Day #2: Arkadelphia, Arkansas

We got back on the road from Effingham at about 8:00 this morning. Another clear weather day, but lots and lots and LOTS of truck traffic. Everywhere. HUGE vehicles. WIDE loads. Endless trucks! We had stopped at a little rest area and had seen pictures of a cute depot not too far out of our way, so we wandered off our prescribed trip map (and Garmin had a total fit!) to see what we could see!

There really wasn't much to see in Tamms ... and the depot was being used as a village hall, but we stopped by and snapped our pictures, went inside to see how nicely the depot was renovated, chatted with the folk there for a little bit, and then got back on the road.

I took the picture above just because I was so happy to see the color GREEN ... ah, there is hope of spring!

We took a little drive on S-127 where I missed what would have been a fabulous picture. We were driving alongside an abandoned right-of-way (no tracks ... just a path), went over a bridge, and I looked to my right to see a wooden trestle railroad bridge reflected in a muddy creek, that was all entwined with vines and gnarly branches ... where a graceful, light gray-colored heron was resting beneath. It just about took my breath away, but by the time I realized what a great picture it would have been, we had gone way past it ... and a certain somebody would NOT turn around for me to photograph it. I know. If we stopped every time I begged to, we would make extremely slow progress towards Texas. I also missed several really beautiful hawks in flight today, as well as a sweet little doe that was standing beside the interstate ...

We crossed the Mississippi, and it was approaching lunchtime. We have heard stories about the famous Lambert's Cafe, "home of the throwed roll," (shouldn't it be thrown roll?)and since we were so close by, we just HAD to visit it for ourselves!

I will say that Lambert's completely lived up to all that was raved about it! What a fun place.

We came at just the right time, had no wait at all for either a table or our food, and soon the rolls began flying! They have helpers who walk around with freshly baked hot rolls (completely yummy), and if you raise your hand, they send one hurtling across the restaurant to whomever can catch it! Grandpa Jones and I both caught one, but the table across from us had a bunch of guys that kept missing the throwed roll, so there were lots of spoiled buns on the floor.

Oh ... and they serve you enough food in this place to last ... days! We ordered our lunches and as we waited, they brought freebies around like deep fried ochre, fried potatoes, mac and cheese and other assorted extremely fattening (and very delicious) stuff ~ and then lunch arrived on plates big enough for 2-3 people. I was very close to ordering the Chef's salad which was described as being served on "a bun," but instead ordered a chicken salad with cottage cheese and peaches on the side. Whew. I later saw that Chef's salad, and honestly, I have never in my life seen a bigger salad on a bigger bun. It looked like a salad on top of a gigantic pizza crust! I don't know how one person could have possibly eaten the whole thing!

We ate our lunch at 1:00 in the afternoon. It is now 8:00 in the evening and I am STILL stuffed. We decided we did not need to eat another thing for the rest of the day ... and we haven't! Plus, I actually drove about 80 miles of our trip today. Grandpa Jones was getting sleepy, so a sure way to wake him up is to have ME drive. We switched back as we were arriving Little Rock during rush hour.

We checked out another Daniel Silva book on CD from the library to listen to along the way. We've listened to the first three discs so far. Another spy thriller type of story that helps pass the time on the road.

So tomorrow, our destination is Bandera by way of Kerrville (because that's where our hotel is reserved). We are looking forward to seeing Nick, Rachel, Nathan, Nia, Lottie ... and evidence of Liam's soon arrival!

P.S. Happy birthday, Mom!