400 Miles To Dallas

Day Four: Greenville, MS to Plano, TX

•         433 miles

•         14 hours

•         82 W all damn day

•         # of dead armadillos on the side of the road: 13

•         # of times The Mermaid said “God damn it's hot”:  40536

            This entry begins at 3 am. We are sleeping soundly to the comforting white noise of the air conditioner when a voice wakes us up. I think it's outside, so I peek through the window- nothing.  R Girl is resting peacefully, and no one is out. I climb back in bed, and again the voice; a strange gravely female voice. We realize that it's coming from the room next door, with whom we share a door ( a room dividing door that is of course locked, but that has about 2 inches between the floor and the bottom of the door.) Over the next 30 minutes the voice amps up to full tilt demonic raving.  I'm totally freaked out.  It literally sounds like there’s  a demon next door loosing its mind. I then realize that I'm hearing a real live crack head for the first time, or someone having a bad schizophrenic episode. Yuck. The Pirate scoops me up and cradles me in his arms (awww....) and we sleep (sort of) another hour before we decide to go. We had planned to leave at 5 am anyway. We gathered our things, staged them by the door, and made a run for it. It felt like that movie, Legend, where zombies come out once the sun goes down. We're on the road speeding out if this crazy town within 5 minutes. I'm not one to think things like this, but I gotta say, the devil's got that town.

Zapatas

 

            By 6 am we're crossing the Mississippi river, and it's gorgeous. There's a  huge bridge with 3 or 4 gigantic upward pointing triangles that look like sails made of cables. The sun is rising behind us making the sky all peachy and pink. We're in Arkansas now, and we're in for a ride today. We plan to do 400 miles to get to Dallas so we can have a nice long visit with our friends and also some well deserved rest.

            The ride between towns Mist and Strong  is really beautiful. We passed through the Felsenthal Wildlife Reserve, a peaceful swampland which, to a freshwater mermaid from mountain streams, looks exotic indeed.  We see our first “big sky” by the middle of Arkansas. It looks just like the window wall in Lisa Mandle's Neighborhood Studio with the horizon being a faint blue and then gradually deepening upward. Big, white, story book clouds sit perfectly still all over the sky. The flocks of white egrets, which distinguish central Arkansas for me, look like clouds that decided to sprout wings so they could ge closer the fields.

Texarkana

            By noon we are to the border of Arkansas with over 200 miles behind us. We take a break in Texarkana, another seemingly abandoned town but without the creepy vibe. We do the library first, then a Tex-mex lunch at Zapatas grill: tamale, brisket taco with green sauce and crawfish stuffed chile relleno. Oh yes.

 

Ace of Spades House

            Over the course of our delicious lunch, the temperature outside goes up about 300 degrees. Our post lunch architectural excursion turns out to be a bit of an energy draining mistake. The buildings in this town are so intriguing. Beautiful tile details, concrete frills, wedge shaped structures and abundant 40's charm make Texarkana a worthy place to visit. Promise. Plus, the town is divided by the 2 states, so you can get from TX to AR by walking across the main drag. Anyway, after walking around about 15 minutes we end up napping under a big gum tree in front of a church. From then on we are a hot, tired, brain fried pair of idiots.

 

            For the rest of the day we ride through 96 degree heat. About every 30 miles we have to stop just to cool off in some A/C. The morning 200 miles took us 5 hours. The afternoon 200 miles took us 9.

            It's 10:30 pm before we pull up to the Bevins' household in Plano (NE of Dallas proper). We are greeted by 2 of the Bevins boys, Tristan and Talen, who are waiting for us on the corner. They run along the sidewalk beside us (we clocked 4 year old Talon at 10 mph) and give us the warm Texas welcome we'd been looking forward to all day. Talon runs into the house and shouts “They're here! They're here!” and out come Tim and Shawna, ready with another round of hugs.

            The next 2 hours are spent swimming in the tiled pool and indulging.  There is, of course, a welcome feast: duck eggs, warmed olives with lemon peel, crusty bread, sesame zucchini tapenade, pickled vegetables, feta cheese and watermelon. By 1 am we're in bed, and with no crack heads in sight, pass out cold for the next 12 hours.