04-22-11 - Motel Blues

04-22-11
Come up to my motel room; save my life…
22.4 miles
I leave Spadra early and head towards the border and Ft. Smith wanting to stay out of the pathway of the ongoing severe storm warnings. As I near Ft. Smith I realize it is south of the 40 and I continue on to Van Buren which stays with Highway 40. I get off at the first intersection and head to McInternet to figure out what I’m going to do and where I’m going to stay for the night. I still have hopes that I’ll get a reply from CouchSurfing, but I’m not holding my breath.
The warnings have been that a severe system is going to be across the whole upper NW section of Arkansas. I’ve been thinking about staying at a motel if I can find a cheap enough place to stay.
After a few hours of checking campgrounds and motels, I find Motel 6 to be the best option for the night. I get in planning to write while I’m there but I am so road weary and mentally exhausted that I sleep through most of the night waking up now and then to see the latest on the weather channel. The front they had been forecasting has gone north from my location into St. Louis. What I feared might be hitting me hit them.
I feel like my night in the motel may have been wasted money, but at the time…who knew? And If it had hit where I was…
It did thunder and storm throughout the night and I was grateful to have gotten SOME sleep after the last few days, but I’d made the decision to leave Arkansas a day early as the weather patterens where stalling over the same locations for much of the coming week and I didn’t look forward to another week of the same horrid weather I’ve been facing since South Carolina.
Tomorrow I would leave my Arkansas woes behind and drive as far into Oklahoma Is I could to avoid the rain. I had been hoping to go thru Muskogee to Tulsa and camp in a town called Kellysville. But weather would predict my path more than any other factor. I had contemplated staying another night in the motel, but my remaining finances wouldn’t justify it. I’d been anticipating some financial support for some time that still had not come through so I just have to get as far as I can without it.
I succumb to sleep the final time around 1 am knowing it is my last night in Arkansas.
It’s a beautiful land…when it’s not raining. I hope to see it again someday under a better light.
And not a moment before!