OD on OJ

My Arkansas visit left me with a nasty cold. So I picked up a jug of OJ on the way home from work and plan in drinking the whole thing by 8pm tonight-that is if I can even stay up that late. I am chilled to the bone with a fever.  

Today was my last day at work here in Winona and it was a very weird feeling turning off my computer and pushing in my chair for the last time.  I am going to miss my co-workers very much but can keep in touch with them always and definitely will.  I am very excited to move to a place where I know ABSOLUTELY no one and see myself grow in the amazing experiences I know are yet to come.  It fills me with so much joy that I have tears in my eyes whenever I think about it.  I feel so blessed. So so so blessed. I know I am on the right path, I can feel it stronger than ever, and I love that I have no clue as to where this path is really headed. Ok enough with the emotions-lets blame it on my cold medicine.

The things you can learn in 1800 miles...

Warning: Please grab a seat and a cup of coffee as I am predicting this is going to be a trophy winner for longest blog post.  

-Gas gets cheaper as you drive south. Cheapest was 3.27 in MO

-Baptist Churches get more elaborate as you drive south.  This was in Ozark, MO and I am not too sure what goes on in here.  This town also had the church with the biggest "wow factor" but I can't seem to find it online to show a picture. There is a pretty good one in Conway that I will show you later.

People must drive from all over to attend the Stained Glass Theatre shows because there is a trailer park right across the street.

-MO has many gorgeous houses that are atop hills like this.

 -UCA (University of Central AR) has a beautiful campus even on a misty day. Every building looks like the one in this picture.

-Southern version of Taco Bell = Taco Bueno.  Translated-Good Taco

-My Mom thought Brad Paisley's put a little "Mud on the Tires" was really put a little love on the fire.

-Southern version of Kwik Trip = QuikTrip

-Missouri and Iowa drivers don't understand that the left lane is for faster traffic

-If the person driving in front of you is from MN and you are in MO they really don't care as much as you do

-The Arkansas River is about 4 miles from my place.  This is the Toad Suck Lock and Damn. Barges are already navigating the river down here.  More pictures are due to come next week as the river valley is stunning down here and the sun wasn't out.

-They put coleslaw on their BBQ sandwiches down here and it is delicious.

 -Lake Conway is about 6 miles from my place in the opposite direction and has left me the most confused I have ever been.  The whole lake is filled with trees as you can see in these pictures. It is supposedly one of the top places in the US for bass fishing and I now see why. I am going to find out what the trees are about though-definitely not seen in the north.

This was taken at a secluded campsite right on the lake with a nice little private launch.  

MYSTERY SOLVED:

At 6,700-acres, Lake Conway is the largest man-made game and fish commission lake in the United States. Construction of the lake began in 1948, with its waters coming from the runoff of Stone Dam Creek, Gold Creek, Palarm Creek, Little Cypress Creek and Panther Creek. Its average depth is six feet, with a maximum depth of 18 feet. The lake is approximately eight miles long with 52 miles of shoreline.

Fishing: Known as an excellent fishing lake, Conway is stocked with bass, catfish, bream and crappie. Several free public launch areas are maintained by the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission; boat rentals are available at several commercial docks on the lake. Adams', Brannon's, Bream's Nest, Gold Creek, Highway, Lawrence, Martin's Northshore, Palarm Creek, Paradise, Pierce Creek and Sevier's are the landings with boat ramps.  Old creek channels that can be found on all sides of the lake are some of the best places to bass fish. Lake Conway is home to the Crappie Master’s State Tournament in the spring. 

http://www.arkansas.com/lakes-rivers/lake.aspx?id=4

-There is a diamond on the AR license plate because..

Arkansas designated diamond as the official state gem in 1967 (the same legislation, Act 128, recognizes quartz crystal as the state mineral and bauxite as the state rock). Arkansas is one of the few places in North America where diamonds are present and the only place where tourists may hunt for them.

http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Arkansas/gem_diamond.html

The fall season here is going to make me twiddle my fingers in excitement.  The hills go on forever!

-The MN accent is thick and noticable even if you think it isn't, and you can easily play this up by answering "YOU BETCHA" when someone asks if you are from the north.

-Be prepared to have your ears pop every 5 minutes when driving through northern AR from the crazy beautiful hills.

-AR people make MN nice seem like New York yuppy

-Visit El Parian if you would like to be waited on by 3 waiters who can carry 6 plates on their an arm at a time, serve margaritas with a full upside down corona bottle in the glass, RUN instead of walk, all while listening to live country music. This may not be a complete sentence but just go with it.

-The U of AR Razorbacks must be a bigger deal than I thought. This is where they play baseball.

-My Mom and I thought this is where they play their football games and we were impressed...

-Little did we know that this was just Fayetteville's High School stadium and further up the road was this...

-Mom, tell Mason that if he gets a scholarship here I will give him my scooter for a congratulatory gift, only if he lets me take my stereo to AR. (as he thought he gained ownership when he moved into my room) 

-You can make it through the entire state of Iowa in 3 hours. 

-P.S. Conway is only 770 miles away (12 hour drive), we did a lot of off-the-route traveling.

Designed to the Nines

These Pictures were found online... I did not walk around with my inside sales manager carrying my camera.  But my goodness, the entire grounds and building are absolutely gorgeous and new new new being that it just opened in 2009. Yes, that is a yoga studio :) About every 5th car in the parking lot is a Jeep as well as the rest of Conway-I love it.


Here are some more facts:


The building structure and exterior, designed by The Wilcox Group of Little Rock, also achieved LEED certification.

Hewlett-Packard today celebrated the opening of its new $28 million 150,000-SF services center in Meadows Office & Technology Park in Conway.
The building is designed to house the 1,000 people the tech firm plans to employ over the next four years. Arkansas Business got a tour of the offices after employees began moving into the LEED-certified facility in December.
Shannon Marnitz, the director of the central Arkansas site and consumer support, said HP carefully considered the design of the building, aiming for an atmosphere that enhances productivity:

Gensler of San Francisco designed the interior, per the directions of HP, to encourage employees to work wherever is comfortable, unless they're on the phone. The building has several lounge areas with "funky lighting," Marnitz said, to encourage a boundless work environment.
The building structure and exterior, designed by The Wilcox Group of Little Rock, also achieved LEED certification.
Many of the floors are a mixture of concrete and recycled glass, which acts as filler and a decoration. The trendy furniture is also made with some recycled material, Ambrose said.
The building is designed to keep its lighting from polluting the night sky. With no light traveling upward, the HP building cannot be blamed for the ambient light that masks starry skies, said April Ambrose, a project manager at Viridian, a green building consulting firm in Little Rock that worked with HP on the Conway project.

For a quick photo-tour of the building, click here to see a slideshow.

Petal to the metal

I am planning on beating Google maps and making it there in 10.75 hours of driving time.  Mom looks like you have the passenger seat the whole way-better for you to focus on being DJ.  I will report back later on my stats and if I found a place to call home. And maybe my first hillbilly encounter. 

I will take partly cloudy :)

Conway Weather

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Updated: Mar 18, 2011, 7:05pm CDT

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