The Great River Road
Stopping for fuel as we came off the Woodlands Trace we debtated, "Should we head east and see the Parthenon in Nashville?" It was very tempting, but I had this little voice in my head telling me to just get Rosie home! There was nothing specific; no noise or vibration or any other reason I could fathom. My Grandmother always taught us to trust our intuition, so we headed west, back toward Missouri and Arkansas.
We were going to spend the night in Caruthersville MO. First, the hotel clerk gave me a hard time about honouring our online reservation price, then she had to let us into the room because the key didn't fit. It was a disaster! Skye had gotten creeped out in the parking lot, looked at the room, and said, "Ma, I'm NOT staying here!" I managed to wrangle a refund and off we went. We spoke with a local police officer as we got gas on our way out of town, and he agreed, "You DON'T want to stay here." He also said the police department received twice as many calls in a year as there are residents. Yikes!!!
The first couple of turns still had markers, so we didn't worry about not having a map. Ha! In the woods we were, a turn, a turn there, and all guesswork! We had filled up in Marion, but Rosie only had a two gallon tank! I'd take note of the occassional house, just in case we had to walk for gas!
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Wondering if we were going to dead end in a hay field, or end up spinning in circles through the wood, we decided to follow the most recent tire tracks at the next fork in the road.
The gamble paid off with the road becoming paved again as we passed what seemed to be a ranger's house. It eventually deposited us at a gas station on the outskirts of West Helena. Settling into a reasonable room we followed the recommendation of the residents in the parking lot, and had a great meal at nearby El Canaveral Mexican Restaurant.
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