Jim and I are off to Fayetteville, Arkansas, tomorrow – home of Walmart and the Clintons. We haven’t blogged since we went to Argentina, but we had more comments from friends and colleagues to ‘take pictures’ and ‘tell us what it’s like’ than we did for Argentina, so we thought we should comment on it.

Some background on why we diehard blue-state Easterners are going to the heartland: We took a bike trip to Bordeaux in 1990 that was run by Jane and Julian Archer. The tour was incredible – we were a group of 8, and we got into the wine cellars and tasting rooms of the premiere chateaux. We split a case of sauterne from the barrel with the Archer’s, so we had to visit them in Paris a couple years later to pick up our bottles.

Since then, we’ve stayed in touch via Christmas cards.

Now Jane and Julian (Arch) have opened a luxury inn in Arkansas, on property that was in the family for years. The place looks fabulous – visit it at www.prattplaceinn.com. And the Archers are throwing a grand opening with three days of partying. Ah, three days of partying – now you know why we’re going to Arkansas!

So stay tuned – we hope to educate our fellow Easterners (and ourselves) on Arkansas, and probably have a good time too.