Arkansas in April, Part I

Note:  I know I’m a little late in these recaps, but it is hard to write about how much fun we had when I know it won’t happen again for a while. :(  Anyway on to my Arkansas Adventure…

When we were planning for this trip, we were a little hesitant about me taking my car.  My baby is quite old (she’ll be 10 in August next year!), and I’m sure she would be fine, but because the trip is 6 1/2 hours on back roads, I’m by myself, and there are a few places that I don’t have cell phone signal, we all decided my best bet was to get a rental car at least for this first trip.  Anyway, Alex was a sweetie and offered to get me one :)

So, I reserved the car from 10 am on Friday until 2 pm on Monday.  Because I was so anxious to pick up the car so I could pack it up and get on the road, my brother dropped me off at Enterprise around 9:30ish.  Good thing, because it was 10:30 before I got out of there!  Next time, I will not bother filling out the extra information on the website to “speed up the process” because they didn’t use any of that information.  After they took every bit of information (including calling my insurance company back home and then having to get permission from BOTH of my parents because I’m on their account), I finally got my blue ride for the weekend, a Kia Spectra.  Not going to lie, I was hoping for the Pontiac G6 they had as their example car on their website, but no such luck :(

My weekend ride parked next to my baby (and baby bro’s truck)…so sad to leave her for the weekend!

Anyway, I finally got on the road around 12:15 after a stops at Best Buy (for an auxiliary cord to play my iPod), the gas station, and McDonald’s (I had forgotten to eat anything – yikes!).  I had my trusty GPS going and it started me out the way Alex had told me.  Then, I realized that it didn’t have me turn where he had told me.  So, I panicked…and called him at work.  He and his coworkers saw that although I was going a different way, it should get me there so I calmed down and enjoyed the ride. 

All was going well until I get about 3 hours into my journey.  I look down and my GPS’s battery level was flashing at me.  No problem…I grabbed the car charger for it, plugged it in the cigarette lighter and kept driving.  A little while later, I looked at the GPS and the screen was off…I tried to turn it back on and nothing.  I then realized that it wasn’t charging.  I thought maybe it was just that particular charger so I tried my cell phone charger…no luck there either.  I looked at my MapQuest directions that I had printed out, but because my GPS sent me another way, they were no luck.  Thankfully, I have a Navigator on my phone so I just plugged in Alex’s address and went on my way.  About an hour or so later, I get a phone call from a friend and I notice that there is only 2 bars left on my battery indicator (thanks to having to run the GPS)  Since the cigarette lighter wasn’t working, I knew I couldn’t charge it with the car charger.  I was praying that the battery would make it, but I was afraid it wouldn’t so I was planning my next move.  About that time, I remembered that I had an emergency, battery-operated charger in my purse so I was a bit relieved.

I get another hour into my journey…by this point, my iPod has died, my GPS has died, and my phone is on its last bar and the batteries in the emergency charger had died on me as well.  I was just getting ready to find a gas station to buy some more batteries when the bottom falls out.  I’m talking I can’t see the car in front of me.  I hate driving in the rain and being in an unfamiliar car in and unfamiliar area just made it a million times worse.  White-knuckling the steering wheel, driving about 40 in a 60 mile an hour zone, following the yellow line and of course crying and praying, I finally made it through it.  There were a few times I seriously considered pulling off and telling Alex to come get me, but since that would be a while I decided to tough it out and keep going.

Anyway, after the monsoon, I was on a mission to find a gas station so that I could at least have a working phone.  After 3 attempts, I finally found one that actually had batteries and then hopped back on the road.  After a fairly uneventful last hour of the trip, I finally made it to the entrance to Alex’s apartment.  I have not seen him in about a month, so I barely recognized him waiting at the gate for me.  I excitedly waved at him as I was waiting to turn in, but I forgot I wasn’t in my car so I’m sure he was wondering who the crazy chick in the blue Kia was ;)

I got a couple of huge hugs before he helped me unload the car and take everything up to his apartment.  Then I got a few more hugs and kisses, and then it was time to get ready to go out to eat with some of his coworkers.  I was so excited to get all dressed up and of course spend some quality time with Alex!

   Some pre-dinner self-portraits with my hunny…he even wore baby blue to match my dress

After we finished taking pictures, we headed to dinner (early I might add ;)) at this place…

Cajun’s Wharf in Little Rock….amazing food, atmosphere, everything!  We had some wonderful food and even better company!  It was so great to meet some of Alex’s coworkers :)

Us at dinner

The whole crew

After dinner, we headed upstairs to the bar/deck and enjoyed the nice breeze overlooking the Arkansas river…it was amazing!  Then, Alex took me on a short and sweet tour and then we headed back to his apartment to relax because we were both BEYOND exhausted!

To be continued…..