Day 5: Arkansas & (finally) Texas

It was brutal today. It POURED, all day, every minute, torrential. It was challenging, no, ridiculous, trying to take photos today. But I did what I could. The results aren't too shabby but if you look closely, you'll see little lines of rain and puddles on the ground. I didn't have raingear so I would get soaked every time I got out of the car. Constantly drying off the poor camera. And now, just an hour east of Dallas, TX in Greenville, at 11:30pm, it's snowing! Swirling huge flakes for hours now but the ground temperature so far is too warm to stick. Supposedly, there will be sun tomorrow.

Since I got a sense of the lousy weather early, I decided to hit some more things in Arkansas on my "so-so list". Those are things that I would not ordinarily go out of my way to see unless I have time (which normally never happens). The stuff in NE TX that I want to shoot would be nice to get in the sun so I deliberately let myself fall a day behind schedule in hopes of better conditions. And as it turned out, it was fun to spend more time in Arkansas after all and I got plenty of worthwhile stuff.

Here are some of today's sights.

I don't know what this type of farm equipment is called -- threshers? -- but they are very visually pleasing:



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Texarkana is great fun. Half Texas, Half Arkansas. Lots of nice signs and a variety of architecture. This one is on the Arkansas side of Stateline Avenue:



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This place is on the Texas side of town. When is someone at Flickr going to start a Bail Bonds Signs group?



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This building has some nice old world touches. Sorry about the rain smear over "Chicks".






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Not quite worthy of my website -- but deserving honorable mention -- although many folks would deem these mid-century buildings ghastly.

a bank from Texarkana, AR (note the cars are lined up from the tellers stationed in booths beneath the building; and a cool spiral staircase in a glass box)



a former "Motor Bank" from Magnolia, AR



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a fun plastic facade in Clarksville, TX:



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Some other misc. stuff.

An Egyptian Revival Masonic Temple in El Dorado, AR:



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Oil discoveries in the 1920s transformed El Dorado into a boomtown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado,_Arkansas



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Some building re-uses are better than others. This one in Paris, TX is particularly gruesome: