When I Take Over My World: Road Trip

Earlier this month, Randy and I headed off to spend a couple of days in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Mountain Home is in the northern part of the state - in the Ozarks. Oh my - this area is the prettiest area I have ever seen. Even in that dreary, icky part of the year in between the new year and spring, when nothing looks good, it's beautiful.

For me, that time of year right after Christmas, and before spring springs is the gloomiest of all times. Not just because of it supposedly being the letdown after the holidays whoey, but because there isn’t any color in anything at all. I know I should find the beauty in all things that God has made, but He really stretches my ability to do that in the dead of winter.

Anyway ~

This picture was taken last Thanksgiving, but close enough to see that even with the leaves gone, Bull Shoals is very pretty.

This is our fourth time up there and we usually stay at a place called 'North Shore Resort' which is on Bull Shoals Lake. They have six very nicely kept cabins, a pool and a lot of critters all around. Randy has never taken his boat up there, as we usually rent the pontoon boat that North Shore has for their guests. The lake is huge and very warm in the summer. Even on the busiest of summer weekends, you'd be hard pressed to come across many boats out on the water.

I think it even has Western Washington beat in picturesque-ness. I really hate to say that, after spending most of my life in what I thought was the perfect state. But ya’ll gotta see the Ozarks.

On this trip, we broke out the Camaro. It has a decent sized trunk, but it still is a challenge for me to pack lightly. I'm doing better at it though. I think all told, I have stopped packing an extra bag for:

Games

Coffee stuff

Toiletries

Books

Oh gosh, I'm going to stop now. It's embarrassing, all the stuff I had to take ‘just in case’. Just in case there wasn’t a Walmart or a CVS somewhere along the 450 miles we travelled to get there.

We drive straight through and it takes us anywhere from 8 - 9 hours, as I always take my coffee and water along with my bladder the size of a pee (pun intended). The only really bad part of the trip is Oklahoma. The part of Oklahoma we drive through is ugly and the roads are bouncy. Oklahoma ranks right up there with Wyoming as my least favorite states. Ugly and not near enough rest areas.

To make up for my dislike of Oklahoma, here are three interesting facts about the state that I didn’t know before today:

The first Boy Scout Troop in the US was formed in Pawhuska in 1909.

Ya’ll know my favorite website - The Pioneer Woman hails from Pawhuska.

Women may not gamble in the nude, in lingerie, or while wearing a towel in Schulter, OK.

Good to know. There goes my excuse to go to Victoria’s Secret.

The official State Meal of Oklahoma is chicken fried steak, fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbecue pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, black eyed peas and pecan pie.

I had no clue that any state had an official State Meal. Interesting. What would it be for Alaska? Eskimo Pies?

In my head, the ending to this was to be a comment about how I know, without seeing the “Welcome to Arkansas (rest area ahead) sign, exactly when we cross the Oklahoma border into Arkansas. However, I misplaced the picture that I took from the speeding Camaro to prove this point. I'll have to suffice with a picture I took from the car back in the fall.