Found Fayetteville

A few weeks ago I posted about the Sheet Fort Experience here in Walmart Country and it's still going strong.  We've gone to one improv show, two story telling nights, one stand up comedy night on St. Patricks Day (there was one song and one limerick, other than that it had nothing to do with St. Patty's Day), and now the show called Found Fayetteville.

The show was described to me as a multimedia presentation and love letter to the city of Fayetteville, and I will give it part of that description.  It did have multimedia and the creator certainly loves Fayetteville, though I don't know if it was entirely obvious from the show itself.  Basically, it consisted of items found around town (scrawlings on bathroom walls, notes found around town, Craigslist ads) and put together into a show performed by six capable actors.

I wanted to love this show, I really did.  For me it had two problems, one of them very fixable.  That one was that the show has previously been performed on New Years Eves.  Not a problem, except the slide show referenced New Years Eve...couldn't you take that out, because it's March?

Second, with the exception of occasional references to Dickson street and Walmart and a sequence about Bikes, Blues and BBQ (the motorcycle festival that people either love or hate), the ads really could have come from anywhere.  I used to read Craigslist personal ads for fun when I was bored in Chicago, and they are totally craze balls, but it's rare to find one that is craze balls in a particularly location-specific way.

I think part of my disappointment is that I've grown to really love this town.  It's quirky, and has a lot of personality.  This is evident in the Fayetteville Flyer, particularly the comments section about community plans and such.  Like many small towns, the residents of this one have pride for their community.  They support new initiatives that will help people and actively discourage ones that will be eye sores or hurt the local economy.  The mix of people in this town is likewise awesome, from college students to Walmart officials to low-income people living on the outskirts of town who show up to dinner in a straw hat and overalls (I have seen this, I'm not exaggerating).  Likewise, the local commericals and the local news are hilarious, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.

In short, I wanted to love Found Fayetteville, and I only just liked it.  I have hopes that over time the show can develop with new found material that really lets the flavor of the town shine.

Oh, one more thing in praise of the event.  For the two nights of the show, all of the proceeds went to help one of the company members who recently had a bad work accident that resulted in loss of a finger.  This fellow works with his hands and due to his injury, business has been halted, and the family has 20K in medical bills.  So there have been some efforts to raise money for them, including a craft sale and two nights of this show.  It's stuff like that that make me love this town--people coming together to support the arts in a sheet fort and to give away proceeds to friends in need.  

Casino Buffet

Every time we drive west, to Tulsa or further (usually toward Albuquerque), we pass through a little town in western north-west Arkansas called Siloam Springs.  I am not motivated enough to try to find an audio clip that accurately portrays the way this town name is pronounced with the local accent, but suffice it to say that we both adopt an accent for five seconds every time we drive through the town.

I have nothing against this town personally.  It just happens to be on the way to Tulsa.  But, because of the stop lights and lower speed limits in the town, Siloam Springs really cramps my style and makes the trip to Tulsa take a lot longer than it would if there were an actual, you know, interstate that connected Walmart Country with Tulsa.  Point being that we are typically trying to get THROUGH Siloam Springs and have never actually stopped there.

Right at the Oklahoma border, or really at the border of Arkansas and Cherokee Nation, there is a large casino.  The Cherokee Casino and Hotel, as a matter of fact.  Everytime we drive through town, we say "Hmmm, we should stop there sometime."  Well, folks, some time has finally arrived.

As you migh recall from my last post, we recently went to the Drive-Thru Safari, which is just up the road from Siloam Springs.  So, leaving the Safari at 4:30pm on a Saturday afternoon, going to the casino seemed the logical choice of activity.

The casino was crowded.  We caught a glimpse of a couple with matching M&M jackets as we walked in....which was too awesome to not take a picture of:

Then we went inside, and it was a typical smokey casino.  Initially we were going to play the penny slots, but it seemed as though one needed a card to play the games, or some kind of ticket/token system, and I felt stupid for not being able to figure out how that worked, so after walking around the casino a few times, doing some stellar people watching, we decided our money would be better spent at the buffet.

Buffets are dangerous places.  This one had stations from all over the world, with a Mexico station, an Asian station, an Italian Station, a salad bar, a BBQ station (which I think was called "Local Favorites") and a big dessert station.  We both loaded up our plates with grub and made it through only one round before we realized that the major pull of the buffet was, in fact, the dessert station.  So we abandoned "real food" and hit up the desserts.  Round 1 involved pie.  For Round 2, I visited the chocolate fondue fountain and got strawberries, cherries and marshmallows dipped in chocolate, as well as an "ice cream" sundae and chocolate pudding.  Doug got cream puffs, his own "ice cream" sundae and more chocolate pudding.  We skipped the cobblers, the jello, the bread pudding and the cupcakes (though the cupcakes looked fancy and delicious).

We left the casino in under an hour, maybe a record for a casino goer, and only $20 poorer.  And with enough dessert to get us through the next month.

Drive thru Safari

When we first moved to Walmart Country, I was sad to learn that Groupon doesn't exist here.  I quite enjoyed getting the daily emails of random services, events and restaurant deals in Albuquerque.  Thankfully, within a few months I was informed that although Groupon doesn't live here, Living Social does.  Same deal, different name.  Living Social has given us deals for all kinds of restaurants, like the sandwich place (Hog's Breath Eatery) we thought was a BBQ joint.  If/when you ever visit us in Walmart Country, friends and family, the fried "corn nuggets" at Hog's Breath are a complete marvel.  Mmmmmmmm.

Living social has also given us deals for some other random adventures too, like the 2-for-1 admission to the Wild Wilderness Drive-Thru Safari, which we visited recently.

The safari is about 45 minutes away from Fayettville, off the road we take to Tulsa, almost at the Oklahoma border.  Some friends of ours visited and had a hard time telling us what it was like, and now that we've been there, I can see why.  It was weird, ya'll, but more fun than anticipated.

The brunt of the adventure is, as should be obvious from the name of the place, a drive thru "safari."  You take your car on a 5-mile dirt road loop around 400 acres and look at herds (yes, really, HERDS) of animals roaming around.  The more dangerous ones (lions, tigers, ligers, bears, hippos, rhinos, panthers, etc.) are caged, but the other ones (deer, elk, zebras, camels, buffalo, piggies, tons of creepy looking emus) just wander around.  Sometimes in front of your car.

Sometimes right next to your window.  I have seriously never been that close to a cow or an emu before.

 Plus, a herd of like 15 zebras running on a hill?  Pretty spectacular, albeit odd to think about in Arkansas.

In addition to the drive-thru safari, the place also has walk-thru and pet-thru parts where you can feed piggies, goats, chickens, llamas and the like.  Plus, you can hang out with kangaroos!  

In a barn-like area they also had monkeys, parrots, lizards, and snakes.  And then in a real barn, they had chickens with baby chicks, rabbits, piglets, and a couple of giraffes (one of these things is not like the other!).  I wanted to pet the giraffe but I kind of forgot to do it.

The best part, though, was the 7-month old lion cub one of the staff members had out on a leash.  A baby lion.  On a leash.  He was ridiculously cute and had such an adorable, loud, low lion roar.  This cat did not sound like a house cat.  But he sure played like one!  His paws were as big as my hands and he kept grabbing at his leash to bite it, rolling around on the ground to let people pat his tummy, and generally entertaining the crowd.  We seriously could have watched him all day:

Apparently there were some even smaller cubs people could play with in the barn area, but the line was too long and we were unwilling to wait for half an hour to even get a glimpse of the little cubbies, though now I kind of regret not doing it.  I can say that I've pet a lion, though!  His fur was much coarser than I expected, and his teeth were just as big as I expected.

Between this place and the Wild Life Refuge I wrote about awhile ago, whodda thunk there'd be so many exotic animals in/near Walmart Country?

Holiday traditions

We have started several holiday traditions which in my mind will actually count as "traditions" next year, after we've done them three times (once is just random, twice is a line, only three times do you have an actual pattern or tradition...just like a serial killer isn't a serial killer until three kills).  One of these is watching the delightfully awful ABC Family Christmas movie "12 Dates of Christmas."  Mark-Paul Gosselear, of Saved by the Bell fame, is the male lead, and it's kind of like Groundhog Day for Christmas Eve.  A self-involved woman has to do Christmas Eve over again until she gets it right (and it's 12 times, unlike the many years Bill Murray spends reliving the same day in Groundhog Day).  We watched it for the first time in December of 2011, and in 2012 we decided to watch one "date" each day leading up to Christmas.  It's our own silly advent calendar.

The other holiday we have a tradition-in-the-making for is Valentine's Day.  Now, I have mixed feelings about V-day.  On the one hand, it's nice to celebrate romance. Who doesn't like gifts, chocolate, or flowers?  On the other hand, why does one need a day for that?  The expectations are high, the single people are sad, and I doubt anyone has the perfect romantic date of their dreams.  Sure, restaurants make a lot of money and I'm sure the lingerie business sees a nice boom, but overall I can't really get into the hype.

Therefore, we have started what I like to call "trashy Valentine's day."  Instead of going to a nice, romantic restaurant, we go to a kind of trashy place that we wouldn't otherwise go to very often.  Last year we went to Hooters.

Ever since February 15th, 2012, I knew where we were going to go this year: Chick-fil-A.  Here's the thing: I've never been to a Chick-fil-A.  I love me some KFC and other fast food fried chicken, but we didn't have Chick-fil-A where I grew up and I just never got into it.  But it's huge here in Walmart Country (and all over the South).  Last spring at some point I mentioned to my undergrad class that I'd never been there and they all freaked out; one of them tried to organize a class field trip to the closest Chick-fil-A right then and there.  But after class one of my more politically active students came up to me and told me that Chick-fil-A is anti-gay, which I then verified by the many stories on the Internet, so I thought it would be good to boycott the anti-gay, super religious establishment.

Except here's the thing.  Boycotts are more meaningful (to me, at least) when you know what you're missing. It's like giving up motorcycle riding for Lent when you've never been on a motorcycle.  So I decided it would be best to go to Chick-fil-A just once, and then boycott.  Thus the plan for Valentine's day was born.

Also, Chick-fil-A does Valentine's day up.  Last year it was a romantic candlelit dinner.  This year the theme was "A night in Paris."  Seriously, it was.  See?

It was more spectacular than I ever dreamed.  Inside the tables were decorated with black tablecloths and red table runners (note: they also gave free desserts, either cookies or a little ice cream sundae!):

All the people working were wearing berets or black and white striped tops, and/or red neck scarves.  And they brought the food to the table.  This is actually our waiter delivering our food:

The best part part, though, was the corner of the place where they'd set up a little Parisian cafe, complete with a violin player and a big ass cow dressed as a French beat poet or something.  How awesome is this:

The place was packed, which was probably the biggest surprise to me, as Hooters was dead last year.  The staff and guests alike appeared to be in an excellent mood, and there were people on hand taking pictures of guests with the big French cow.

Are there pictures of us with the cow?  Well yes, yes there are.  But thusfar my tradition has been to avoid personal pictures on this blog, which I will uphold today.  I will say, however, that in a very small position of defiance against Chick-fil-A's anti-gay leanings, I did dress in drag for our Night in Paris.  Not very well, either.  Doug dressed up in a shirt and tie, and I did the same--wearing his shirt, tie and khacki pants.  We got quite a few weird looks around the restaurant, and the staff member taking pictures did NOT offer to put ours up on the Facebook page.

Still, I feel the night was a success (note: after dinner we went to the arcade and then watched the "excellent" 80s breakdancing movie Electric Boogaloo).  One more step toward a legitimate holiday tradition, and a full step into a legitimate boycott.  Trashy Valentines day is absolutely a tradition we enjoy upholding.  Stay tuned to see where we go next year!

Sheet forts and improv groups

Last year sometime, shortly after we moved here, we went to a performance of a local improv troupe and were less than impressed.  The audience seemed to like it, but with my Big City background and Doug's actual improv training, plus with our general judgmental natures, we found much to complain about.

Yet, it was the only game in town, so we went again a few weeks ago and were equally unimpressed.  We walked home feeling like snobs--we'd *wanted* to like them, we had hope they had perhaps improved over the year, and the audience was even larger and more enthusiastic than last year.  Obviously they are catering to their audience well, and if the goal is to make money, they look like they are having some success.  But we felt many of the games went on too long, they gave too much power to the audience (e.g. don't TELL the audience what the nouns and adjectives are going to be used for, that's less funny!), etc.

Then, miraculously, the tide turned.  In reading the Fayetteville Flyer, I learned about some "fringey" (word used by the artistic director herself) theatre company in town called Artists Laboratory Theatre who are hosting a month of shows in a sheet fort. Yes, you heard me, a sheet fort.  They have a small space rented out that they've draped sheets all over, and put up some lights to make a stage.  They're doing all kinds of fun stuff, from long form musical improv (more on that in a second) to viewing movies (Goonies! In a sheet fort!) to open mic storytelling nights, etc.  The company also does "secret theatre" where 10 audience members are taken to a random location for a special performance. It's just the kind of fun, fringey types of theatre that I've always enjoyed, and very local.

It was a performance-heavy week for us, as we saw shows three nights in a row.  First the movie Amour (the last best picture nominee--I've now seen all 9!), the next night the touring production of Hair, and then musical improv.  While I'm here, we had fun at Hair, although Doug was perturbed about the cast interacting with the audience.  I thought it was fun, and we both got up and danced on stage with the cast at the end.

The sheet fort show was really fun.  A beer company donated beer that they sold for super cheap, lights bouncing off the sheets, performers peeking their heads through gaps in the sheets to be silly....it was a lighthearted, fun performance.  They did two "long form" improvs, one beginning with a song and the other incorporating music throughout.  We had a great time.  Afterward I went up to talk to the Artistic Director of the Artists Laboratory Theatre (who we've seen in several shows in town) and chatted with her for awhile.  We're going to go back to their storytelling night next week, and Doug may attend a rehearsal of the improv group; he's been hoping/wishing to get back into that and this may be an opportunity.

In short, yay for the sheet fort!

Snow freakouts

Sorry for the long absence, ya'll.  I was doing so well at posting regularly in the fall and then....nothing for two months.

In those two months, we spent two weeks in Albuquerque over Christmas, and almost a week in New Orleans, Louisiana, at a conference.  Doug came along to the conference too and hung out with friends while I spent my days listening to research talks with my four stellar undergrad companions.

Mostly I've been putting my nose to the grindstone, trying to get a bunch of papers out over the first portion of this year, and due the conference it's taken awhile to adjust to the craziness of this semester.  Not to mention that even though I'm teaching two classes I've taught before, I'm always updating and trying to improve the student's learning, which means more prep work than I would like.  But still, things are trucking along nicely.

Until now we haven't had a ton of things to post about, because we haven't been doing a whole lot out of the norm (working, watching TV, trying to see all the Oscar movies, etc.), but it is winter in Walmart Country, and thus worth spending a bit of time talking about the weather.

The weather here is really quite lovely and mild during the winter (the summers are soppy drippy gross hot).  Highs in the 40s and 50s, lows in the 20s and 30s, very little snow or rain.  Similar to Albuquerque winter weather, actually, but without the dryness.

"Nice winter" actually translates to "complete freak out when snow might fall."  Granted, this region got hit with a couple of big storms a few years ago that resulted in the University shutting down for over a week and many power outages.  Also, it's below freezing at night and above freezing during the day, so when it snows/rains and then hardens into ice, navigating the hills on car or on foot can be pretty tricky.  And, of course, they don't have the salt and dirt and general "winter machinery" to move the snow around like the northern cities do.  Still, though, this town freaks out when a storm hits.

Earlier this week we had a snowstorm the likes of which Chicago would scoff at and Minneapolis would barely even notice.  Here, though?  Classes were cancelled in the afternoon into the next morning, University offices were shut down, and everywhere we went people said "Stay warm!"  The last part was particularly amusing to me, as it's been much colder here this winter.  I guess people just lump "snow and freezing rain" into "it must be cold out."  Throughout all of this, I was at work on time, enjoying the lack of activity in the hallways, and happy to wear my winter boots one day this year.  The snow was gone within a day, though there is a leafy, dirty snowman a couple of blocks away that is still standing.

Grilled cheeses!

I've lost track of what I've talked about and what I haven't, but I'm pretty sure I haven't devoted an entire post to what is one of the shining gems of Walmart Country: the grilled cheese restaurant known as Hammontrees. 

Hammontrees is in the heart of Fayetteville, in the "entertainment district" right of of Dickson street.  I've been there a couple of times for lunch, but Doug had never been before.  He has, however, been to the food truck owned and operated by Hammontrees, called the Grillenium Falcon.

I believe it was around the time that I found the Grillenium Falcon photo on the website and showed it to Doug when he said "Hmmm, maybe I could move to Fayetteville."  Perhaps a coincidence?

Anyway, both the restaurant and the food truck serve delicious fancy grilled cheeses with fun names.  My normal order is "Brie's Company," which has apple, brie, gouda, onions and fig jam--it is so so tasty.  This time I branched out and ordered the "Cheebacca" which is a bunch of cheese, bacon, pulled pork, and grilled onions.  Also mighty fine. Doug ordered a buffalo chicken grilled cheese sandwich (the "White Buffalo").

The sandwiches are tasty, we were able to sit on the porch outside on a fine Saturday afternoon (in December!), which felt like a novelty in and of itself, and the real kicker came from the side order of sweet potato fries.

I must wax poetic here for a minute.  Maybe sweet potato fries weren't really a thing when I was younger, or maybe I just never happened to encounter them, but sweet potato fries add a measurable level of quality to my life.  I'm only so-so on actual sweet potatos, but the fries? YUM!  And these SPF provide me with some serious protection from hunger and gloom, let me tell you.  I will say that Hammontrees' sweet potato fries are among the best I've ever had, and they might be the ACTUAL best I've ever had, but I'll need to visit again to be sure. Maybe a few more times, just to be really sure.  Nothin' like a Saturday afternoon walking around town, the sun shining, and sweet potato fries in my belly.