Day Ten

Another day, another journey. Had breakfast in the hotel and watched the news. It had about the dentist who shot the lion. There is now a tribute to the dead lion outside his dental practice. They showed it, it was just some toy lions. Apparently he has done it before with a bear. Enough said. It wasn't the main news though, that was Tom Brady getting a four match NFL ban.

We left Greenville and won't miss it. Nothing particularly wrong with it, just not a place to spend any time.

Not far from the edge of the city, we crossed the Mississippi River for the second time in our lives. The first time was on our original trip in 2010, when we were much further north. As we crossed Ol' Man River we also moved into Arkansas.

After just 17 miles, we veered off course and took a 40 mile round trip south to tick another box. When we got there we saw this.

Sign

It meant we could cross Louisiana off our list of states we've been to. Didn't stay there long, didn't go any further in.

Getting back on our actual route, we headed north west up into Arkansas. We stopped for fuel and to get supplies. As we left the gas station, Ann asked me whether I had seen the woman's chest. I felt this was a trick question with no possible right answer. Anyway, it turns out that apparently this woman had a hairy chest. I could safely say I hadn't noticed.

We then found a nice place to stop, on a small dirt track next to a railroad. Ann got all David Bailey, although the heat made it difficult to stand outside for too long. Also watched some more crop dusting going on.

A very corny photo

We hoped to see a train go past but we only saw two of these cheeky things.



I don't even know what it is

We carried on driving and then as we passed through a small town called Sheridan, we saw a little place called Brew Heaven Café. We decided to pull over and grab lunch as it had gone 1.30pm. Glad we did. It was shutting at 2pm, so there weren't many people in it. When we sat down, a guy sat eating, I think he was called Mickey Redneck, recommended the pork chops. He seemed slightly annoyed later that we had ignored his advice. We decided that it looked like a very trendy place in London, polished concrete floor, old style furniture, bare old walls. Probably would cost you £10 for a coffee if it was.

Shabby Chic

We ate, it was very nice and then later had a long chat with the people left in there about what we were doing. They tried to persuade us to go to the local museum whilst we were in town. We were terribly British and accepted the leaflet they gave us and said we'd check it out. Then, when we got in the car, we drove away.

We headed onward, watching the outside temperature gauge get higher and higher, eventually topping out at 102.

We reached our destination of Hot Springs around mid afternoon. We checked in, sat around for a bit (I watched Ashes highlights), before heading out.

We went to play our first mini golf of the holiday at the Pirate's Cove.

There were two 18 hole courses to choose from, so we picked the difficult one. It showed in our scores. It was a par 42 course.

Final scores were:

Roffe - 59
Knightley - 52

It was still burning hot, to the point that we were both sweating buckets by the time we finished. Luckily there was a gas station next door, so we ran into the shop to cool down when we had finished. Bought some drinks and then sat in the car finishing our cool off.

We then went for a drive around the area, crossing over Lake Hamilton before heading back into downtown Hot Springs. Thought you might like to know that Hot Springs was the boyhood home of Bill Clinton and the birthplace of Billy Bob Thornton. Maybe you didn't want to know that.

We stopped for dinner at the Dixie Café, http://dixiecafe.com/, where we were served by Misty and saw the funniest male hairstyle, before heading back to the hotel.

Bears seen - 0

Moose Watch - low

States Visited - 10