Down On Past the Old Mill

After a quick stop for lunch at the Boulevard Bread Company, home to the best pastrami in the state, Beets navigated the way through the streets of North Little Rock. As we continued to wind our way through the scenic neighborhood, a small reservoir opened to the right. Finally in front of a large stone wall, Jason was told to pull the car to a stop.

Still not exactly sure where Beets had led us, we walked through the wrought iron gate which revealed a scene half Lewis Carroll, half Splash Mountain, known as The Old Mill.

Nestled in one of end of the reservoir, a replica of an old mill stood, surrounded by oddly structured wood bridges and seats. Upon closer examination, what we thought was wood turned out to actually be made of cement, designed to look like wood by the secretive artist Dionicio Rodriguez. Known for mixing the coloring, bonding agents and other products in the trunk of his car (and would slam it shut if anyone came near) , his technique is so detailed you can identify the exact species of tree he was replicating.

The mill, although not a replica of any particular mill, is meant to represent the many mills that once dotted the Arkansas landscape. Surrounding the mill, two small footbridges allow visitors to wander through the manicured landscape, interspersed with Rodriguez’s work. Buttressing the far side of the park, a larger bridge crosses the water. The unusually high crown, along with stalactites hanging from the bottom gives it a very surreal look.

You may not know it, but you two have probably seen this mill, for it is thought to be the last remaining structure from the 1939 movie Gone with the Wind. It appeared in the opening scenes!

After getting our fill of this quirky spot, we once again headed back to road, heading east towards our next destination.

Spilsh, Splash!

Hope springs eternal in a quaint resort town nestled in the rural central hills of Arkansas, aptly named Hot Springs for the warm water emanating from the mountain side. Oddly enough, it is also the hometown of one William Jefferson Clinton - thoroughly discussed in our last post.

For centuries this forested oasis has been a place to relax the body and rejuvenate the soul by hob knobbing with your fellow man and woman. In pre-European settlement days, Choctaw and Cherokee tribes formally agreed to lay down arms in the valley to jointly partake in the healing powers of the warm water. Similarly, Hot Springs was rife with titans of organized crime in the early 20th Century, and stood as a neutral resort town for both Chicago and New York mob families. Sounds like a perfect spot for the Random Road Trippers to cleanse after fully immersing themselves in the comparatively sinful Louisiana lifestyle.

Known for its medicinal properties, the water gurgles from the ground at a sultry 140 degrees year round. The water is warmed by the radioactive decay of minerals deep in the ground and emerges 4,000 years after it fell on the valley as rain. Where the creek once flowed in the 1800s on the north side of town now stands a row of nearly a dozen ornate, Art Deco bath houses. Each has its own style - generally borrowed from a different European region - but as a group they stand testament to adoration for European decadence, elite American leisure, and the burgeoning medical treatment practices of the early 1900s.

Recognizing the region's cultural and medical importance and potential for private exploitation, local and national leaders proclaimed Hot Springs as one of the earliest reserved parkland in the United States, and it has been managed by federal authorities since the 1830s.

Open for tours, the Random Road Trippers couldn't resist trying out every amenity and room at Fordyce House. First to take the leap, Jason swattled himself in heavy linens and spent 45 minutes in the steam chamber proclaiming he had found his, "one true spirit animal, which shall guide me to…" before passing out in a heap of euphoria.

And in less than 25 minutes Ben had recorded and tagged every peephole peering into the woman's chambers. While momentarily amazed at speedy rundown, even someone with the low morals of Ben, he soon confessed his secret that while touring Bill Clinton’s bedroom in Hope, he had discovered a small notebook stashed by our former president in his old roll top desk that outlined each one of Billy’s favorite spots.

After being disappointed that the nude outdoor deck was no longer operational, Beets decided to instead try out some of the premier electro-mechanco relaxation devices known to the early 20th century. If you thought his eyebrows stood out before, you should see them now!

Did Jason choose this location for its healing powers, famous architecture or did he want to continue the lovefest for the 42nd President? One can only guess, but the road trippers were relaxed and ready to go on to their next destination.

A Place Called Hope

Say what you will about President William Jefferson Clinton. Orator. Playboy. Presider over the greatest economic expansion in American history. Disgraceful symbol of presidential excess. You cannot deny, though, that he personifies the American dream. His story is what Americans want our story to be. And he captured that aspiration in his 1992 nomination acceptance speech:

Somewhere at this very moment, another child is born in America. Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family, a hopeful future. Let it be our cause to see that child reach the fullest of her God-given abilities. Let it be our cause that she grow up strong and secure, braced by her challenges, but never, never struggling alone; with family and friends and a faith that in America, no one is left out; no one is left behind.

Let it be our cause that when she is able, she gives something back to her children, her community, and her country. And let it be our cause to give her a country that's coming together, and moving ahead -- a country of boundless hopes and endless dreams; a country that once again lifts up its people, and inspires the world.

Let that be our cause and our commitment and our New Covenant.

I end tonight where it all began for me: I still believe in a place called Hope.

“Hope,” in that instance, was a double entendre. It referred to our collective hope that Americans’ best days are still ahead of them, but it also referred to Bill Clinton’s humble boyhood home of Hope, a modest railroad junction town in southwest Arkansas.

The Random Roadtrippers pulled into Hope, Arkansas around 8:30 Monday night. We found a Best Western and unpacked. Then we took turns making up excuses – an evening constitutional, a phone call – to spend a half hour or so walking in the 55-degree pleasant evening air. We’d had dinner at Burge’s Smoked Hams and Turkeys in Lewisville, and we all looked a good 5 months pregnant with barbecue bloat. Burge’s has locations in Lewisville and Little Rock, and if you ever have the opportunity you should go. They cook up a mean Smoked Anything, and the ribs will have you sucking every last morsel of meat off the bones. Plus they’ll ship anywhere in the country.

Hope in the 1950s was a place of working class families making modest postwar livings. Other men of humble origins have occupied the oval office – Barack Obama comes to mine – but none have origins quite so humble as Bill’s. Tragedy struck early in the future president’s life when his alcoholic father widowed his mother Virginia in a car accident. Soon after Virginia decided to attend nursing school in New Orleans, leaving Bill in the care of his loving but stern grandparents.

That first home, Bill Clinton’s boyhood home and grandparents’ house, was our first stop Tuesday morning. A modest 1917 two-story country home next to the railroad tracks and in a now ramshackle neighborhood, the brand new National Park property (dedicated in 2011) is an easy place to miss. The visitors’ center has an unassuming gate off of a broken sidewalk, and two lonely park rangers occupy the sparsely furnished space. The upside, though, is that you get a very nice, very personal tour.

Our tour guide, a young African-American park ranger named Charles with a laugh just like Jay-Z’s seemed to have a genuine affection for the 42^nd president. And that’s a good thing. Ben and Jason have been on a sort of Bill Clinton kick lately, following PBS’s recent American Experience documentary. The man may not have been very good at keeping it in his pants, but he was one heck of a politician. And after 12 years of ho hum or negative economic growth it’s kind of hard for anyone who came of age during the 90s not to feel a little nostalgic for him.

Plus there’s the unmistakable fact that Bill Clinton’s grandparents’ home looks and smells an awful lot like our grandparents’ homes: the same outdated furniture and wall paper, the 1950s layout, the creaky wooden stairs. I defy you to walk directly from a tricked out urban loft condo with a big granite kitchen island and massive entertainment center into a home like that. Then tell me where you feel more relaxed. Me, I’ll take the yellowed pages of a few youth novels and a few old tin toy trucks on Grandma’s carpet.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the Bill Clinton Boyhood Home in the next few years. Will the visitor’s center get better displays than the cheesy vinyl popup tradeshow graphics that presently reside there? Will the grounds get better landscaping than the house’s weed-overrun law? Will the Park Service buy Vince Foster’s boyhood home, now sitting dilapidated, an eyesore, next door? Will it get better neighbors than the used car lot across the street and the farm supply store around the way? Time will tell. Us, we tend to believe that, like so many low points in Bill Clinton’s career, 2012 is the beginning of a renaissance for this weathered corner of Hope, Arkansas. If the Comeback Kid has anything to say about it, we believe in a place called Hope.

Every Man a King, but No One Wears a Crown

This was the iconic slogan used by Huey Long in his first successful bid to become Louisiana's Governor. But, if you thought he was the only colorful character in Louisiana's history, you would be quite mistaken. Nestled in the heart of the small town of Winnfield, LA ( home to three governors) is the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame.

Although it was hard to distinguish which politicians were in the actual Hall of Fame, rows of glass cabinets lined the walls, with each space profiling a notable Louisiana politico, such as the aforementioned Huey Long and his brother Earl, the Landrieu's (Both father and daughter), James Carville, Charlie Cook and Harry Connick (the senior, not the junior).

Some of the more memorable artifacts included:

• Rattlesnake boots and belts, worn by a State Senator
• Huey Long's golf clubs and dining room table
• The eye patch from a six-gun slinging, horse riding sheriff
• Earl Long's speaker-wagon (Pretty sure the inspiration of Blues-mobile)
• James Carville's business card reading "Pamphleteer and Raconteur"

This museum also is in the running for most well-worded placard:

Earl Long: ...but the campaign took a toll, as he began drinking heavily and dating strippers..

After a quick photo-op, we were off on the road again, with Ben navigating the way.

Here Gator, Gator, Gator

As we came up'on the outskirts of St. Martinville on a worn pea gravel country road, Jason toll'd us ta "keep a keen eye for a blue truck wit a gray sign." A country mile later thar stood the truck, fitted with the as-advertized "Swamp Tours" sign.

Our boat cap'n and guide was an supremely knowledgeable fellow named Butch. A Southern man, Butch had only nice things to say about northern Wisconsin where he lived for a couple years in the '90s. He said he'd seen nough snow to last him a lifetime however, and now has a baowl taking people 'round his favorite stomp'n grounds on Lake Martin in a 24-foot Louisiana crawfish skiff.

Thar wasn't a queshun 'bout the swamp Butch wasn't fit to answer, and I doubt we missed a single swamp creature due to his sharp eye. We tallied damn nea 20 aligators (from babies to 10 feet long), dozens of fowl (including giant blue heron, white egrets, several cormorant vryties, arsynth), turtles, snakes, and bugs. The noon-day sun shown through the groves of cypress trees and most cold-blooded an'mals was taking the opp'tunity to sunbathe while the get'en was good.

We learned about just about every plant and animal we saw, heard about the 20,000 pairs of mating birds that 'rive in the spring, got a look at some stately duck blinds constructed in the water (which are deeded as private property on a public lake), and got a lesson on the difference between a swamp and a bayou (genrly, bayou being the deeper channel that transports flood waters, and the swamp being the outlying area that floods).

In a couple hours we circumscribed the full lake and were astonished at the intimacy we got sitting right on the water, and depth of information Butch shared about his ecosystem. If you find yourself near St. Marysville and would enjoy a nice spring day on water, head on out and see Butch at the best dang'd swamp tour around.

You Boys Ain't From Around Here, Are You?

Plantation belles. Southern gentlemen. Cotillions. Slavery. Plantations conjure the South’s most graceful images and disgraceful history. Nothing on the Random Roadtrip is predestined, but I don’t think anyone gasped in surprise when Ben made our first stop the Houmas Plantation.

One of the region’s largest, wealthiest and, in more recent times, most visited and most photographed sugar estates, the Houmas Plantation is now owned by one Kevin Kelly.

We arrived just before 8:00 p.m., in time for the last tour. Mr. Kelly and his dogs Grace and Sugar Baby, who live in the old mansion, were just getting home. Our tour actually startled them. I couldn’t help wondering about this man, a kind and intelligent looking man with healthy cheeks, a jolly round belly and reading glasses hanging around his neck. I did a little homework and found out that Kelly, a native of New Orleans, is president of a company called Port Services that warehouses a great deal of the coffee entering the United States. What a gracefully old school way to make a fortune.

Mr. Kelly is less famous, though, than the house’s canine residents, especially the elder dame of the manor, Grace. In 2003, Kelly staged a publicity stunt to mark the plantation’s reopening to tours. In an elegant garden ceremony, Princess Grace (Kelly, naturally) wed the handsome Dutch labrador King Sam. ABC News and CNN both covered the event. Now a widow, Grace has aged as gracefully as any fine plantation mistress. Mr. Kelly gave us a moment to wish her hello and rub her belly.

As an old building, the mansion is every bit as elegant as other old buildings of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Mount Vernon. Monticello. They all have the same historic curiosities: the bric-a-brac, the curiously low dining room tables, the perilously high four poster beds and the fine mirrors distorted with age.

The Houmas Plantation, though, is a living museum – home to Esquire’s 7^th best restaurant in the United States and Mr. Kelly’s home. Kelly has good taste and one hell of a private art collection. Turn around in the dining room, and you’ll spot an original Gaugin: an unsigned painting of the artist’s Tahitian mistress on Tahitian wood. Outside in one of the manicured garden’s pavilions is a Chillui chandelier. The plantation has all of the 19^th century charm one expects, but plenty of more recent attractions to surprise and delight the visitor who knows a little about art.

And the guide, George, was every bit as charming as you could hope. He casually dropped references to the “War of Southern Independence” like the best of them, and he had a fun anecdote about very little artifact in the house. All one had to do was ask. When one fellow tour goer asked about the status of house slaves (versus field slaves), all George had to do was point to the “Uncle Tom” painting hanging on the wall behind her. George also had a few thought provoking facts to share. This student of history was well aware that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves. (The 13^th Amendment did, which the Southern States were forced to ratify in exchange for readmission to the Union.) I did not know that parishes like the Houmas Plantation’s were allowed to keep their slaves until 1872, a reward for voting against secession.

After the guided house tour and Louisiana history lesson, George encouraged us to continue traversing the beautifully landscaped gardens, peppered with gazebos, fountains, flower and herb plots, and ponds. While dark, the gardens and live oaks allowed us to bask in the charm of a crisp southern spring evening.

Baton Rouge had few to none non-chain, cockroach-free lodging options which prompted our stay at the Magnuson Hotel (no presumed relation to world’s strongest man, Magnús Ver Magnússon). While we considered attending the U.S. Bowling Congresses Bowling Championship, being held that evening in Baton Rouge, we intelligently resigned to a quiet evening at the hotel, looking forward to our first hangover free morning together.

New Orleans - Our First Impression

This picture encapsulates our 24 hours in New Orleans:

More details to come...