Art House Co-op

Tour Diary Day 2!

Tour crew reporting from Little Rock, Arkansas!

The 10,000 sketchbooks covered some serious ground today. Beginning in the misty mountains of southwestern Virginia and rocketing straight through Tennessee, our caravan is now roosting for the night in Little Rock.

We left the Alpine Motel bright and early and found ourselves winding down a country lane on the hunt for that holy grail of the morning - hot coffee. One wrong turn later and we found ourselves on a lush mountain road, severely under-caffeinated yet awed by the grandeur of the Great Smokey Mountains. After righting our course we stumbled upon four steaming mugs of fresh roasted fair trade mud in the unlikely locale of Damascus, VA (pop. 981). Rejuvenated, we hit the Interstate and made for the Tennessee state line.

After negotiating yet another sudden downpour, we were cheered at the sight of the Dollywood theme park peeking over the treetops. With a few hundred miles ahead of us, we had to pass on the Dolly Parton-themed roller coasters - but threw “Jolene” on the stereo as we cruised on into Central Time.

The sun finally peeked through the clouds as we approached Knoxville, TN and caught sight of the gold-plated Sunsphere, a bizarre relic of the 1982 World’s Fair. Shielding our eyes from the garish glare, we put Knoxville behind us and hit I-40 West, destination Nashville.

We’d worked up a serious appetite by the time we hit Music City - and its bounty of foods that are neither dehydrated nor deep fried. Itching for a vegetable, Eli tracked down a laid-back café with a killer curried lentil soup and a sandwich that both Eliza and her pet rabbit could love.

After reveling in vitamins for a few blissful minutes, we backtracked to I-40 and roared on to Memphis. The skies cleared as we passed through western Tennessee, revealing a landscape rapidly transforming into springtime. We pulled over at a rest stop in the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge, along the shores of the state’s eponymous river, and found ourselves surrounded by the first green shoots of the season and a throng of buds on the trees. With word coming through on the radio of snow in the Appalachians, we felt lucky to be heading south and west.

The queens of country music continued to make their presence known, as we wound our way through a valley almost entirely devoted to the great Loretta Lynn. Alongside Ms. Lynn’s family ranch at Hurricane Mills, we caught sight of Loretta Lynn museums, truck stops, gift shops, petting zoos, fried chicken dispensaries and trailer parks. Not to be outdone, an entire public bathroom was dedicated to Patsy Cline. 

After a quick stop to refuel, we crossed the mighty Mississippi at Memphis and rode down through the Arkansas Delta to crash in Little Rock for the night. Can’t wait to meet up with the rest of the Art House crew in Austin tomorrow!

Till Texas,

Eli, Eliza, Ingrid and Naomi

Tour Crew 2011