Arkansas, Land of Opportunity. Arkansas, Oh, What You Do to Me.

Okay. So, remember how I said we went to Fayetteville to race a couple of weeks ago? Well, it just happened to be the first time I've ever been to not only Fayetteville, but to the whole state of Arkansas before.

I haven't really spent any time in the South, and so I have all of these stereotypes in my head from TV and movies about how Southerners are racist and misogynistic, and from watching "Deliverance" in particular, they might terrorize and rape Northerners, but worst of all, I heard that people dress up a lot more to just do simple things, like go out to eat or get a drink at a bar. Really, though, how frightening is that?

Well, I'm happy to report, we didn't encounter any of those stereotypes when we were down in Arkansas.

One of the things I like about going to different towns to race cyclocross, is checking out a new city and finding out the best places to eat and drink and look at art and get tea and whatever other things to do in a new town.

I checked things out ahead of time, and decided on Friday night we would get good seafood at the Power House, that used to be an old power station building back in the day. I also wanted to go to Maxine's Tap Room, not just because it has the same name as my grandma and my niece, but because it was rated one of the best cocktail bars in the country by Esquire magazine. It was such a cute place and all of the bartenders were super sweet and attentive, even to us old people. Also, because I can't really drink alcohol when I have a migraine, they had what they called temperance cocktails. I got a non-alcoholic drink made with mashed strawberries and some kind of lemon lime soda (?). It was amazing.

I loved the cool sculptures around town.

I read about the old post office close to campus, and we wandered over on Saturday afternoon after we got done watching the pros race.

The little walkway around the post office was so pretty.

Even the utility boxes were gussied up.

We walked around the whole downtown area and checked out the murals.

There was an area that was kind of like a mall, that had a bunch of different peace sculptures.

After our little walk, we went into eat at a place called Cheers at the OPO (old post office). It was really cool inside. We sat at the bar and had really good food. We got fried artichoke hearts as an appetizer and they were so damn good.

On Sunday we raced in the rain and mud and had some time to kill before the we went back to watch the pro women race, so we went to Torchy's Tacos for lunch. We went to the Torchy's in Austin when we were there in 2015, and we loved the food. So, we went back for more in Fayetteville. It was just as delicious as ever.

So, my take on Fayetteville and Arkansas? I give it an enthusiastic two thumbs up. The food and drinks were great, the art around the downtown area was plentiful, and the people were so nice and friendly. Most importantly, we didn't really have to dress up to eat or drink anywhere. We'll be back!