A Little Trip to Little Rock

While most people are spending their summer vacations hiking in the mountains, soaking up the sun at the beach, or embracing the magic at Disney (I hate you by the way), Jordan and I took a day trip to the most exciting city of Little Rock, AR.  And it was a good time!  We were already vising family in Missouri and Arkansas for Independence Day so, being that we were already in the neighborhood, we decided to take a little trip to Little Rock.

If you know us at all you will see why Little Rock was a perfect choice for a happily married, politically savvy, history loving couple.  Fine, we are nerds.  But at least we have each other, right?  

Our itinerary was as follows:

Jordan and I started our trip by enjoying the very scenic-less 3 hour drive to Little Rock, by way of Hastings in Jonesboro, AR.  Jordan sold a lot of books he found at his parents house in hopes to make a few dollars for our trip.  But to Jordan's chagrin, the lady only gave him store credit which he used to buy a DVD combo of Arthur/Arthur on the Rocks and I finally got my hands on a copy of Mockingjay.

We arrived in Little Rock in time for lunch and decided to try the local fare at Doe's Eat Place.  It's a small joint just blocks from the State Capitol and was a popular lunch destination for Bill Clinton while he was governor. 

One cheeseburger and catfish platter later, we were at the Arkansas Governors Mansion for our (free) tour.  It was here that we decided we should challenge ourselves with the task of touring every governors mansion in every state....we shall see.  The mansion was beautiful, of course.  We looked around thinking to ourselves, "Did Bill sit here?", "Did Chelsea use these stairs?", "Was Hilary angry about the placement of the silver in this room?".  However, I suppose I was more excited to be in the former home of Mike Huckabee.

The gardens were very pretty but in 100+ degree weather they were even prettier from inside.  I think we only stayed out long enough to get this picture.  Poor little Socks is even buried in the gardens among the roses and magnolias.

After the tour we were so tired and hot that we decided to go ahead and check into our (free) hotel room.  But first we took a quick look at Little Rock Central High School, the historic site where 9 African American children bravely walked into their new school for the first time.  Unfortunately, they were not greeted with open arms and President Eisenhower had to call in the national guard to keep the angry mob at bay.  (Tangent:  for all the Kennedy and MLK lovers, this is case and point that Republicans did indeed start the battle to end segregation and promote Civil Rights across the nation.  This is not to discredit the incredible leadership of MLK or the pretty face of JFK, but just trying to give credit where it truly is due.)

After a bite to eat and a puzzling but entertaining showing of Prometheus, we turned in for the night to prepare for our day at the Clinton Presidential Museum and Library.  I was very impressed with the collections and exhibits the Library had.  I enjoyed learning more about his administration and found a new found appreciation for his work.  I can honestly say I would vote for a Clinton over Obama any day. (Only if their isn't a Republican on the ticket.)  You could look up his schedule for every day he was in office and The Museum had an exact replica of the Oval Office as it had looked during his time as President.  There are several things from Bill and Hillary's childhood which I found endearing.  Sometimes we forget that everyone was at one time a child with great dreams. I remember there was an essay on display that Hillary wrote in the 6th grade saying she wanted to be a teacher or a physicist when she grew up.  It's funny to think that lawyer, First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State hadn't crossed her mind yet.

We ate lunch at the restaurant that is at the museum and then hit the road for the 3 hour drive back to Jordan's parents house.  We were excited to give Shadow his prizes and to share our pictures and stories with our family.  We arrived only to find that Shadow hadn't missed us that much because he was having too much fun with his cousins.  And you can't really blame him.  They are great kiddos and always love having little Shadow around. This is a picture of them at McDonald's after they went swimming.  It looks like fun was had by all during our little trip to Little Rock.