William Jefferson Clinton (5/8/25)

 Paul and I have never been ones to have a specific “bucket list” of places we want to visit- we don’t need to get to all the states, or all the national parks, or all the presidential libraries- but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy visiting all of the above.   The last time we came through Little Rock, our focus was on Hot Springs National Park ( my least favorite national park, by the way). Since I felt no need to re-visit, we could focus on the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.

The library has a fair amount of information about both Bill and Hilary, starting from their childhoods.

Hillary grew up in the Chicago area, the oldest of 3. Even as a young child, she wanted to make a difference- a copy of her handwritten paper is on display and reads (in part)

                                                            My Future

When I grow up I want to have had the best education I could have possibly obtained.  If I obtain this I will probably be able to get a very good job. I want to either be a teacher or a nuclear physics scientist. Sometimes people as  me why I would want to be a teacher. The way I figure it though, is that the government  and adults are always talking about how the children of today are the citizens of tomorrow. With this thought in mind you have to have teachers to train the young citizens…

She attended Wellesley College for her undergraduate degree in Political Science, and received her  law degree from Yale in 1973. Soon thereafter she was appointed to the Impeachment Inquiry staff, in Washington DC, which advised the house committee regarding impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.

When Bill was elected president, she was the first professional woman to serve as First Lady, and the first First Lady to have her own office in the West Wing.

After his presidency she became the first First Lady to launch her own campaign for an elected office, which she won, in 2001, becoming Senator Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton’s childhood was completely different. He was born William Jefferson Blythe III in 1946. His father, William J Blythe, died before he was born and his mother later married Roger Clinton.

As a teen, Bill officially changed his last name to Clinton, in part so that everyone in the household would have the same last name (he has a younger half brother).

After receiving his bachelors degree from Georgetown University, he went on to receive his law degree from Yale, where he met Hillary Rodham, the future Hillary Rodham Clinton.

He started his political career as the Arkansas Attorney General, and by 1978 had become one of the youngest ever governors of Arkansas.

In 1992 he ran for, and won, the election for U.S. President, against George  H. W. Bush and Ross Perot.

Of course, many of the displays detail his political career, especially his presidency. Walking through the halls of photos and information plaques, I was reminded that there was much to like about Bill Clinton as a president. I suppose that is also why he easily won re-election. As a man, he certainly isn’t perfect, but I feel like he accomplished so much as the leader of our country.

Some of my favorite accomplishments of his:

The first bill he ever signed into law was the Family and Medical Leave Act.

In 2000 he established Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. I have hiked here many times- including our recent trip to hike the Wave. It is fantastic that this place is protected.

He worked on Welfare reform- his goal- ending Welfare as we know it,  and decreasing dependence on government subsidies.

He was the first president in decades to commit to a balanced budget. It took years but in 1998, for the first time in a generation, the federal deficit officially hit Zero.  We have not had a balanced budget or surplus since Clinton left office.

This is so huge to me- an amazing feat and yet once he accomplished it we perhaps should have insisted upon it from that point on?

Each president gets to decorate the Oval Office any way they want, which of course would make it more personal and comfortable for them.

The same is not true of the Cabinet Room. Taking a short break, Paul and I sat at the table in the cabinet room replica,  and were soon joined by a volunteer who was extremely informative.

The room has remained essentially the same for decades- with two exceptions. In 1970, President Nixon gifted a new table to the administration. The old table was rectangular, making it difficult for everyone to be seen by all others at the table. The oval shape works much better.

Also, each president can decide which two portraits hang on the wall.

Cabinet meetings are held an average of once a week, more if necessary. The record was during the Bay of Pigs, when President Kennedy held cabinet meetings daily, and sometimes twice a day.

The protocol of who sits where is not determined by seniority, at least, not seniority of the individual at the table- it is decided by seniority of the position. So, for example, the Secretary of State sits next to the President even if he has held the position for a week because the Secretary of State position is the oldest.

All along the corridor are displays of gifts given to President Clinton.  You might think that there would be rules against our President accepting gifts from foreign leaders, but it was George Washington who decided it was virtually impossible to say no to every gift that was offered by a head of state.

Instead, he decided that these gifts would be gifts to the American people. Most of them are housed in the National Archives, or in Presidential Libraries. (gift from Chihuly)

There were many more displays than I can describe here. These were the ones that were highlights for me.

As a side note, there is a kiosk where you can call up any date during Clinton’s presidency, and a picture will pop up with his schedule for that date. It was kind of  fun looking at random dates and also makes you realize how scheduled they can be….

We had a second day to spend in the Little Rock area and after spending an entire day inside, we headed for Pinnacle Mountain State Park. There is a 3 mile loop to a peak that can be done from two different sides. They both reach the pinnacle, but one is harder going down ( always more of a challenge).

Well, we chose wrong and spent a long but doable 1.5 miles going up to the pinnacle. The trail is mostly bouldering, which is fun, if it isn’t too steep. It was slow but fine on the way up.

The views from the top made it all worthwhile …

But of course the more difficult route was going down. Making sure we were not going to fall can be a challenge on a trail like this.

Ah well, all in all it was fun.

Moving into Arkansas (5/1/25)

 At this point in our travels we have decided several things- we want to go to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, and we really want to stop at the new National Park- New River Gorge National Park. Our “bookend” is our two week stay in Laurel Springs NC, to visit good friends that we haven’t seen in a long time. Our stay there begins May 14  so we have some time to see things along the way.

Our next stop was barely over the Arkansas border, in the small town of Fort Smith. I really liked this town, and the RV park we stayed in was new, and very well thought out.

In addition to housekeeping, we found time to visit the U.S. Marshal’s Museum.

The U.S. Marshal's Office is the oldest Federal law enforcement agency in the country.

 It was created in 1789 by George Washington when he signed the Judiciary Act of 1789.

 Their function was, and is, to support the federal courts and enforce the laws of the United States. Each judicial district has one Marshal, and however many deputy marshals are deemed necessary (some of them are even temporary).

Although one of their more noticeable jobs is to transport federal prisoners, it is just a small part of what they do. 

They are also responsible for apprehending fugitives, by whatever means they can. In 1985 Operation Flagship was put into play. Letters were sent out to 3000 fugitives, congratulating them on winning tickets to a football game. All they had to do was show up at a specific day and time to collect their tickets. Of course, once the fugitives were all assembled, they were placed under arrest. 144 fugitives were apprehended in this sting.

In the early days, there were also special marshals, called Frontier Marshals. As the name implies, they worked mostly out west where life was rougher and many of our states were just territories. Probably one of the most famous Frontier Marshals was Bass Reeves (apparently there is a TV show about him). Born into slavery, he escaped, and eventually became the first black deputy marshal west of the Mississippi. By some accounts he was responsible for capturing over 3000 fugitives. His intelligence and ingenuity seemed to be his most important weapons.

As more territories became states, the frontier was declared closed. So after 30 years as a deputy marshal, Reeves was out of a job. He finished out his career with the Muskogee Police Department.

Prohibition and desegregation were just two of the many areas where marshals played a huge role. In 1960 they were responsible for the safety of Ruby Bridges, a six year old black girl, as she attended an all white elementary school. They were also on hand to protect the first black man to attend a white university. Nothing was easy for these kids, so I give them a ton of credit for standing up. Ruby became an honorary marshal much later in her life.

The museum is very well done with several interactive displays – it’s  high on our list of best museums.

Leaving Fort Smith, our next 3 day stop was Compton Arkansas, in the Ozark mountains. No museum here, just hiking- and gorgeous sunsets.

This is the area where Buffalo River flows but its a bit early in the year to be on or in the water.

 

Our first hike was ok- 3 miles round trip to Hemmed in Hollow. If we had kept going we would have gotten a better view of the waterfall, but since we wanted to do another hike, we chose to turn back.

The second hike was much better- 3 miles round trip to “ Lost Valley”. This is a popular hike so we were certainly not alone.

The trail entailed crossing over a stream several times but luckily the water wasn’t too high.

The payoff for the hike was a couple of decent waterfalls and some cool rock formations.

Sometimes its better to have a person in the picture, to get some perspective.

Now it's on to Little Rock.

OHHHHHHklahoma (4/27/25)

 

As soon as we had an idea of our timetable for the summer, we did two things- we booked an RV park in Massachusetts, a state that has relatively few RV parks, and we scheduled some work to be done on our trailer in Elk City Oklahoma.

Rolling Retreats is a repair/sales shop that specializes in DRV products, which is what our fifth wheel is. Although ours is still in excellent condition, it IS 14 years old and still has the original roof. Paul feels that we are on borrowed time with it, so we are having Rolling Retreats put on a flex armor roof, which should last the life of the RV. We needed to be in a hotel for two nights while they did the work, and we chose one with a kitchenette so we could cook simple meals instead of eating out.

With a couple of days to explore we headed for the hiking trails. There are several state parks and a wildlife refuge in this area. We started with Quartz Mountain State Park because it sounded the most interesting.

It was a good pick. About 30 minutes out of Elk City, the park has a few trails of interest. We chose Baldy Point. The trail started out in the brush, with large boulders, sometimes looking like a cave.

The trail opened up into a hillside and then wandered through a meadow.

The wildflowers are in full bloom here right now, which in and of itself made the hike worth it.

Lace Hedgehog Cactus:

Indian Blanket- which we had never seen before…

This cutie is an Eastern Collared Lizard (I love apps that identify creatures and plants for me!)

Although it was only about 2.5 miles and 350 feet of gain, it felt like more because we kept stopping to admire the flowers and the view.

In the “also ran” department, the following day we did a 3 mile hike in Foss State Park, and from there, drove up to nearby Washita National Wildlife Refuge. After eating our picnic lunch we had a nice chat with the ranger, but that turned out to be the highlight, because we didn’t see any wildlife.

At the end of the day we were able to pick up our Mobile Suites, with it’s brand new roof. At first it looked quite bright and white, but it has since started to blend in perfectly with the side walls.

After one more night in the nearby rv park, we hit the road the next morning, headed for the Arkansas border.

At this point we are not particularly having fun traveling across the plains states. The tornado warnings seem to follow us wherever we go. We have set alarms on our phone and most nights before we go to bed, we plan what we would do if we had a serious warning near us. Even without the tornadoes, the rain seems to be incessant.

We have had no choice but to drive through downpours and wind. We HAVE adjusted our timetable to avoid some of it but mostly we feel like the further east we can get, the easier the weather will be.

And as a side note, I unfortunately forgotten to pack my low profile waterproof boots- so shopping was a necessity.

Somewhere along the way we discovered  that water was getting into the rig. Living out west most of the time, our rig hasn’t been inundated with torrential downpours in a long time, and it apparently doesn’t take much to soak through some insulation.

Over the last week or so Paul has spent more time than he cares to digging in the bedroom closet, looking for the source of the water. The good news is that although it was frustrating and took a while, there was no damage, and he got to buy a new saw to cut through the closet.