September 24 Road Trip

With my hiking stick

Today was a real sightseeing day. We were headed to Arkansas to the Pea Ridge National Military Park. We weren’t 10 minutes on these up and down and curvy Ozark Mountain roads til I was feeling rather nauseous. I put the seat back, loosened the waist of my pants and tried to just close my eyes. Well, it wasn’t working. The road got curvier and I got sicker. I finally had to ask Bill to stop so I could lie in the back seat. By about the time we arrived at the park, I was feeling rather green but managed to get into the park and went and washed my face and felt better. They have a nice movie there about the battle and battle strategy at Pea Ridge, another Civil War battle. I got another 2 stamps in my book, one of the battle and one of the Trail of Tears.  The displays were also very good. One that I read all the way through was a listing of excerpts from diaries and journals of various soldiers on both sides. They described the cold weather (the battle was in March), the exhaustion, the feeling of watching friends die and even how the area smelled from the bodies and pile of amputated hands, arms and legs. I just can’t imagine. Once again the dead and wounded for both sides totaled over 2,000 after the 2 days of fighting at intervals. At one point the Confederates had taken control but then due to “human” error and poor judgment of the commanding officer, the Union gained control on the second day and kept it. So not good for the Confederates as this victory gave the Union control of Missouri, even though the battle was in Arkansas. We did get to see two does on our drive.

We did the driving tour and they have an excellent overlook of the entire battlefield. The park service has also restored the grounds to just like they were at the time of the battle, including fields and tree areas. When we got to the Elkhorn Tavern, which was where the overtaking took place, we stopped and had our picnic lunch in the truck, then completed the tour.

The first Wal-Mart

The Walton 5 and Dime

We were not far from Roger, AK, where the first “Wal-Mart” store was built, 4 miles from Bentonville, AK, home of Wal-Mart. The store is no longer a store as they built a Super Wal-Mart just down the road from it. It is now a claims center for Wal-Mart. I wanted to see how old Sam got it all started so we drove into downtown Bentonville to the old town square where the Walton’s 5 – 10 was. It was turned into a Wal-Mart Visitor Center but is currently being refurbished so the temporary one was just around the corner. Of course, I had to go and check it out. It has memorabilia such as items the store carried in the 40’s, lots of photos from then and the history of the town, information on the Walton family and a timeline of the growth and development of Wal-Mart. We left after purchasing some postcards, magnets and 2 mini Moon Pies, but they don’t have marshmallow in them, thank goodness.

We asked directions back to the road we wanted to go home on and the lady didn’t give very good ones, as we thought we were lost, well, not lost, but not exactly where she said we’d be. We stopped and asked and ended up only ½ mile from the road we wanted, which was good but not how we had planned to get there. Once again the road was really curvy and up and down so I immediately laid my seat back, loosened my pants waist, got my pillow and closed my eyes. Bill said I missed seeing Eureka Springs, AK and that it was a really neat town, but I have no problem passing on it. Once we got to the main road (a different way than we came) it was 4 lane and nice so I sat up and talked to Bill on the way. Still wasn’t feeling my best but way better than the drive down.

We didn’t get home til 5 so Xena was really ready for a walk. We had a notice on the door that we had mail so we stopped by and picked up the mail packet from Kam. She sent the missing kitchen knife that I wanted and several sets of debit/credit cards, and of course bills. Ugh! Can’t get away from them.

We had leftover venison, leftover potatoes and fresh glazed carrots for dinner. After dinner I baked a small peach crisp for tomorrow night as we are heading back to AR in the morning. Will be sure to take the better road this time. I paid the bills, and wrote a couple of cards to mail. Did a load of wash and I’m pooped!