Arkansas Civil War 150 / Gaze and Graze I

we took a picture at each stop we made, you'll know what I mean in a minute- this is Andrew's favorite or maybe mine!

I must take you on four rabbit trails before this story actually begins.  They aren't long ones but they are important....

-When Andrew was 6 years old I read him a book on December 7 about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  I saw a light go off in him that has been lit ever since.  His love of history was born that day.  It has been a wonderful adventure that I have had the privilege to be a part of!

-When Andrew was home last fall I showed him an article that I have saved from the Arkansas Democrat/ Gazette dated November 26, 2011.  It told about a program to promote Arkansas' Civil War history.  A passport was created to encourage visiting 23 stamping sites around our great state.

- In a call from Andrew in the spring of this year Andrew shared that he had a week of vacation that Taylor didn't have and he needed to take it or he would lose it.

-In another conversation with Andrew I told him that since he was turing 30 this year that he needed to pick a trip for us to go on to celebrate.

Our Civil War trip, aka Gaze and Graze- hat tip to JeffR for the name, was a product of all of these!  (Jeff said that name since we were gazing at lots of history and grazing around the state.)  Andrew ordered our Passports. Then he made a spread sheet, gathered all manner of information and planned our route.  We picked a week in October hoping the weather would be nice.  He also decided that we should eat as much local as we could not at chains.  He researched restaurants too.  I reserved the right of first refusal, not sure what that means but have always wanted to say that.  I used it once.  The place looked very sketchy.  Andrew went in to get our food and we ate it in the car.  More on that later!!!

Andrew flew in on a Friday and we hit the road.  We went to 23 stamping sites plus many other Civil War sites around Arkansas in 9 days.  If you choose to do this trip, which I highly recommend, check with each site about their hours and days of operation because that dictated the path of our trip.

Andrew and I both had our cameras and he had a tripod.  He wanted to get a picture of the two of us at each significate site.  We had a cooler full of water, our suitcases, two books on the Civil War so we could read up on a specific battle if we needed to, a gps- which you will need if you take this trip, a map- once the gps went crazy and sent us on a crazy route and the map got us back, our passports in a zip lock bag- we always knew where they were, they didn't get wet, and they stayed in good condition for the trip.  I also took 30 3x4 scrapbook papers so I could get a stamp on each one of them for my scrapbook. We also had a snack bag which we were thankful for when we stayed in some state and National parks. 

I tried to think of a poem to go along with our trip. 

 I just have the first two lines...

To celebrate 30 years of birthday fun

I took a Civil War trip with my first born son.

Andrew's day started very early, like 4:00 AM early.  I picked him up at the airport here in LR at 9:30 am and we were off!

Here is our guide for our first stop- The Plantation Agricultural Museum in Scott, AR.  She is stamping our passports for the first time.  We learned lots of things from our trip.  From her I learned that the Cotton Gin was so named because it was a term short for Cotton EnGINe.  The Cotton Gin takes the seeds out of the cotton. The cotton grown here in AR is Pima.

the inside of the museum

Here is Andrew ginning cotton

Our first picture!



Below is Charlotte's Eats and Sweets in Keo, AR.  Just down the road a piece from Scott.  Yum Yum.  When you go to Charlotte's and your waitress comes to your table  (my favorite one is Casey, you can ask for her, she takes good care of you) and asks for your drink order, you need to be ready with your dessert order too.

Here is the list of dessert for the day that Andrew and I were there.  I am not sure which cake they ran out of that is turned around but when that happens, a groan goes up in the room.  So get your dessert first.  I had pecan pie and Andrew had caramel.  We ate lunch there too.  I got the Keo Klassic and Andrew got a burger.  All so very good!!!

We drove to a Civil War site near Scott that was near the Arkansas river.  We saw a dozen scissortail flycatchers.  They are so much fun to see in flight. 

Tomorrow we will do a few more stops!