Our family rule is you have to either spend the night or see a “major” tourist attraction to count having been to a state. (Just driving through or connecting in an airport does not count.) As we weren’t going to spend the night, we made sure to see a number of attractions, as I was the only person who’d been to Arkansas.
We had downloaded Roadside America as a recommendation, and it came in handy today. Our first stop was the 30-Foot-Tall Dancing Hog. “He's the largest hog in the world, and the second tallest statue in Arkansas.”
From there, we headed to Bentonville to see the Birthplace of Walmart - Walton’s 5-10. With social distancing, we couldn’t go see the museum, but it was still neat to drive by and see it. The town still has some of its original charm, but also has had significant investment and modernization from the Walmart empire.
Our major stop was the Pea Ridge National Military Park. A cold front blew into the area today, and it was 39 degrees and windy when we got there. Turns out there is a great driving tour, which saved the day. We got to tour the park, with Jason reading aloud about each of the sites.
The cold front also unfortunately altered our other plans. We had found a beautiful campground not far from Branson West along a river. A cold front blew through that came further south than we expected, and it's in the low 30’s in Missouri. Rather than stay there when we wouldn’t be outside to enjoy it, we decided to keep driving. We did another 100 miles to Lebanon, Missouri. Its also quite cold here. We found a beautiful RV park, also right along a river, but aren’t getting to enjoy it much as it's 35 degrees outside. Given it might get below freezing tonight, we also only have the electric hooked up on the RV to avoid the water line freezing. We still have full water functions, just working off the tank in the RV which has more than enough for the night.
Doing this trip doing “social distancing” definitely changes how you plan the trip. It reminds you how much of our tourism revolves around museums, stores and restaurants. We drove past so many interesting local establishments ranging from Native American crafts to local woodworking to local markets. Eating local is one of my favorite ways to learn and experience a culture. We stocked the RV up so that we could be independent, but decided to support a local business for dinner tonight. Near the campground was a catfish and BBQ joint that had won a number of awards, and their facebook page said they were still open for carry-out with COVID-19 precautions. We decided to pick up dinner there. They definitely were taking the coronavirus seriously. The woman working carry-out put on a new set of disposable gloves when I walked in. They were cleaning the menus and countertop with bleach after each order. They were incredibly thankful for our business. We took the food back to our campsite and had dinner in the RV - enjoying some great local food. It’s an interesting balance of wanting to support a local business and keeping distant.
One of the other interesting things about today was that a lot of our driving wasn’t on major interstates. Most of our trip has been through national parks or on major multi-lane highways. About half of our trip today was on highways and roads through both rural and suburban areas enabling us to see more of the local culture.
With the extra driving, we are roughly 1000 miles from home, so we won’t need many long days and can try to find more things to do along the way!
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