While the process is complicated, I should know something about an internship site soon. I will submit my ranked list of sites by Wednesday. I'll find out on Friday, February 19 if I matched with a site, and if I match, I'll find out on Monday, February 22 where I will be going. Just a few more weeks in this insane process!
We crossed Hwy 67 many times during this process but only traveled on it once. Here, we simply passed it. I thought it was cool that a city was named Pocahontas.
This is a Kawasaki dealership in nowhere Arkansas. We were hoping for some good vintage finds. No such luck.
We saw many, many trains on this trip. It was kinda cool seeing how fast they were traveling right beside us. I lost count after 10 trains.
After lots of two lane roads in Northern Arkansas, we finally entered Missouri. There is not a direct route on an interstate linking Memphis to Springfield - just state roads. Needless to say, it made for an interesting trip. (We went out of our way on the return trip trying to get to the interstate thinking it would be clear. More on that below.)
You will notice that these two trucks do not have license plates on the back. Instead, they are proudly displaying John Deere tags. We saw this several times while we were in the state of Missouri, but we never discovered an explanation for how they could do this legally.
Yay Springfield! For a small town, they have several exits from the highway. There were plenty of great restaurants, WalMart, Target, a couple of malls...seems like most anything I would need to live there very comfortably.
So this is Grizzly's...they have automotive machinery and other fabricating machines and tools. In our initial drive around Springfield, I mentioned this to my Dad because I thought it might be similar to a Bass Pro shop. No, my Dad quickly informed me that it was not anything like that, and we had to go in. Turns out they had some pretty cool things...we probably looked at 1/4 of the store and that took us 45 minutes. The place was massive!
So I thought Springfield was cool EXCEPT for the snow and ice we encountered when we woke up on Friday morning...
This is what my car looked like when my Dad and I went outside to go to my interview. It only got worse...we got snowed in on Friday and could not return to Memphis because the ice and snow were so bad in Missouri and Arkansas. So we stayed Friday night and set out Saturday morning to try to get back to Memphis. These are pictures from the trip home:
This is Hwy 60 East in Missouri. The road was extremely clean, and I was grateful. I wish I could say the same thing about I-55 through Arkansas.
This reminded me of the white sand beaches in south Alabama.
The way the sun was shining on the snow made it look like the ocean or a bay. With the flat land and the reflection, it was beautiful.
The state of Arkansas sign will never have good memories for me after the trip back to Memphis. We had a great drive through clean roads in Missouri; we cross the state line, and the trip went to hell.
Yes, all of that on the road is ice. You can see lines of trucks and cars on the other side of the interstate as well. Never did I imagine that an interstate would not be cleared. With the sun setting on us quicker than we could move, the conditions just got worse. Luckily, my Dad was with me, and he has superior driving skills. I would not have made it back to Memphis by myself; it was treacherous.
For about 8-10 miles, we traveled bumper-to-bumper with 18-wheelers and other cars going less than 10mph. It took a LONG time.
The sunset was pretty. I selected a few of the pictures:
Nothing was prettier than the Tennessee state line sign coming over the bridge. The bridge was bumpy with a bit of ice, so the picture isn't in focus.
This concludes my month of traveling. I am happy to be back in one place and not living out of a suitcase. Back to school tomorrow and all that goes along with it...
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