Well I'm heading home a day early. I know I promised to update this journal everyday on this trip, but a combination of long hours, fatigue and camera connectivity problems have prevented it. I did actually write something every day, but couldn't upload my photos without more effort than I had the energy for. This afternoon, however, I finished my contribution to the work at our customer's a day ahead of schedule, so I can head home!

Bentonville, Arkansas, Wednesday, 3rd May 2000, 8.30 p.m. CST .

The concert last night was actually pretty darned good. Having been to other concerts where student composers have had their pieces performed, I was glad to hear something enjoyable, from a student named Jennifer Carter. Quite original sounds, even if she borrowed from a few other composers here and there. There was also a trumpet concerto by Fasch, and a beautifully performed violin concerto by one of my favorite composers, Sibelius. So who says there's no culture in Arkansas? Not me!

Sitting outside the Walton Arts Center last night just before the concert. The old lady beside me didn't have much to say.

Another long, hard slog of a day today, however, and I didn't get out of work until ten past six. It was a warm, beautiful evening, and I got changed into my running clothes and decided to try to find one of the parks that were supposed to be found westward, at the end of Route 12. I reached the town of Rogers before long, and drove through it's quiet, old downtown to the country roads beyond. At this point, I didn't have a clue where I was going, since my Avis map didn't show the parks, but I was lucky enough to hit on the right road, and I parked next to a beautiful mile long lake (Lake Atlanta) buried amidst a forest. It was truly a gorgeous place, with good paths all round the lake, and a few people here and there fishing, watching the sun descend, or walking hand in hand while I puffed heavily past them, my big feet no doubt disturbing their peace!

Lake Atlanta

After running twice round the lake, I was pretty sweaty and tired, and set off hotelward. But I was thinking about how easy it would be to form a superficial impression of Arkansas if you didn't bother to look around and explore a little. If I'd done nothing but check into the hotel, watched cable TV, and gone and put in my ten hours a day at our customer's, I'd have departed thinking that yeah, Arkansas is nothing much. I'd have seen scarcely anything but strip malls, and our customer's horrible working conditions. But if you go behind the scenes, you find plenty of evidence of a real quality of life that is to be found here, despite the more limited employer approach to work environments.

On the way home, I stopped in downtown Rogers to appreciate the feel of the sunset, casting long shadows down the empty cobbled streets. It was extraordinarily peaceful, and, although it's corny to say it, time seemed to be standing still. None of the insistent rush-rush I experience in the big city.

An old barn in downtown Rogers

It's a shame that the Frontier spirit, illustrated so savagely by Fanny Trollope in "Domestic Manners of the Americans", has devolved into an anything-goes suburban sprawl mentality which spoils all but the central core of small, old towns like Rogers. And the problem isn't with city planning, or its lack, but rather with the insistence on freedom as the preeminent Right. Freedom to do just what you please, and damn the rest.

Bentonville, Arkansas, Tuesday, 2nd May 2000, 7.00 p.m. CST .

I'm sitting in a cute, student-oriented cafe/restaurant in leafy Fayetteville, across the street from the Walton Arts Center, where I'm going to see the University Symphony Orchestra perform in about an hour. It's odd to sit here in the middle of the country, so far from my original home and upbringing, and hear the girls at the table next to me order Newcastle Brown Ale. I certainly didn't grow up near Newcastle thinking that their ale was a global franchise.

I ended up in this cafe thanks to one of a couple of suggestions I received via email from people who live in Fayetteville. I guess it helps to have a popular website if you're a traveler. Just so you know, I also got some other suggestions from other Arkansas natives, but I can't, in decency, repeat their suggestions here :)

I didn't get to Fayetteville, which is only about 25 minutes from Bentonville, until around 6.30 or so, much later than I'd hoped. I wasn't able to slip away from work engagements like I wanted. It was a long day, from arriving at eight and having to park at the far end of the immense parking lot, to the final strict check out for me and my laptop at 5.45.

Arriving at our customer's site on a foggy morning. All these cars belong to people who work in that building on the horizon!

Ahh, my chicken caesar salad has arrived. At least it doesn't look like chicken caesar soup, like I had last night at the hotel!

Due to my late arrival in Fayetteville just now, I haven't seen enough of it to form a coherent impression. The approach, through the inevitable strip malls, was discouraging. When I saw a sign post pointing to "historic downtown Fayetteville", however, I restrained my automatic cocked eyebrow, and diverted to check it out. In this cool comfortable, grey-green evening, almost anywhere would have seemed pretty, but there was undeniable appeal to the downtown area, with extravagantly cultivated wild-plant beds, businesses occupying restored old properties, and residents sitting on street benches chatting against a still background broken only by the calls of evening birds flitting from tree to tree.

In downtown Fayetteville

More downtown Fayetteville

I'm not going to have time to see the University, but there are certainly plenty of cute students around. I just wish they weren't all smoking. At least they're not chewing tobacco and spitting, like all the Americans in "Domestic Manners of the Americans".