Ozark Mountains and dreary weather

Can you see the beautiful Ozark Mountains from this Arkansas overlook? Yeah, we couldn't either. Day three of driving was truely miserable. Already we weren't excited by the miles and miles of nothingness of Arkansas and Oklahoma, but the terrible grey just made it that much worse.

I've been following Matt for the drive, due to him being awesome at direction and me being not good with direction at all. I especially appreciate him leading the way through these foggy highway stretches where I can't see the signs, and in all these confusing cities. We have a pretty good system of watching for each other's turn signals if we need to make an extra pit stop. Luckily the cars have been using gas at about the same rate, so when we're both at a quarter tank we'll stop and fill them up.

Little Rock, AR

We weren't feeling anymore heavy, expensive restaurant food, so while Little Rock is supposed to be known for soda shops we opted to just got bread and "grapples" at the store for a picnic lunch. We found this funky art garden and pavillion near the grocery store.

Fun fact ~ The bathrooms in Arkansas were all cold, metal toilets, like I imagine prisons have.

Arkansas driving

For real, Arkansas is the worst. It was made even worse by the terrible grey blocking any possible sights. This rest stop was the most exciting thing that happened.

Mississippi River and house news

We took a break to visit Tom Lee park along the Mississippi River. They had a course set up called "Get River Fit", with ropes, sit up benches, jump up logs, and more. It was a good way to get some energy out. Unfortunately, it was yet another cloudy, misty day.

During our first day of driving I had gotten a call about the house we plan to rent in Portland, that we're approved in but due to a window replacement it won't be ready until Dec 17th. We plan on getting to Portland on the 10th, but our crates of stuff won't be until the 17th at the earliest, so it might all work out in our family. All that meant we needed to make super exciting stops at the bank and post office to handle long distance paperwork, though. As it needed to be done within 48hrs of the call (extended from 24hr due to our travel circumstances). No stress, right?

Memphis, TN

We made it to Memphis by dinner time and had barbeque at Central with our friend Noel. We stayed the night with him and got some much needed good sleep, then he even fixed us breakfast. What a good friend!

Nashville, TN

Cumberland River Bridge and BB King's for lunch.
(Will edit to include the full story soon.)

Cumberland Park, Nashville

We stopped in Nashville, TN at Cumberland park to get some energy out. It's a kind of unique little city park along the Cumberland River, with free parking in the nearby stadium parking lot. There's these astroturf hills to run on, a seesaw, a rock wall and climbing ropes, a sand pit, and more. The kids didn't want to leave. :)