A Birthday Dinner at DeVito's of Eureka Springs.

Spending time in Eureka Springs? Wonderful. And being able to share a birthday dinner there with my husband? Outstanding. Add in that the place where we dined was the famed DeVito's of Eureka Springs - and hey, we have a fantastic experience to remember always.

Pacing the bridge.

Back in my TV days, there was rarely a notice of any sort of week gone by where we didn’t hear something along the lines of “yep, barge hit the Highway 82 bridge at Greenville again.” Usually this was followed by the line “and the barge sank.” Sometimes we heard “the bridge has been temporarily closed for inspection.” And it would close, but never for long.

The Greenville crossing’s very important to commercial travel. It’s a quicker route across the river for travelers and trucks heading down Highway 65 from Little Rock into points south and east (especially to Jackson or New Orleans).

But damn that bridge has been scary. I’ve had my share of times going over it, sometimes during the day but usually in the late evening or at night. The idea of being far above the Mississippi for that long is scary enough -- but when it’s dark and you’re meeting an 18-wheeler going the other way, you count your blessings on your fingers and toes and grip the steering wheel, praying for a quick end to the madness. The end always came, of course, after crossing the long approach on the other side.

Only once did I have to start backing up on that bridge, and thank heavens it was full daylight. Must have been spring of 2006. I was heading south with the hubster, and we were up the Lake Village approach already and about to get honestly out over the river. That’s when we saw a flash. The car in front of us stopped, right there, and those reverse lights came on. We managed to get stopped before he could reach us, and he started blowing his horn. The flash went right past us -- a pickup with a WIDE LOAD sign on it. I looked in the rearview, saw no one coming, and eased the Durango I was driving into reverse.

There it was, coming around the bend in the approach, a foolhardy truck driver hauling half a mobile home. What the hell? The guy in front of me was honking, and I had to go back. There was no choice.

My husband was cussing a blue streak. He turned around and attempted to guide me back right. I was doing okay with my rear view and side mirrors for some time, but once we hit the approach I turned the wheel and got us perpendicular to the road. The little car that had been in front of us sped by in reverse continuing down the ramp. I remember making the rest of that three point turn with inches to spare, then hearing the horn of the oncoming truck, as if we’d been in the wrong for attempting the crossing.

After that, we headed back down into Lake Village and found the Pizza Hut and sat there quivering over iced tea and pasta for a little while before heading south on Highway 65 instead.

There’s no doubt a new bridge was needed -- the old one had a width of just 24 feet, no shoulders, nowhere to go if anything crazy happened. Just two lanes of traffic -- one in each direction -- carrying a national highway over one of the fattest stretches of the Mississippi River. Nothing else between Natchez and Helena. I was thrilled when I heard about a new bridge being built, and over the past few years passing through I watched as bits of it got built here and there. In fact, the last time I made the crossing was in March of 2008 on my way back from New Orleans. At that point you could tell there was a bridge deck and most of the overhead cable work had already been done.

I’ve tended to just head south on 65 to Tallulah my few trips that way since then, opting to catch stories at Transylvania and Lake Providence and such and head through Vicksburg on my way through to Jackson rather than the Greenville-Indianola route. But word that the new bridge had just opened drew me that way this past weekend, and it’s part of the reason Grav and I made the journey south when we did. We both knew it might be our last chance to see the old bridge while it was still standing. And we’re both curious people.

So on that hot Friday afternoon, with me full of tamales and Grav looking for a bite, we set off for Greenville. We had ulterior motives -- I recalled a root beer joint across the way and it sounded like a good place to pop in and let him fill his tank while I enjoyed a frosted mug.

The approach was quite different -- rather than the long standing S curve that headed to the more northerly approach of the old bridge, the roadbed rolled smoothly straight ahead to the elevated section that started climbing at The Cowpen. The big white stretch lay ahead of us, startlingly bright in the mid-afternoon sun, the cables overhead forming shadows that didn’t quite darken any bit of the way. It was a smooth ride, lofty and high.

The disappointment for us was this tall barrier in the center of the road, which wouldn’t allow for us in a car to be able to see over it. This wasn’t going to do.

We spent a short time in Greenville, completely missing the root beer stand and tolerating a less than excellent Chinese buffet before heading back, spotting said root beer stand (which had no sign) and briefly stopping to shoot an old overgrown junior high football field. Then it was back on the road and down to the river.

Being on the Mississippi side, though, we were hoping to get some sort of final view of the old bridge. We took the “exit” next to the casino and drove the old road out as far as we could go before arriving at series of “Road Closed signs.” The first was set just on the left side of the road, so we approached further. We actually made it up to the gate at the westbound approach before we stopped.

There was a small black car that had followed us up to the point. The “Road Closed” sign was once again on the left hand side and the gate was open. We deliberated driving on, but knowing the bridge was set for dismantlement shuddered at the thought of discovering holes where the roadbed had been taken out. We thought about parking and walking it on foot; but the knowledge that the full bridge was over ten thousand feet from end to end and that the temperature had already surpassed 100 degrees cut that out. In the end, we made a three point turn and briefly stopped a distance away to see what the other driver was going to do.

We watched as he paused at the gate, nosing through a bit. And then he too turned around to head out.

Well, that was that. No one was going to be crazy enough to get back up on the old bridge. And probably for good reason. I mean, the old bridge had just been closed a few days (this being August 6th, and the new bridge having opened on the 4th) and it might have been okay, but there was just a little too much danger for our nerves there.

We headed back to the highway and turned right to head back into Arkansas on the new bridge. We’d made it almost to the point of the first cable stays when Grav asked me to stop. I threw on the hazards, rolled onto the nicely wide shoulder and he still had room to open his door fully. He got out, made a few motions indicating he would be a moment, and started to shoot.

The old bridge is still sitting there, dark against the horizon to the north, overshadowed in spirit and soon to be nothing but a ghost. Rather than imploding the bridge, it’s going to be disassembled bit by bit. This one last romantic glance back was an afternoon’s lazy goodbye.

Once on the other side, we did look for easy access to the riverside so we could take a few more shots, but after a while we gave up.

The next day we went out to Lakeport Plantation and spent four hours learning all about the restored 1859 home, the only remaining Antebellum home still standing along the Mississippi River in Arkansas and the northernmost of the surviving river plantation homes. It’s being restored by Arkansas State University and a crack team of researchers, restoration experts and archaeologists (be sure to read more here at Tie Dye Travels).

While we were there, we were told about Mount Holly, a deserted plantation not too far south of Greenville between the river and Highway 1, and we decided the afternoon wouldn’t be complete without a visit (this killed our opportunity to visit the Crossland Zoo in Crossett, but that’ll be something for another time).

We were headed out from the plantation when Grav asked me to stop. He caught the bridge towering over the plantation in this magical shot. Hard to imagine that it’s more than half a mile away.

And then we were off the county roads and onto 82 and crossing again. And it was such a pretty day, that once more we stopped on the bridge. This time, Grav was looking to shoot the new kid in town. He made me nervous playing in traffic, running across to the median to capture shots there of the magnificent cables above.

This bridge is something else. It’s the longest cable-stayed bridge span along the Mississippi and the fourth longest in North America. There’s all sorts of great details about it on the great website for the bridge. I encourage you to check it out.

And then we were done, and Grav got back in the car for our trip to find Mount Holly Plantation. Which we did. It was about three when we crossed the bridge the final time on the trip, headed for our next stop of interest in El Dorado. The new bridge gleamed brightly, and I looked out one more time to see the dark spectre that for the slightest time remains the old bridge. It’s been here since 1940. It won’t be here next time I come through.

Note: The photos of the bridge at the beginning of the piece were taken by my friend David Backlin, who has been hunting bridges and tracking down old highways for years. Check out more of his fabulous shots of the old and new Greenville bridges at his website, The Road Less Taken.

You can learn more about the history of the old Greenville bridge and the construction of the new one at this MDOT website.

And to really appreciate Grav's magnificent panorama shot of the old Greenville bridge with the barge below, please click here. It deserves to be seen in better scale.

Cheap eats by the lake: JJ's Cafe in Lake Village.

Saturday morning before heading over to Lakeport Plantation, Grav and I headed to JJ’s Lakeside Café for breakfast. The smart little restaurant sits on the east side of US 65/82 on the south side of Lake Village over by the Visitors Center.

Restoring an Antebellum Wonder.

I’ve heard a good deal about the restoration at Lakeport Plantation over time. Have you? Maybe not. I tend to seek out these sort of things, though, so I can share them with you.

I do recall the place being gifted to Arkansas State University back in 2001 by the Sam Epstein Angel family, and that there was a whole lot of work to be done. Turns out, years of work. I mentally made myself a note that someday I’d go see what the hubbub was about and determine for myself if it was as worthy as so many other of the magnificent homes I’ve visited these past few years.

I went on a Saturday morning with my photographer Grav Weldon to chronicle our visit. We did have to wait a bit -- the approach from US 82 is a paved country road, and farm crews were harvesting corn with machinery and loading said corn into bin wagons on the roadway. It wasn’t an especially long stop, though, and it didn’t take much searching to find the signs leading us to the plantation.

The snappy yellow house with its white trim, blue shutters and green ironwork can be seen peeking up over the fields of cotton around it. If you approach on a clear day you can also see the new US 82 bridge rising at angles in the deeper blue sky to the north. The scene is something very old and something very new, 150 years of separation between them.

Across the small parking lot from the plantation house lies a manufactured building, inside which are housed the staff and many of the items explaining the restoration. We met with two ladies, Sarah and Claudine, who were the only people we saw on staff there that day. They both immediately started giving us information about the house and its history, obviously very passionate about the story they have to share. I like that.

We learned a lot of things about the house. While it originates from 1859, the land it’s on has operated as a plantation since the 1831. It’s passed through a few hands but not all that many, starting with the Johnson family. The patriarch, Joel, left behind a wife and five children in Kentucky to forge his own path in the wilds of Arkansas. When he died in 1846, his son Lycurgus became the estate’s administrator, but it took more than ten years to settle everything out. In the end, the property went to Lycurgus and his wife Lydia and it’s believed that’s when Lakeport Plantation saw its first construction.

The plantation went to Lydia when Lycurgus died in 1876, and was administered under her son Theodore and son-in-law Isaac Washington until just before 1900, when it fell to the youngest surviving son, Victor Johnson. Doctor Johnson kept the plantation working and moving for many years until he uprooted the family and moved to Greenville, MS in 1927. At that point, the property went to the Epsteins, who held onto it until its donation.

There’s a whole lot of history there, and it’s so much better shared by Tom DeBlack from Arkansas Tech University (my alma mater), who probably knows more about that plantation than I know about food. I will defer to his greater knowledge, which is so kindly shared both on the Lakeport Plantation website and in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, a resource with much merit that I encourage you to plunder for its repository of grand information.

But I digress.

Sarah took diligent time in making sure we knew about the efforts to restore Lakeport Plantation to its original grandeur. Unlike so many of the other restored Antebellum and Civil War-era homes I have seen over time, this facility is not packed with reproductions and “what ifs” and items unbefitting a museum-quality structure. She shared with us the painstaking diligence that went into each section of the restoration -- which explains why it took more than five years before the facility was opened to the public. It’s not done yet, by the way. There are so many little projects to complete in the home itself, and a series of buildings that will be constructed for classroom purposes as well.

Anyway… we saw many things, including actual nails from the site, a cross-section of roofing shingles and copper gutters that adorn the house, a replica cast iron piece that was mocked-up to go on the house but which weren’t needed because original era cast iron was discovered. I took particular interest in the 14-color process canvas floor coverings being restored by Becky Witsell. They’re currently housed separately. It’s amazing to see just how vibrant they are today. The floor cloths have taken generations of foot traffic yet somehow Witsell’s been able to bring them back and make them ever more vibrant than they already were.

Sarah also pointed out the magnificent ceiling medallions. At the welcome center there are photos of one of the medallions showing its previous condition, painted a funky gold. On entering the plantation house itself, it was one of the first things I noticed, perfectly restored above us.

The house itself is something to see. The front pathway has been restored with hand-cast bricks, but along the sides you can still see the original brickwork, worn but still marking the way. Up the somewhat steep steps to the porch, and the giant door looms. It’s a painted door, by the way, as are the many mantles inside the house, painted with that particular artistry common then (and now, it seems, looking at DIY programs) of faux finishes resembling wood on the doors and marble on some of the mantlepieces.

The front hall itself surprised me. Having been in many older homes like this, I was expecting a greeting stairwell in a hallway that would open up to rooms on either side. The hall at Lakeport Plantation is wide, as if to invite one in to sit inside. Parlors open up to each side, each with its own fireplace and windows looking out onto the cotton fields. There’s very little in these rooms or the hall; the folks who restored the plantation made what I considered to be a very wise decision, to restore back the plantation to its original era and not to clutter it with anything that wouldn’t have been found in 1859.

One thing that is in the house is an antique and unusual square grand piano in its music room. Built in 1869 by the J. A. Gray Company, it spent 60 years housed in the old Epstein Cotton Gin before being dug out and sent to Bradshaw Piano Service in Conway for restoration. In fact, the piano hasn’t been back long; it was returned to the home June 14th of this year. Though it was pretty much forgotten all those years, the keys survived intact -- in fact, just one of the wooden keys needed a new ivory veneer.

We explored the first floor rooms, including a men’s room that was likely a family parlor for less social settings. Past the rooms connected to the front of the hallway, the doors are shorter and have windows overhead that ratchet out for air flow even when the windows are closed.

We ventured upstairs. Here the rooms weren’t painted. The trim is pink in two of the bedrooms including the master. There’s a small nursery from which you can see a small crypt out the window to the gardens. The crypt itself was restored a few years back as part of the project.

The master bedroom was one of the few rooms that actually contained furniture -- a small vanity with towel rack, a fold out desk/dresser and a magnificent four poster bed that actually had springs in it instead of the rope suspension often seen in its era. I really liked that it wasn’t covered with mattress and linens; I could see the bones of the room, of the house, and could really feel what it was all about.

There’s even one room upstairs that’s still down to its original plaster, imagine that. The creases and such from the plastering process 150 years ago is still there and visible to this day.

We went back downstairs and checked out a few more rooms, including the old store. In this shelf-lined room you can read pencil-scrawled inscriptions that tell you where each item was kept and oftentimes how much it cost. There are a selection of bottles contemporary to the property on display, but for the most part it is bare. There’s one section where rice was kept where you can see what inflation does, with penciled-in prices starting at a nickel and working up from there.

The next room back was the coldest -- the former kitchen, a rarity being attached to the main house as it were. There’s still an old weathered butcher block in the center of the room, and an old pre-manufactured iron stove that’s… well, you just need to go there to get the story. I found it neat and impressive.

Out the back where the kitchen wing lies is a gigantic cistern. Years ago this was used for storing rainwater captured in gutters and piped down from the top of the house. It was very large and very deep. It’s not in use now, though, been filled in with sand. Back in the day this would have been the primary water source (far less contaminated with debris and the like than water from the Big Muddy nearby).

We went through the kitchen and out the back to a small porch. There’s an old dairy that is next on the “let’s explore and discover!” list that is still mostly untouched, and to the right of it what’s called The Smokehouse. That’s a magnificent idea. On the place where the original smokehouse stood another building has been erected, but instead of wood and meat there’s electrical and cooling equipment inside. This, to me, is genius. Rather than cut holes in the house and put in a modern (and obtrusive) climate control system, the system was constructed outside in this building and lines were run underground into the house. The vents run up into the attic and down the many fireplaces into each room, keeping the whole house appropriately chilled or heated and cutting the humidity. Genius!

We entered another room off the back porch. This room is believed to have been Dr. Victor Johnson’s office. It’s sparse but decorated with a bench found in the dairy recently. The plasterwork has been repaired and painted throughout except for one small section intentionally left original under the window. It is without a doubt the coldest room in the house.

The tour of the house all but complete, Sarah took us out to look at the exterior. Grav was taking photos of the ironwork on the porches when she mentioned to me about the bees. Yes, bees. This immediately put Grav on defense -- he hates bees -- but my curiosity was piqued.

Sarah showed us the tree where the bees had been making their home for generations (human generations, at that), a bowed out old cedar to the northeast of the house. There they were, hundreds of bees quietly humming in the afternoon heat. They didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them.

We knew it was time to go, and were kind of surprised when we found we’d been at the plantation for nearly four hours. Besides, Grav and I had been given an idea whilst we were there, and we wanted to go check it out.

After making our salutations, we headed back over the Greenville bridge and connected in with Highway 1, headed for Old Washington. Sarah had sketched us out a rough map of where we were supposed to go, but I believe we accidentally left it behind because I could not for the life of me find it in my bag.

We’d progressed quite a place, egging each other on to go a little further, the whole “we’ve come this far, why stop now?” argument slowly losing traction. We knew we were in Washington County but there was no indication that we were anywhere near where we needed to be. Finally, our frustration convinced us to pull into a small RV park with a sign advertising “Bait and Thangs.” We weren’t sure what “thangs” were going to be in there (but later found out “thangs” are beverages and Little Debbie snack cakes) but it was a place to turn around.

There was just something, though -- the cypress, maybe, an old bridge… we pulled on through and turned left and drove along the river. And there, not a quarter mile past the RV park, was an old quiet red brick lady staring out cock-eyed over Lake Washington, an old ox-bow off the Mississippi. She’d seen a lot of wear. This, my friends, was Mount Holly Plantation.

We know some about her -- that she was built around 1855, contemporary to Lakeport Plantation, and that she was probably built for Margaret Johnson Erwin, who was Lycurgus Johnson's first cousin. We know that a gentleman bought the property years ago with plans to turn it into a B&B. But what we saw was sad and shocking. Though the exterior brick was mostly fine, many of the windows are missing, the structure is corroded and covered with webs and flora, and it stinks. I mean, it really stinks. We walked by some places where the windows were broken (and one where a door was standing wide open) and could smell the filth. Our guess -- teenagers who’d found some place interesting to hang. A shame.

Grav and I want to find out more about Mount Holly. I think everyone really does. The floor plan seems similar to Lakeport Plantation and out back towards Highway 1 there’s a grand alley of old oaks still standing. It’d be nice to see this plantation taken on as a project like Lakeport and hopefully restored to its beauty.

You can find Lakeport Plantation south of Highway 82. Turn south when you see the sign for The Cowpen and take State Highway 142 two miles south. You’ll see the sign that points to the gravel road on the left; more likely, you’ll see the yellow house from the road and follow your common sense. Check out the website. There are tours Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and also Saturdays through the first week of September. Admission is five dollars. It’s a deal. (870) 265-6031.

More interesting Lake Village area stops:
Breakfast: JJ’s Lakeside Café. If you like a good veggie omelet, give the Bean Boy Omelet a try. Watch out for the jalapenos -- they’re almost as hot as the boiling-hot coffee.
Lunch: Rhoda’s Famous Hot Tamales. Get three, six, or twelve -- heck, take a coffee can full home with you for later. Smooth, meaty, slightly spicy tamales made from beef and chicken and a lot of chicken fat. Won’t do any favors for your waist, but you’re not in Lake Village to diet.
Dinner: The Cowpen. The steaks are highly touted, but we found the best deal on the menu to be the Chip & Dip - large portions of Rotel cheese dip, grilled-onion flavored bean dip and cumin-laced salsa served up with freshly deep fried tortilla chips for just $6.95 and more than you could make a meal on.

And of course, check out the new US 82 Highway Bridge.

* Watch Kat's segment about this article from her August 12th appearance on KARK Today at Noon by following this link. *

Rohwer in the soybeans.

I have to admit it, I’m a Star Trek fan. Yeah, mea culpa. I came to Star Trek late in life, at the age of 13 thanks to my friend Kriste Parsons. It just wasn’t watched in my family. It is now.

My first Star Trek exposure was actually the fourth movie, and my first episode was "I, Mudd." Over the years I filled in the gaps and caught up with the other Star Trek serials. And I read a lot, not just fiction based on the series but the biographies and autobiographies of the actors. Yes, even Shatner’s.

The one I really took to heart was that of George Takei. I always found him somewhat attractive and a rather friendly character. I even got to meet him when he came to Little Rock for a convention back in 1990. Yeah, I was a geek, and I’m dating myself severely. Well, at least there are no photos.

His life story’s not what you’d get with the average actor, and he’s been acting a lot longer than you might think (if you’re not a fan). He was born in 1937 and was living an average boy’s life in Los Angeles when World War II started. Takei, his parents and younger brother and sister were relocated in 1942 to the Rohwer Relocation Center in southeast Arkansas, like many other Americans of Japanese decent who lived on the West Coast. They spent eight months there before being transferred to the maximum security camp at Tule Lake, California. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas covers quite a lot about Takei and his time there -- I highly encourage you to read more about it.

Before reading Takei’s book, I had no idea there were relocation camps in Arkansas. I’d been through our public schools here and even through college before I learned this poignant fact. To me, it’s a big deal, and not just because an actor I like was on Arkansas soil. It was as if the relocation camps (Rohwer and a similar unit at Jerome) had been intentionally left out of history.

Back in 2004, I was working at Today’s THV when we did a story on Takei’s return for a special event, “Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas.” I didn’t get to see him then, but it renewed my interest in finding out more about the camp. Unfortunately, I didn’t do a whole hell of a lot about it. That is, until one hot August Friday, when I rolled down that way with photographer Grav Weldon to see what it was all about.

I had been disappointed by the lack of information on the Internet. Some reports claimed that it was still a camp and that some of the buildings were still in use. Others… well, honestly, there just wasn’t that much out there. I did eventually find directions to the place, and after a stop in Dumas for breakfast and a misguided trip into a cotton field to find Old Napoleon, we arrived.

There’s just a sign on the highway, a brown sign that says the national monument is this way. It’s a gravel road, and you go over railroad tracks and suddenly you’re in a soybean field. There’s no other notice of where you’re at or what you’re doing. The first thought I had was “um, did we take the right road?”

But there in front of us across the field was a stand of trees, tall hardwoods amongst the soybeans. Curiosity had pulled me out of my bed early that morning; it had pulled me into the depths of southeast Arkansas and onto this gravel road, and on the off chance that we were in the right place, we proceeded.

And found a graveyard. Honestly, there were no buildings in sight, just a tree-ringed lawn and a series of stone monuments. We drove around to the right and to the back, looking for something else, anything that might indicate the structures that had once stood. After sliding around in the mud near the back corner of the long yard, we decided “this must be it” and turned back.

There’s no place marked for parking, so we parked parallel with the road and got out. Tall oaks and sinewy crepe myrtle trees lined a lawn that stretched perhaps 50 yards back to a series of monuments and headstones. Yard-tall stone markers outlined the plot. The lawn had to have recently been mowed; it was a little unkempt but still short.

The first stone we reached on our approach was a stone obelisk that bore the National Historic Landmark bronze plaque, noting that the site had been designated in 1992. The bronze had faded, but the stone was as pristine as its first placement.



Past that was another relatively new marker marked CASSINO-ANZIO. This was a military campaign during the second World War. Along its sides are the names of the Japanese-American men interred at Rohwer who applied for military service and who served and died with the U.S. Fifth Army 100 Battalion, 442 Regiment. That’s right. Though our government took these men from their homes and sent them to the hottest, flattest part of Arkansas, they showed their dedication for our country and volunteered for service to fight in a war against several other countries, including their homeland. Cassino-Anzio was a campaign in March 1944, a march to Rome to oust the Germans.

On the back of the monument, the first paragraph of the Japanese-American Creed given by Mike Masaoka in front of the U.S. Senate on May 9, 1941.

I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, for my very background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantages of this Nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals, and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future. She has granted me liberties and opportunities such as no individual enjoys in this world today. She has given me an education befitting kings. she has entrusted me with the responsibilities of the franchise. She has permitted me to build a home, to earn a livelihood, to worship, think, speak, and act as I please -- as a free man.

Below this inscription, an accounting of what had happened, etched for all time in words that may only be read by those who traipse across that soybean field. Or here.

There was a reflecting pool behind that marker, a badly maintained pool or perhaps just an area that had been blocked out and which had catched the rainwater.






To the left was a monument in the shape of a tank, apparently contemporary to close to the end of the war also commemorating the lives of the Japanese-American soldiers who died in World War II. The statue still stands, but there is damage at the point where the tablet of names meets the tank bottom. The portion containing the “treads” include renditions of gears in the form of lotus flowers. Above, a single five point star.

To the right stands a similarly sized monument, another obelisk, this one topped with a bird on a sphere. Japanese writing graces some of its faces. On the north side is an inscription, “May the people of Arkansas keep in beauty and reverence forever this ground where our bodies sleep.” The once intricately tooled monument has lost much detail with the weathering of time, and it's started to sink sideways in the pool, but it still stands poignantly as a reminder -- this isn’t just a stretch of historic land; it’s a graveyard. Don’t disturb the souls here.

We carefully and quietly moved among the headstones, reading the names of those who perished here. Most were adults, but in the southwest corner we found the headstones for three infants who died in 1943 -- Masaka, Tasugi, Sano. Whether these were the personal or family names of the children, I don’t know, but to me it was poignant.

A line of crepe myrtle trees separated the graveyard from the back of the long yard. There was a faded road within and a few scattered stones, but nothing else. The buildings on this plot of land have been lost to time, either long ago ruined or moved elsewhere. On all sides, soybeans.

And that was it, nothing more to recall what had happened here those years, nothing more to honor those who passed this way. Just a graveyard in a soybean field. Part of me wonders why, but part of me knows the possible answer. There is some shame in what was done here. Our government rounded up its own citizens just because of their genealogy and planted them on Arkansas soil out of fear.

But that’s just me editorializing. What you really want to know is where to find that soybean field. It’s off Highway 1 (the Great River Road) near Tillar. You can find a map here. Take someone or tell them about this place.

Go tell Ms. Rhoda; she'll hook you up with tamales.

After our breakfast in Dumas, a trip down Highway 1 through Watson, a misguided attempt to find Old Napoleon and a stop at Rohwer Relocation Camp we ended up on the doorstep of Rhoda Adams, as in the particularly local establishment in Lake Village known as Rhoda’s Famous Hot Tamales. She and her husband James run this place on St. Mary’s Street, and you can smell it a block away, the smell of spices and fried things luring you off Highway 65 if you let it. If you don’t roll down your windows and never leave the highway, you may never find it.

On Watermelons, Festivals and Growing Up Arkansawyer.

Tis the season… no, not Christmas season, but the season I look forward to each and every year. That’s right, it’s watermelon season.

Been following the trail up through Bald Knob and Batesville these past several years to head to Cave City, home of the world’s sweetest watermelons. We leave home first thing in the morning and make the two hour drive up there, me and Hunter, just to spend the day in the middle of the city park, relaxing to gospel and folk music and enjoying the 4pm free watermelon feast. It’s a nice, small festival, one I’ve fallen in love with, and we will eventually be back.

But my job is to cover all of Arkansas, and I’ve neglected the other famed watermelon festival, the big boy of the South (Arkansas, that is). I haven’t been to the Hope Watermelon Festival in years.

Hope melons are different from Cave City melons. They tend to be more watery and less sweet, but what they lack in intensity they make up for in sheer size. I often see trailer loads of Hope melons alongside busy thoroughfares, the trailers usually packed with longer, pale green melons with dark stripes. Some folks swear by a Hope melon, and I should too, considering where I come from and what I do.

Thing is, I could purchase either sort of melon any day of the week from a variety of places. It might require a small drive but certainly wouldn’t require me to get out my tennis shoes and sunscreen. So why do I go?

There’s something about an Arkansas festival. It’s not the concessionary vendors or the promotions, though sometimes either or both could be fun. It’s something about hearing people speak in the native tongue, how they share a bit of their lives at these things. I go to experience these things. I take Hunter because she needs her own exposure.

Growing up in the city is an experience all its own. I had my opportunity; I’m a full on strong hearted Little Rock woman and will always feel this is my hometown. But I also recall the time spent around my roots in southwest Arkansas and on trips into the Ozarks. I learned more about our state from the back of a car and every roadside stop as a kid than I did throughout my 20s. Some things stick with you.

I want Hunter to know what it’s like to swap recipes and stories with aging women at a bake sale. To run with other kids and play carnival games and such. I want to teach her how to do an appropriate tick check, how to properly pet a kid goat, all those sorts of things. I want her to develop a taste for the foods that are native to us, blackberries and peaches and Mayhaws and muscadines. And of course, watermelon.

So we’re going. I’ve already started planning what I’m going to pack for us to take -- sunscreen, bug spray, Thermos of water, cooler with sandwiches, all that. We’ll watch the lawnmower races and the watermelon eating contest, the arm wrestling competition and the seed spitting contest. She may be too young to teach how to properly spit seeds, but I will buy a slice of cold watermelon and share it with her. And somewhere I’m going to find a big melon and take her photo with it.

Hunter’s just 20 months old. She may not remember every detail of what we do, but I’m hoping she’ll be able to look back when she’s my age and remember that her mother was never afraid to drive her a couple hours out from home just to eat a piece of watermelon.

The magnificent fire.

Most of the time, when I share tales with you about food, it’s about of my own adventure. I do a lot of solo traveling, that’s just the way it is. But when the experience is shared… it can make for some really great stories.

My traveling companion this trip was photographer Grav Weldon. We were in Fort Smith working on a couple of different articles and were looking for a certain breakfast place mentioned to me by Eat Arkansas fans. That place is Lewis’ Family Restaurant.

I have no idea about the placement of that apostrophe, honestly enough. The lowslung little brown building sits at the corner of Zero and Highway 71 in the southern part of the city, at a rather busy intersection across from the local Wal-Mart. We dropped by late one Friday morning for breakfast. Well, at least, I was planning to have breakfast. See, Grav had been hearing about this place and he’d actually been -- and he’d seen this thing on the menu. I’ll get back to that in a moment.

Lewis’ used to be a cafeteria located over by Creekmore Park. It relocated a while back to its current location -- which, way back in the day was a 24 hour truck stop. Lewis’ is not 24-hour. That’s an important distinction to make, considering that’s what we were told and why we’d actually first met there on Thursday. Anyway….

On entering the building, we saw the day’s special on a rather obnoxious looking sandwich board. I was actually kinda interested in the breakfast special, peering out under signs that stated “You have two choices -- take it or leave it!“ and a labeled mousetrap that said “Complaint Department, Press Button for Service.“ My interest was piqued with something that ooked seriously dangerous: The I-540 Pile-Up -- corned beef hash topped with two eggs, Cheddar cheese and gravy served with toast or a biscuit. Piqued, but not startled into actually ordering the thing.

We found a booth along the east wall, under a specials board. Our waitress came over and dropped off menus and took our drink orders. The menu’s of decent size. It didn’t take me long to figure out I really wanted a pecan waffle, and I got mine “combo’d up” with a couple of over-medium eggs and a couple of rounds of turkey sausage.

Grav knew what he wanted from the start, though he did cursorily flip through the menu. He was in it for this burger. It was listed on an insert page in the menu: INFERNO BURGER: 1/3 lb. seasoned burger topped with spicy bacon, Pepper Jack cheese, jalapenos and onions. All this on a hamburger bun smothered in Lewis' own HOT chipotle mayo. This burger is not for wimps! $6.99 with (1) side.

He ordered his with Cajun fries. I guess that made a lot of sense.

It was loud inside. People were crowded into ad-covered tables and booths along the walls. Right next to our booth was a series of tables that had been pushed together. Guys were gathering along its length -- all guys, in fact. Our waitress breezed by.

“I got your order in just in time,” she told us.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s the Inferno club guys. There’s a lot of them and it’s going to take a while to get their orders out. Yours should be ready in no time.”

I looked at Grav, and we both looked over at the table. The guys that were filing in were greeting each other affectionately. They came from all walks of life -- gentlemen in golf shirts, a guy in fatigues, some in t-shirts and a couple of boys, too. You could hear their greetings over the loud and persistent hum of conversation throughout the place. Our waitress swung back by to refill our drinks.

“Excuse me, ma’am, did you say a club?” Grav asked.

“It’s a club for people who have finished the Inferno Burger. We were just offering it for a short time, but they keep coming back and we keep leaving it on the menu.”

“You have to finish the burger?” I asked.

“If you finish it, you can sit at their table. They have a Facebook page.”

Now, there was a story. I raised my eyebrows at Grav. “You may not know what you’re in for.”

“I can take it,” he confidently told me. He told me about an experience at an Indian restaurant in London, where he’d managed to eat the hottest thing they brought out of the kitchen. I smiled. This was going to make a good story.

It was loud in the restaurant, and warm, too. With the temperature pushing 100 already and all the people coming through the door, it was no wonder.

I heard a younger man over at the Inferno Club table talking about why he was there to eat the burger. He told the guys he was getting married soon, and that he needed to eat the burger to prove himself. There was some chortling among other guys at the table.

“You know, I’d give it a shot, just for the hell of it, if I wasn’t having this waffle this morning,” I told Grav.

“You know it has bacon on it.”

“Does it? Well, damn.”

I looked up and saw our waitress making her way between the tables with our order. She plunked down my waffle and a separate plate with eggs and turkey sausage, then spun around the plate with the famed burger on it right in front of Grav.

“You sure about this, hon? Need any ketchup?”

“I’ll take barbecue sauce if you have it,” he told her, picking up his camera. She looked at us a little funny, but that wasn’t going to stop us. We both started to shoot the food. Hey, it’s what we do.

The waffle was hot and it smelled nutty and sweet and I really just wanted to put down the camera and eat it. I did. But there’s this whole sense of purpose I get when I get that camera up.

However, just seconds after I had taken a whiff of the waffle my eyes watered a little bit.

“Is that the burger?”

“I think so.”

“Wow. Do you want to shoot the waffle?”

“Yes… yes, I do.” We traded plates. I noticed how the bun was hunched over the contents of the burger, so I just barely brushed it back before I started to shoot. The scent of strong peppers and onions was close to overwhelming. But it looked like a really great thing to eat. I looked back at my waffle and sighed a little. I had to get that waffle. It was part of my own assignment.

We traded back plates and I shot some of the eggs. I was startled by Grav’s sudden exclamation.

“Good Lord!”

“You haven’t eaten it yet,” I said.

“I just took a bite.” He took a big gulp of his Mountain Dew. “It’s really hard to handle.” I turned my camera back on and pointed it his way. He tackled the burger with fork and knife. “Look at this bacon. This is nothing but spice.”

“Hotter than you thought?”

“Maybe.”

I started to cut a little piece of my waffle, but before I could get it to my lips I saw him fork up a chunk of burger. I put down my fork and took a shot of him. Then I watched as he ate it.

“Wow. Holy sh*t.” He had suddenly beaded up with sweat, and his pallor had changed from light pink to a deepening red. He was chuckling a little bit. I watched as he took off his glasses and wiped his face with a napkin.

My waffle was all but forgotten. I was just astounded by what I was seeing before me, this transformation of willpower into pain, and I had to capture each moment of it. I started scribbling his utterances in my notebook. This was going to be good.

He cut another bite. “Aw! One of the hottest things I’ve ever eaten,” he told me. He stopped, looked at me, and asked me “what have I done to myself?”

I looked over at the guys at the other table. No one had an Inferno Burger yet. I looked back and just grinned. He continued his monologue as I scribbled. “I like hot food, but that being said, I can feel it coming out of my sinuses.” He picked up and ate a Cajun spiced fry with no visual change. Then back to the burger. I noticed he was taking smaller and smaller bites.

“So, what’s in it?”

“The stuff they call mayo is the source of the heat. There’s spice in the meat, too.” He coughed hard. “Ooh, spice up the nose, wild.”

“The cheese?”

“There’s cheese? Oh, yeah, there is.” He wiped his face again with the napkin, dabbing around his eyes. Sweat had rolled down his chest and he was squinting a bit. He called the waitress. “Ma’am, I could use a cup of milk.”

“Do you want us to add it to the check?” she asked me. I waved my hand and nodded.

“Whole milk if you got it!” he hollered as best as he could, trying not to choke up.

She came back a fraction of a minute later. “We only have two percent.”

“Yes! I need it!”

His plummet into deeper shades of red hadn’t stopped when he stopped taking in bites of burger. In fact, the heat had stirred up a fountain within his skin, dampening his shirt one degree after another, as if to attempt to save him from the inferno by drowning him.

“This is on par with ‘we can make it hotter.’ This is insane hot.”

Our waitress brought the milk, and Grav took it and took a long drink. He leaned over for a moment, trying for a little air I think. I took the opportunity to put down my camera and try my breakfast.

It wasn’t cold, which means it was pretty hot when I got it. The eggs were perfectly cooked, but I was disappointed with the turkey sausage. It didn’t have a whole lot of flavor to it, more like ground turkey instead of sausage. I ended up leaving most of it.
The waffle, on the other hand, was excellent, a big Belgian with pecans throughout. Light yet golden and crispy and a sponge for butter and syrup.

“I’m usually not a milk drinker,” Grav gasped, finally able to speak. “It just keeps building and building.” He fiddled with his fork but didn’t progress on to the next bite.

I got a little syrup on my fingers and did the unconscious thing, which was to lick it off. Suddenly my lips were on fire. “The heck?”

“You all right?”

“I think I must have touched your burger. Wow. That’s some spice.” I wiped my hands against the napkin and made a note that I needed to go wash as soon as I was done eating.

The guys at the next table were getting their food. I could hear some general fun being poked at one of the guys who’d ordered a big salad instead of the burger. He good-naturedly took the chiding.

Grav put down his napkin. “I’m done. I swear, I taste ghost chilies in there.”

“Are you sure? You haven’t even made it halfway through.”

“I could eat the whole thing if I tried, but I have a shoot today and I don’t want to miss it. I could take some Pepsid and make it work…”

I was enjoying the waffle, and watching the entertainment in front of me. I really did feel for Grav as far as the heat was concerned, but he had put himself through it.

“I’m feeling a mild to moderate amount of miserable,” he continued, taking another drink from his large tumbler of milk. “I want to take another bite… it tastes good, but it’s so hot not just in my mouth but my lips and the inside of my nose.”

He asked for a box, and took just the burger with him, having not made much of a dent in the fries. I got up and settled our check.

When I got home, I checked Facebook for the page I’d heard about. It’s a private page, and when I requested membership I got a message from Brad Lewis asking if I’d actually eaten the burger. I explained the situation, and he sent me this reply:

“We were wondering who that was taking pictures of us! The Inferno Club started when I was telling one guy at my church about the burger. Another guy overheard, then another. So we decided to meet at Lewis' to eat it. We enjoyed the food and the fellowship so much we decided to make it a monthly get-together and invite anyone to down the burger. They've made a special "Inferno" menu for us now. A person has to eat the entire burger to join the club, but doesn't have to eat it every time we meet. I've eaten seven of them and two members have eaten the Towering Inferno (double all) and have decided to retire from Inferno anything.”

Grav and I both posted photos on our Facebook pages after his ordeal, and we got a lot of comments. In fact, there are several of our friends who are being very macho about it, who want to try it and see if they can manage it. One’s my husband, Paul, who eats things that would make goats cry. We’re thinking we’ll get a whole crew to hit the road one day and head up to Lewis’ and see who can take the whole burger. I know I’m going to laugh. I also know I’m probably going to try the homemade meatloaf and the fried corn on the cob. I am going nowhere near that burger -- except to capture my friends’ agony as they attempt to eat it.

Lewis’ Family Restaurant is open every day from six in the morning until three in the afternoon. You can get breakfast any time. I bet if you asked nice you could probably get that Inferno Burger whenever you wanted it, too, but that’d be just masochistic. If you get lost, call them and ask where they’re at. (479) 646-4309.