DAY ELEVEN: On Saturday, we said our goodbyes to Betsey and Rob and headed south to Little Rock. Our route took us down through Branson, MO, which Ellen had never seen, so we stopped for a quick look-see. Despite almost 100 degree temperatures, the town was crawling with tourists. We went into Dick's 5&10 which is a classic "old-timey" store. Quite fun, actually, but the aisles were so full, you could hardly move down them!

We also drove through the theater district of Branson, which is, of course, a country music mecca, rivaling (exceeding?) Nashville. But we only looked, we didn't stop to listen.

From there we went south into Arkansas and drove through Ozark National Forest. A very lovely drive, and almost empty of cars and people. We stopped to get a photo of the view and the stone work -- I'm a complete sucker for stone work!

Somehow we managed to get to Little Rock just about when we planned to! We were going to meet my grand-nephew Ryan McQuen, and his fiance Alicia, to take them out to supper. Ryan is an undergraduate at the University of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR) in Communication, and Alicia is working on an M.A. at the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, part of the University of Arkansas For Medical Sciences (UAMS). They both have part-time jobs in addition to their academic work, and on top of that, Ryan is a copy-writer for the UALR Forum, the student newspaper. Boy, are they busy! We felt lucky to have supper with them! But you'd never know how busy they are from this nice relaxed photo!

Ryan drove us around UAMS and UALR, and we got to see where they have classes and where Ryan works. We got at least a little glimpse of their lives in Little Rock.

ALICIA'S SCHOOL

RYAN'S WORK PLACE