Riverside Park in North Little Rock was my river dream that had been cut short in Jacksonport. The park is on the Arkansas River and it was still high but retreating from flood stage. This river drains Colorado and Kansas, eventually flowing into the Mississippi. We were in site #1 and had a beautiful view of the river and no neighbor on one side.
It was fun watching the purple martins as I realized the house was probably installed to help contain the mosquito population and it did help as did the constant breeze. The purple martin box was a two story with three apartments on each side. Despite the heat, we were able to sit outside quite a bit.
The day we arrived, we were ready to eat and so we walked across the pedestrian bridge into Little Rock and had a late lunch at the Lost 40 Brewery. We each had a burger with all the fixings. It was slow to arrive but worth the wait. The beer was really good. Carol had a Day drinker Belgian blond and I had a Love Bock followed by a Camp Taco Salute Your Schwarz.
The next day, we were off to visit the Clinton Library. I really enjoyed the library and our lunch at the restaurant called 42. We had a really spectacular cocktail, a Vieux Carre. Carol had the Cuban and sweet potato fries. I had the brisket grilled cheese. We enjoyed absorbing the ambience of the diverse crowd that was eating there.
The five-story main building is 20,000 square feet of exhibition space. The organization of the exhibits within the main building was inspired by the famous Long Room in the Old Library at Trinity College, which Clinton first saw when he was a Rhodes Scholar. The presidential car used during Clinton's presidency is housed on the first floor. On the second floor, the main gallery houses a 110-foot timeline, representing each of Clinton's years as President. There is also a small theater which shows a movie about the Clinton presidency the Great Hall, and there are replicas of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room. The restaurant is located on the lower level of the building.
The second day, we visited Burn's Park which is the Little Rock city RV park. It was nice but not on the river of course. We wanted to check it out but also be sure we knew our route to leave Little Rock. Driving around cities can be a challenge in an RV, particularly when you have to move over multiple lanes to get your next exit. We were lucky in that we never had to actually drive through Little Rock and our next destination was west.
During our stay at Riverside, we talked to lots of people from all over the country. There was the couple from Colorado who full time and a guy in a camper van from Florida who we came to befriend. This was a good spot to do laundry and we appreciated being in a nice private campground that was gated. The pedestrian bridge that we could access from just outside the park was really nice. There was some flooding and some construction between the Clinton Library and downtown so that was the only limiting factor of making it all completely walkable. The bridge was dedicated on September 30, 2011 and is lit at night with environmentally friendly LED lights which does enhance the nighttime skyline.
I picked up a copy of the Arkansas Times May issue which I found was very progressive. There was an article about Judson Scanlon, the first opening trans candidate who is running for a seat in District 70 which is North Little Rock and Sheridan. The writer Ernest Dumas wrote an article about Trump and Putin's longstanding "bromance", highlighting how Trump brought the Miss Universe pageant to his development in Moscow.
On our third day, we took a drive into Little Rock and visited the Old Mill which was used in the opening credits of Gone with the Wind. It was located in a cute little park that provided some nice shade on what was a pretty warm day. From there, we drove into downtown Little Rock and had lunch at the Buenos Aires Café. We each had three empanadas, a salad and a lovely chardonnay.
We walked around downtown a bit and visited the nature center. It was there that we learned there were alligators in the White River that come up from the Mississippi. Alligators now range as far northeast as the St. Francis River near Paragould. They were released by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in the years of 1972-84 because they were originally native to the area but numbers declined and they became an endangered species in 1973.
I would have liked to have visited the Little Rock Nine National Historic Site but the heat was just too much.
We
Without a doubt, the best part was sitting on our RV patio, watching the river flow by.