More New Friends

    Texarcana was a still a little wet when I woke up in the morning, having camped out in a grassy area between 3 parking lots. I reluctantly rolled up my wet tent and set out to get to Hot Springs. I walked about a mile to an intersection that I knew at first glance was going to be rough, but it was much farther to any other intersections. After a few hours I decided to try the bus, taking the advice of a local to where I could get a ride. He was wrong, and I again ended up in a spot where no ride was forthcoming. One more 3 mile walk and some misunderstanding of how new roads had affected the landscape, I found myself standing on the side of a highway with cars going 70 mph only an hour or so before dark. It was one of those times I really needed to be lucky, and turns out I was. Larry Butler pulled over and offered me a ride to a small town about an hour down the road, although he promised me there was a large truck stop there, something I know to negate the negative effects of small towns. Larry dropped me off as the sun was setting and I thought, "heck, maybe I can get one more ride".

Why does every cool sunset picture I take have a truck stop sign in it?

    Tom picked me up just a few minutes after I arrived, and my luck held, because he was going straight to Hot Springs. We chatted along the way and he offered to let me sleep at his boat club docks, and buy me breakfast in the morning before taking me around town. I gladly accepted. That night at the boat club I met a few guys who were there fishing, and we chatted a bit, but I was pretty tired so I had to hit the hey. I woke up to an active thunderstorm that was testing my tents water restiveness. Then Tom came buy to get me, forcing me to pack up my tent in the rain, making sure it, me and most of my bag were thoroughly soaked. Me and Tom had some "hot cakes" at McDonalds and he took me around town in the rain to show me the bath houses, the mountain lookouts, and so on and so forth. I asked him to drop me off at the bath house that had the cheapest bath, and we parted ways.

Beautiful foggy Hot Springs Arkansas

I feel like I had died and gone to "not cold anymore" heaven

    The bath house was nice, but pretty quiet so early in the morning. I started talking to the only other attendee who was around my age, and found out he was also a traveler. His name is Jerry, and he was staying up in the hills around the town. We decided to grab some lunch together, we then went to check up on his torioses that were traveling with him, and then decided to go get our $10 free play at the local Casino. I turned mine into $45 and Jerry decided to just hold on to his free 10 bucks. It was still to early to crash for the night, so we decided we might as well go see Enders Game (DON'T SEE IT, IT IS BAD)

Jerry  actin a fool at the bath house

    We went back to Jerrys campsite, ate a light dinner and then passed out. This morning we got up pretty slowly, and walked down to the road to find some internet and some lunch before I try to make my way to Memphis. We got some dried fruits and such at an old country market, and now sit here at McDonalds. My goal for the night is to get to Memphis, but I see that as pretty optimistic, hopefully I will at least get to Little Rock.

Our quiet secluded campsite in the hills.

Random Road Thoughts
    A lot of people who were also on the road have made some pretty broad statements about how "traveling is the land of opportunity". I always regarded such statements as pretty much meaningless, or non measurable, just fancy things that people say to sound wise. But I do notice myself doing a lot of stuff spontaneously, which I now realize is because of my lack of planning. Someone asks, "want to go to a casino?", "I'm not doing anything, why not?". I found that all the new avenues I am taking are available because I really hadn't thought of what else I planned on doing for the day. Maybe I should make more efforts to keep my plans even more open.