Day Forty-Eight: Fort Smith (Rest Day)

This was our first intentional rest day in quite some time, and we were STOKED! It was the 4th of July and we had big plans… not. Our only plan was to milk the hotel of everything it was worth in terms of continental breakfast and complimentary coffee. For whatever reason, we felt compelled to exercise in any way, shape, or form that did not resemble cycling, so I opted for a treadmill workout in the hotel, while Slater faced the heat and went for a run outside. That didn’t last long, of course, and we ended up back in the hotel room, lounging in bed before checking out at 1:30.

It was from one hotel to the next: Motel 6. We didn’t put much thought into our decision to stay there; the only thing we were concerned about was staying inside and out of the way of an approaching storm. Since the hotel the night before was pushing our budget, we wanted to stay somewhere cheaper, and Google Maps led us straight to the Motel 6, just a mile or so down the road. To our own detriment, we failed to read the reviews before checking in, and we were unpleasantly surprised by burn holes in the comforter and bed bugs galore. We went online to check the reviews—curiosity killed the cat—and that made us even more paranoid, anticipating the drug deals and prostitutes that frequented the dive. That was enough to send us on our way to Starbucks, where we sipped coffee for a couple of hours and finished journals.

Next stop was TGI Friday’s (so basically, our day consisted mostly of eating), where we were oversverved. That’s our formal way of saying we bought one too many overpriced chain restaurant cocktails and ended up with a $100 bill and a severe case of the giggles. But hey, it was the 4th of July, so it’s okay, right?! We made a quick stop at the hotel room to call a cab to ride down to the waterfront, where there was a fireworks show starting at 9:30 p.m. The cab showed up about twenty minutes later, just before the show was about to begin, and the driver waved us into a hazy sedan with a cluttered backseat. There was another man riding in the front seat of the cab who greeted us with a thick southern accent. He and the driver were chummy, it seemed; we asked him where he was from, and he responded proudly, “Mi-sippi.” He was holding a cigarette millimeters away from his lips, as was the cab driver, and they craned their necks around, looked us in the eyes and asked, “You smoke?”

“No,” we responded with awkward closed-mouth smiles, before realizing that they weren’t offering cigarettes, but rather asking if they could smoke in the car. “Oh, go ahead…” we muttered unenthusiastically, rolling our eyes at the “NO SMOKING” sign pressed to the back of the driver’s headrest. The drive was only four miles, and yet it seemed to drag on for hours; we endured unwanted commentary from the peanut gallery up front, who felt the need to bring up issues like the confederate flag despite our clear opposition. We had had enough and finally asked to be dropped off before reaching our destination, then walked about a half a mile to the downtown area, just in time for a 25-minute show.

The fireworks cracked and glittered before our weary eyes, then soaked the sky in smoke with a grand finale that looked more like a child’s watercolor “masterpiece” than a choreographed program. When the show had ended, we made our way to a corner store for cold drinks, where every customer seemed to be on something, if you know what I mean, and young drinkers got into tiffs with police officers. We called another cab to take us home, hoping and wishing that our next driver was a little less rough around the edges, and we were eventually picked up over an hour later by a couple who managed to not mutter a word for the entirety of the ride. We sleepily climbed to our second story room and put ourselves to bed under the cigarette-burned blanket for a night with the bed bugs.