Lily Pad Travels: Little Rock, Arkansas - Clinton Presidential Library, Flooding and Trolley tour

Tuesday June 2nd, 2015

We decided that we would walk across the Clinton Presidential Bridge, a former train bridge that was converted into a pedestrian bridge, and along the river walk to the farmers market and see what we could find. The bridge opened in 2011 completing a 14 mile bicycle river loop along the Arkansas River. Maybe one day we will come back and ride on the loop but unfortunately we won't have time this trip.

As we crossed the bridge over the river, flooding was evident on the opposite side by the library and in the wetlands.

The trees are in the water with the Presidential Library in the background

Clinton Presidential Library with a reflection of the flags on the side.

In the picture below, taken from the opposite side of the bridge, the trees should be on land. This is the area that is the Wetlands part of the park. You can see the roofs of the educational classrooms just above the water level. The pathways through the wetlands are mostly under water.

William E Clark Presidential Wetlands tells you about the Wetlands and the first picture on this site shows what this area looks like when it is not flooded. Please compare, you will see how flooded this area is!!!

The following picture is taken from the bank facing the bridge and shows the tops of the educational buildings in the wetlands that are in the distance in the picture above. This is directly across the river from our campground but we couldn't see the flooding from there because the trees blocked the view.

William E Clark statue

These boats had been pushed up against the shrubbery by the flooding. A row of turtles were sunbathing on the log in front.

Here's a close up

Further along the river, these three turtles from small to medium to bigger, perched precariously on this log. Were they making the baby walk the plank!!!!!

Love this picture!!!

More flooding shown by the tops of the trees just above the water.

The Presidential Bridge from a footpath along the river above the flooded wetlands.

Part of the bridge that used to rise to allow ships through

Further along the river path we saw this bicycle station complete with repair accessories and tire pump. What a great idea.

We continued our walk along the bank

Wild Flowers

We could see our campground across the river in the distance.

Past the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission

Coming up to the Farmers Market, we bought some fruit.

Bird feeders on high poles, what a good idea. See the bird on the right one.

The Riverfest Stage, an outdoor auditorium on the riverside for concerts.

Reach for the Sky statue of 4 children playing

These police horses were tied up by the Farmers market. Strange to see police horses in a town.

A British phone box, now made into a book exchange. You can swop books here. Another great idea.

Metal Figurine

Chinese/Japanese style

We walked around downtown and looked for a trolley bus stop as we decided to take a ride around on the trolley. We eventually found a stop and saw that a streetcar was due in 5 minutes so we sat patiently and waited. Sure enough along it came, we had a 2 for 1 pass and so it cost $2 for an all day ticket for the two of us.

We stayed on the bus for the first loop that took us through the Historic District and across the river and back again.

Policeman on his horse

Riding across the river

USS Razorback, a submarine you can tour but we stayed on the trolley.

Steamboats…..

The driver, and a nice lady with her grandson who recommended we get off at the historic area as there were some interesting things to do there. We decided we would do the whole tour and then go back to the historic district to look around.

Bryan enjoying the ride

We rode all around and then got off near where we got on. We decided to have some lunch and went to the indoor market area and had a sandwich. It wasn't that good but at least we were no longer hungry.

We went back to the trolley stop to get the trolley back to the Historic District and a military museum that we were interested in. It turned out that the trolley didn't go to the museum so we got on it expecting to go to the Historic area and ended up at the Clinton museum. Ordinarily we could have just stayed on the trolley and it would have continued onto the historic district but it broke down!!!! They weren't sure how long it would take and we decided not to wait. We had seen the historic district from the trolley just hadn't walked around.

The trolley broke down!!

We walked pass the Heifer International Center and debated whether to go in but decided to skip it and go to the Clinton Museum instead. We were both a little irritated that we couldn't get to the military museum or the historic area but it was getting later and we didn't want to hang around any longer so the Clinton Museum was convenient.

Neither of us are Bill or Hilary fans but as we were here why not look around. We knew Bryan would be free so would just have to pay for me. Well surprise surprise they let me in free as well!!

There was a dinosaur exhibition going on. One way of getting people to visit.

Here are videos of the animated dinosaurs, especially for Leanne, Aimee, Bailey, Kai, Adrian and any other children who may want to watch. Dinosaur VIDEO one Dinosaur VIDEO 2

Presidential Limousine

As you probably know Bill is a saxophone player. There was quite a collection on display.

I have to say I thought the library was very well laid out and very interesting. In the picture below you can see the bookshelves with the presidential papers on. You were unable to read these but there were binders that held the itineraries for each day he was in office, so you could look up what he did on any specific day. I looked up June 25th, 1993 which was my 40th birthday. Bill was in the White House holding regular meetings, nothing too earth shattering happening for him that day. I, on the other hand, was preparing to leave my homeland England, and embark on a life in the good old USA. I left UK in November 1993 with Bryan and Ryan. They say life begins at 40 and for me it certainly did.