My Great Trek to the Midwest
Day 9, Wednesday, May 16, 2006
Monroe, LA to Fort Worth, TX by way of Texarkana, AR

Day's Route Overview: Monroe, Louisiana to Fort Worth, Texas  A total of 402 miles.
Starting out: Trip / Odometer / Time: 40.8 / 33,581 / 7:33 PDT
As an aside, I'm beginning to learn a whole new language.
Words I thought I knew well turn out to have more syllables than I suspected.
For example, the word for automobile is ca-ar
About 2 blocks away from the motel is a Bleu Bayou Harley-Davidson.
Of course, I stopped in and grabed a dealer pin.

At a rest stop before I leave Louisiana, I set up the tripod and get
my ugly mug into a photo to help satisfy the HOG-ABC's requirement
that I show up in at least six of the photos.

In Shreveport, I will head North on Highway 71

US-220 runs between I-20 and US-71.  As I rode it, I wondered if I could have made better time
by staying on 20 directly to 71.

US-71 is a rural 2-lane highway along its entire route until you get to US-259
which is new divided highway that parallels 71.
259 is new enough that it does not show up on the on-line maps yet. 
My GPS unit thought I must have been traipsing across open fields.

Leaving Louisiana, I cannot help but think how much like Thomas Jefferson I feel. 
Like him, I have made a Louisiana Purchase.
In fact, I have made several of them, many at McD's alone.

Swinging North to catch the corner of Arkansas.


About 50 years ago, the state of Arkansas wanted to put a new college
in the southern part of the state.  To make it more economical, they
chose a rural area since that would make the large chunk of land they
planned for would be much cheaper.  This caused a lot of controversy
in the state.  Remoteness turned a large number of people against the
plan, while others really liked the idea.  It literally led to a shouting
match, people even taking to yelling at each other out of their car
windows.  Failing to get support needed, the plan for the university
in the town of Fouke was dropped, but to this day you can still hear
advocates reminding us of what could have been: Fouke U.

Texarkana is a city that is really in two states.
Actually there are two distinct cities.
Texarkana, AK and Texarkana, TX
I visited both city halls, they are about four blocks apart.

Notice the sign on the door of the Arkansas city hall.  "No Handguns"
Now, how many cities have you been in where that type of restriction
has to be explicitly listed?  On the other door it prohibits smoking
and explains why.

A rest stop on I-30 in Texas has an interesting configuration.  The
entrance is down-stream of the exit.  You make a u-turn immediately
after you get off the highway and another to get back on.

They have some very nice flowers
I did not make so much progress as I had hoped, for some reason, this seemed like a hard day.
I was fighting head winds and uneven pavement all day.  Very tiring.

I settled down for the night in a La Quinta motel in Fort Worth

Done for the day:
17.3 / 33,983 / 5:02

ABC Letters: State: Arkansas

Total: 404 miles, 9 hours 29 minutes
Trip Total: 3,764 miles, 85 hours 9 minutes

Updated: Monday, May 12, 2014 09:18:34 PM