There was an add for a place called The Country Store that just struck me as funny, so I stole it for the title of my post.

So, first impressions of Arkansas..well it’s very flat. I have definitely reached the Midwest with it’s sprawling farms and interesting accents. I will say that I chose poorly in me decision to go to a motel in North Little Rock and not directly in Little Rock. I feel like I’m in one of the poor suburbs of Boston, full of people who live in sleazy motels, women with over-sized t-shirts and no bras, and creepy men who wear holey shirts and grin creepily.

No one has bothered me though and I’ll be out of here in an hour or so. The front desk guy was very unfriendly and the ice machine was absolutely disgusting. Motel 6 has been upgrading the look of the rooms in their motels, but in this case, it’s like painting something broken but not fixing it. It doesn’t matter how pretty this room is to look at, the place in general is run down. And what’s the point of having a new flat-screen if the picture is all fuzzy? Anyhow..I just had an icky drive yesterday.

I got on the road just fine and drove for a number of hours before my pain in the as cat freaked enough to get out of his carrier the daft beast. His carrier zips together and he found the place where the two zippers met and got it open. So he was on my lap for like 20 min or so until i found a safe place to pull over. Coincidentally it was near a Sonic, so I got a small burger and small fry. Nothing two crazy. Then on to the road again. As I was nearing Memphis my gas was running low. Now I really should have stopped sooner but I wanted to get as far as Memphis before I stopped. Unfortunately there was a ton of traffic as I was getting on the highway towards Little Rock. I finally got desperate and asked my gps to find me a place.

It took me so far out of the way that I was at this gas station run by a Chinese lady and filled with a lot of creepy people. Like this skinny old black guy who stared at me as I struggled with the gas pump, not realizing that it was of the old kinds where you have to lift the lever to get the gas going. I was so tired and nearly frustrated to tears by the time I got the ten dollars of gas into my car. I just needed enough gas to give me time to get to a better gas station.

To top it of I completely forgot to notify my bank that I’d be traveling. So I had to call to set that to rights. I was on the phone with the Bank of America guy when I crossed the state line into Arkansas and told him so. Silly me..

I finally pulled into