Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Friday, May 6 - We listened to the morning news to check on flooding conditions.  I-40 is closed both eastbound and westbound in central Arkansas, so we are going to cross here on I-55 and then take 79 south.  We did not do any sightseeing here because of the flooding -- they are expecting to start evacuating people this morning.  Beale Street and Riverside Drive, both Memphis icons, are closed.  It was nice to see billboards of Elvis, though, as we drove past the Graceland exit.  They are calling this the Flood of the Century, and I'm not sure why we are here, but Joe, of course, wouldn't want to miss anything, so I guess that's reason enough. 

 

We left about 9:30, but took the wrong turn out of the campground (based on my advice, contrary to Joe's instincts) and ended up with a 6-mile scenic tour of Memphis' millionaire row (at least it seemed like it to us, beautiful estates, huge houses, acres of lawns to mow).  We finally made it back to the highway, fueled at the first Circle K we've seen in a long time ($3.739), and were on our way across the Mississippi River bridge, which we crossed without incident.  The traffic wasn't even heavy, but the river was full and overflowing.

The floodwater was really bad on the west side of the river, and there were even electric lines lying in the water, causing a splash.

An interesting item on the news - the casinos across the state line in Tunica, Mississippi are closed due to flooding (darn!), but they have a dilemma because they don't have locks on their doors; they are open 24/7.  I did not hear what their solution was, but I thought that was noteworthy.  I wondered if they emptied out all the slot machines -- I assume they did.  They hope to be open by Memorial Day, so this flood will affect them for a few weeks.

We got off I-55 at US 79, and traffic was relatively light most of the way, even though this was part of the detour route off I-40.  We stopped at the Arkansas Visitor Center and asked about Hwy. 79, and she had heard they were not allowing crossing the bridge at Clarendon on the White River, so I called the Arkansas Dept. of Transportation (again) and he told me they were letting cars cross, but not 18-wheelers, and he was not sure which category we would fall in.  He said there would be a cop at the last intersection and he would tell us if they would allow us to cross, but by the time we got there (about 1:00 p.m.), we were meeting 18-wheelers and there was no cop, so we went ahead.  And crossed without incident.  This White River has really flooded the fields west of it.

The road across this bridge was not in very good shape, and they are building a new bridge beside this one, so they probably are not going to do much repair work on this old road.  But the new bridge does not seem to have much clearance -- I'm thinking they should have built it up higher!

Every river, stream and ditch is full to overflowing through this part of the country -- the 20 inches of rain they received in the last 2 weeks (while I was getting stormed on in Indiana) has just ruined these fields for the spring season.  We even saw a set of 6-8 grain elevators standing in 2-3 feet of water.  Several places we saw pumps in the fields, draining the water into ditches, but the ditches were already full too, so I don't know how well that will go.




Our last big river to cross today was the Arkansas River; it didn't seem as flooded as the rest, maybe it has receded a little.

After much debate about how far we wanted to go today, we finally decided to stop at Pine Bluff, and found Lake Saracen Regional Park right at the edge of town, just past the golf course.  This is a beautiful park, and we found a campsite near the lake, so we got set up, walked down and watched some fishermen/fisherwomen (the woman caught 1 catfish and 1 brim [bluegill] while we stood there), and got the lawn chairs out again -- a nice, relaxing spot.

Of course, we couldn't stand to rest too long, so we headed into town for dinner.  Joe has had a hankering for barbeque ever since we hit Texas last month, so we put that in the GPS and drove around until we found one; then we explored the town a little.  On our way back into our park, we came upon a family of geese out for their evening exercise.

The babies were so cute -- still fuzzy.  Then we saw a deer just at the campground gate.  We saw 4 live turtles on the highways today (and a few dead ones), along with roadkill of 3 armadillos and a deer.  I'm sure the flooded fields have driven some of the wildlife out of their normal haunts, but I have been surprised at the number of turtles who have decided they have to cross the road -- it really is not a good idea for them!

We found a railroad museum in town so we plan to visit that in the morning, and then head on southwest, although this would be a nice place to spend an extra day -- we would just have to buy an Arkansas fishing license.  Today was a beautiful day -- sunny, high 70s.  I would like to bottle up some days like today for the upcoming weeks in Texas and Florida, followed by Arizona.