Fayetteville

Arkansas – Wednesday, November 28

Today I was going to be heading south toward Fayetteville, and I wanted to make a food pantry donation. There were several food pantries in that area, and I decided to contact the people at the Mt. Comfort Church of Christ food pantry, because the street I grew up on was Comfort Drive, plus they were open on Wednesdays, so it seemed like a logical choice to me! I spoke with a lady at the church (the actual food pantry is in a separate building) and she said they would be happy to get any non-perishable goods. So I shopped for the food, and got a big variety of things, then drove south to Fayetteville. I dropped off the groceries, and the director came out and told me a little more about their program. He’s been involved with it since 1995, and they’ve been helping about 25 families every week, and had just finished helping a lady with 4 children. They appreciate the extra space they have now that the food pantry has its own building, which they named the Banford House after a longtime volunteer. It’s another organization doing good things for others.

By this time, I needed to get going with my walking. I was having a little trouble finding a good place to walk, but I knew there had to be something in a big college town! Just when I was thinking I would move on, I stumbled upon a long walking/jogging trail that went for miles. It started out going by lots of apartment complexes (Fayetteville is home to the University of Arkansas) before getting out into more open land. There were lots of people out jogging, walking, and biking – it was a pretty afternoon. Tula and I spent a couple hours walking and got in about 5 1/2 miles. As I was leaving town, I passed through one of the historic neighborhoods and walked another mile and a half.

Then I continued driving south toward Fort Smith through another pretty mountain range. The mountains are pretty in November even with all the leaves off the trees, and must be spectacular in the spring. We stopped in the historic area of Van Buren to finish the last mile of walking. It was a nice little town, but very quiet for only 5:30 at night.

Fort Smith was pretty close, so I eventually found a place to stay, and called it a night.