WHUT'S FER DINNER

Chris and I haven’t been on a vacation together alone in almost three years. We decided that this year we would actually go be tourists somewhere for our anniversary. We had been talking about going to William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, ever since it opened. So, Friday morning, we dropped Hooper off at a doggy hotel and headed out to Arkansas (otherwise known as Hillbilly Land). We stayed in Benton, which is halfway between Little Rock and Hot Springs. On our first evening there, we decided to eat locally because we were a little tired from the drive. I picked out this great place to eat…if you're 80-years-old. It was advertised as an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. Chris and I were the youngest couple there, and every couple younger than us had the standard 3.5 kids. The restaurant's “seafoodâ€? consisted mainly of fried catfish, fried shrimp, and fried clams. Aside from a few vegetables and the banana pudding, pretty much everything else was fried, too. It was a bad idea. Chris and I have taken a vow against buffets (unless it’s the Indian place) and we just weren’t up to the challenge of piling our plates a foot high with nine kinds of food, all of which was the same golden brown color.

Late that night, I started getting a soar throat and around 1:00 AM, I made Chris take me to Walgreens for some drugs. Of course, I bought the wrong stuff. So the next day at the Clinton Library, I walked around in a Clariton coma. Chris kept having to say “Hold on. I need to take another picture because you look asleep in that oneâ€?. Despite the cold haze, I think I did really well. The Clinton Library is really great. It’s totally worth a trip to Little Rock. The self-guided tour starts off with a fifteen minute film of Clinton’s life and presidency, which was interesting and a little bit depressing because you realize how much the current administration has erroded the good things that the United States stood for. Even the old man sitting next to me shed a few tears over what’s become of this country. I miss Bill.

We had a great time. We did more then just see the Clinton Museum, but there’s too much to share in one entry. I will leave you with this conversation I overheard in Museum:

Hillbilly1: “Whut’s fer dinner?â€? Hillbilly2: “CC’s." Hillbilly1: "Whut's that?" Hillbilly2: “It's a pizza buffet. All you can eat.â€? Hillbilly1: “Oooooh, that's gonna be gooood.â€?

Side note: We were within walking distance of the River Market district that consisted of all sorts of really great eating establishments.