Day 2
We woke up pretty early to go on a walk around the ranch before we had to leave. We headed out on the walk at 6:30 and planned to leave the ranch at 7:30. It was pitch black when we started out on the walk, but it got lighter as we went along. At the ranch, they have this thing called the Global Community. There are a bunch of different types of housing to show how poor people live in different parts of the world.
It doesn’t really surprise me, especially not anymore, that people live in such poor conditions, but I think it surprised a lot of the other girls. Some places were an Urban Slum, which is supposed to be indicative of anywhere in the world, Appalachia, and Zambia. Zambia was by far my favorite, but I think that might be because Africa stole my heart last year. Also, my absolute favorite picture I’ve ever taken was of the Zambia housing.
After we walked that, it was already later than 7:30, so we stayed longer than we planned. We got to see some of the animals on the ranch, which include, but are not limited to, Camels, Llamas, Turkey, and Water Buffalo (and of course, Heifers).
When we left we went to get breakfast at Sonic. That was definitely an experience because there are 25 of us on a huge bus, something Sonic is not really equipped to deal with, but they did a great job anyway.
After Sonic, we went to Heifer International Headquarters. They have a green facility and we went on a tour of the building and learned more about that. Very interesting. It kind of inspires me to be even more environmentally conscious than I am now. I have some great pictures from there.
After Heifer International, we went to Bill Clinton’s Presidential Library (which, believe it or not, doesn’t have books.) We had dinner in the restaurant, called “42.” I got a Veggie wrap and I have to say it was delicious. Everyone seemed to really enjoy their meals, too.
After lunch we went up to the actual library and got a tour. I have a lot of great pictures from there too (although we weren’t allowed to take pictures with flash so some of them aren’t the highest quality, but they’re better than nothing. My camera battery died right before we got to an exact replica of the Oval Office, so I was really bummed out about that, but we decided to go back the next day, because we were so pressed for time, so I had another opportunity.
After the library, we went to Little Rock Central High (I’m sure you all know about the Little Rock Nine). That was really emotional. We got to meet Minne Jean Brown’s daughter, Spirit. She was great. She talked to us for a while and then showed a short film about the battle for integration. That was honestly awful. I know that it was bad but it absolutely disgusts me to see how ignorant, closed minded, and ugly people can be. We walked the grounds of the high school, which is the most beautiful high school I’ve ever seen. It was actually kind of peaceful in a weird way. There are benches now surrounding a gazing pool with the names of all of the Little Rock Nine.
After that, we went to the Comfort Inn, where we were staying that night. We checked into our rooms and I took a verrrry long shower (because my shower the night before was broken). That was great. We had a little while to rest before we went down to hear Team Arkansas give their presentations on the state. (We’ll be doing that periodically through the trip.)
After the presentations we left for dinner at the Flying Fish. It was basically a seafood place (incase you didn’t gather that from the name). I’m a vegetarian, so I’ve been having a tough time finding things to eat, especially because so much of the cuisine here is barbecue and fish, but I ordered grilled squash and zucchini and a side of green beans. They were all very delicious, and for desert I had a slice of Key Lime Pie (more like a slice of heaven. Yeah, it really was that good). The room where Sam, Kelly (another Kelly), Jess, and I ate was COVERED from head to toe in Singing Billy Bass Fish. It was crazy.
We went back to the hotel after dinner, and we had our first debriefing of the trip, where we talked about what we liked, what we didn’t like, how we felt, what our impressions were, etc. By the time we finished doing that, it was pretty late and we were exhausted. It was an incredibly long day.
My bed was like sleeping on a cloud compared to my bed the night before, and I had no trouble at all falling asleep.
(P.S. I’m posting all these while on the bus and the Wi Fi is super slow so I’ll post some pictures when we’re at a hotel with faster Wi Fi)
