Tuesday, August 19, 2014

A Visit to a Presidential Library and Museum

Our next stop was to a pretty Corps of Engineer park near Little Rock, Arkansas. Maumelle Park is on the Arkansas River and we got a nice waterfront site to spend a few days.
There were some other spots in a different section that were even nicer but only had 30 AMP and we really wanted 50 AMP to run the air conditioner as it is still very hot.  We are near a boat harbor but still have a good view of the water.





The main reason we wanted to stop in this area was to see the William J Clinton Center and Park and so we headed off on the short drive to Little Rock.  The center includes the Clinton Presidential Library as well as the Clinton Foundation. It is on the Arkansas River. In fact the Main Building cantilevers over the River echoing Clinton's campaign promise of "Building a Bridge to the 21st Century."














It is a very well done museum.

Per Wikipedia
 The archives are the largest as well, containing 2 million photographs, 80 million pages of documents, 21 million e-mail messages, and 79,000 artifacts from the Clinton presidency.[7][8] The Clinton Library is also the most expensive, with all funding coming from 112,000 private donations


 It has an exhibit of Clinton's  campaign and inauguration and a timeline of  his eight years in office. Also an exhibition of his youth and campaigns for Attorney General, Congress and Governor. Other exhibits are of Vice President Gore and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Holidays and other events and life in the White House with the first family, including daughter Chelsea, and even pictures of Socks and Buddy.











A few of the many gifts received by dignitaries from around the world.









Some holiday pictures and other artifacts below










Some of Clinton's saxes that he has played since his youth and a Real Cool Cat named Socks.



There was a full sized replica of the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room.


Nice View below from the upper floor and an exhibition of the work of American artist Dale Chihuly.
He is created with revolutionizing the Studio Glass movement. 




This was our first visit to a Presidential Library and we will have to make time to visit some other ones in our future travels.
The next day we drove back into Little Rock to stop at an afternnon farmer's market. I thought it would be bigger but I think their Saturday market probably is. They just started doing a Tuesday late afternoon one.We walked around the River Market area which is on or a street over from the Arkansas River. It was still very hot and not much going on and so we went back to our campsite and just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with our lovely water view.
Next stop is Oklahoma.

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