Home, Sweet Home 10/03/20

We got up early on Friday morning and headed for Arkansas. We traveled on I-40 through the Texas panhandle. We crossed back into Oklahoma and stopped for lunch at a roadside rest area about 40 miles west of Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City is a major city with a lot of traffic. As this is being written, they are in the middle of a major, major rebuilding of the Interstate highway going from west to east. They have funneled 6 lanes of traffic into one lane. We made this passage safely and continued on the road to Arkansas. When we crossed the state line, I felt almost home. We were back in the South and the SEC footprint. War Eagle.

We stopped overnight in Conway, AR. The city of Conway came into existence after the Civil War ended. Asa Robinson, the Chief Engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad, was given a 1 mile square tract of land as part of his compensation. He donated a portion back to the railroad and had a depot built for the railroad. He then laid out a town site around the depot and called it Conway Station. It was named after a prominent Arkansas family. In 1878 Father Joseph Strub, a Roman Catholic priest, arrived in Conway. He was from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. He formed a church and worked a deal with the railroad in which they agreed to sell land to German immigrants at 20 cents an acre. By 1889 over 100 German families relocated to Conway. Their heritage is still very evident today.

We decided it was time for some BBQ. We went to the Whole Hog Cafe. This restaurant had won several BBQ contests in Memphis. It started as a hobby and quickly became a world famous BBQ joint.

We left Conway this morning and began the last leg of our journey. After a lunch stop in Tupelo at MacAlister's Restaurant, we arrived back in Wetumpka around 4:30 PM in time to unpack the car, relax, and await the 6:30 PM kick off for the Auburn-Georgia football game. We should have kept driving.

5,331 miles. A great way to see the U.S.A

Until the next trip.....