I Had No Idea

I had no idea that Arkansas had two Japanese Internment Camps during WWII.

The camps - in Jerome and Rowher - have been dismantled,

but we visited the museum -

good for these homeschooling families, and interesting to me as well.

First things first - 

a picnic lunch on the museum grounds,

formerly the train depot in McGehee.

I took a lot of photos of photos in the museum,

but am just highlighting a couple of things here.

First, the exclusion area: about half of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona,

and ALL of California.

All Japanese, and most were citizens - naturalized or born here - were evacuated from these areas, and moved to the camps - marked by triangles on the map.

Each of the two camps in Arkansas held between 8-9000 Japanese.

As if the internment camps weren't bad enough, the poverty and racism prevalent in rural Arkansas created resentment from the local Arkansans toward the inhabitants of the camps.

While the camps were a huge step down in standard-of-living

for the Japanese inhabitants,

they were envied by their rural neighbors.

If you're interested in learning more you can watch a documentary,

Time of Fear.

We followed up by visiting the Rowher Relocation Center Memorial,

a cemetery that was just outside the fences of the camp.

The chimney about a mile-plus distant

is the only structure remaining from the camp.

(It doesn't have the ominous implications of chimneys in Nazi prison camps,

this chimney is from the camp hospital's incinerator.)

But realize that the camp FILLED the space between the cemetery and the chimney...

Heading back north, we were too late to see the Arkansas Post Museum,

the site of the first European settlement in the lower Mississippi,

but pulled off to see...

a bayou!

Specifically, the Moore Bayou Recreation Area.

I was glad to hear that the weather was too cold for crocodiles (or was it alligators?)

so we just enjoyed the beauty ;D

Since our day was turning into a longer adventure than we had planned on,

we stopped for a REAL cultural Arkansas experience -

dinner at The Bull Pen, in DeWitt.

If you have facebook, you can check out their menu.

(Hint: most things are deep fried.)

Katherine met a new friend ;D

The bbq/smoked meats were fabulous.

Good shrimp, too.

I loved the hush puppies.

I tried okra.

And do you recognize what's on top of my plate?

It's not chicken.

That's a frog leg.

Aaron and Joanna were having a good time!

We all were :D

Oh how I love these ladies!  That's Joanna in pink, and Ann in black :D

As if the day wasn't memorable enough,

as we were driving back toward Little Rock

the sky LIT UP...

we saw the meteor/fireball.

Too quick for a photo, but looooong for a meteor!