Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma are very green, full of forests and lakes. They are nothing like I pictured them. Looking at the roadside scenery, I would guess that I was in West Virginia. The forest looks like is mostly oak and pine. Little Rock is a pleasant city. I looked at one of the home pages. Houses, what look like nice houses, are amazingly inexpensive. You can get three bedrooms for less than 100K. I told Chrissy that we should live here. She is less than enthusiastic. I am not serious, of course. This is, after all, still Clinton and Jed Clampet country. Besides, I really like Northern Virginia. I only wish it was cheaper.
Adding this the next day – I went running this morning right outside the hotel. It is a little too hilly for a good run. Running down the steep grades pushes your toes against the tops of your shoes and you have to run up on the balls of your feet the whole way. The grades are also a bit too long. That said, it was a nice run. Everything is so green. The emerald blaze almost hurts your eyes. After coming out of the desert where all life is precarious and vegetation has to be coaxed to grow, this is Eden. If you drove a stick into the ground, I think it would sprout leaves. The soil is deep enough to support very large trees. Vegetation crawls from every crack in the sidewalk. I think it has been a particularly wet season, but it can’t be far different from the normal. Of course it is the humidity that keeps the plants so green and luxuriant, but even that feels good after you have dried out for a couple of weeks. This part of Little Rock looks remarkably like Vienna, Virginia. The hills are steeper, but when I ran though the suburban neighborhoods, I could have been there. There are just not that many types of landscape.