Happy Third Birthday, Carter!

As we headed north out of Arkansas, it didn't take long before we crossed another state line. We took the picture below to capture our entrance into Missouri, but we also caught the fact that the price of gasoline is now up to $2.61. The price of fuel has gone up considerably since January!

We drove through just the southwest corner of Missouri before we crossed another state line into Oklahoma. We're on a schedule to meet up with a very important group of people to celebrate a very important event. Notice that everyone is holding up three fingers in this overhead drone picture?

That's because our granddaughter, Carter, is celebrating her third birthday!

We celebrated this momentous occasion all weekend! We ate cake and took boat rides on the lake . . .

fed the horses . . .

and rode the golf cart.

We were also so glad to see to see our grandson, Eli, who just turned six-months old and is now sporting three teeth.

Grand-dude and Gram are so excited to spend this time with our grandchildren, 

our son, 

and our daughter-in-law!

We camped at the Oklahoma state park--Honey Creek--just a few miles away from the lake house in Grove. So on the last evening, Carter came to spend the night with us.

She loves to visit the "moto-home" and this was her second successful overnight stay with us. We bought a new cot just for her, and we are glad to find out that she loved sleeping on it.

We love our ability to travel full-time, but we wouldn't miss these opportunities to spend time with the people we love!

Happy third birthday, Carter!

We're storing the motor home . . . but it won't be lonely

After our long drive back to Oklahoma from the tip of Texas, we're putting the motor home in storage for a while. We are blessed that we have a first-class place to store it this time. Mark's brother and sister-in-law offered to let us park it at their place. This is the first time the motor home has had a roof over its head since we bought it almost seven years ago. With 50-amp electricity, it is very happy with its home for now.

It has a view of the pond . . .

with the bachelor mallard that has taken up residence here.

There's a resident cat patrolling for mice, and three horses just over the fence.

Even though we're not fans of grackles, this one was almost iridescent in the sunshine by the pond.

The motor home shouldn't be lonely, with the songs of the meadowlark to keep it entertained.

The weather was lovely, and we took a walk down the driveway. Can you see what we found?

Right in the center of the picture above is a killdeer nest with two eggs. We had to do some research to find that the mother killdeer will lay 2-4 eggs over the course of a week or so. The first eggs will lay patiently until the mother begins sitting on the rock nest after all the eggs are laid. The warmth of the mother will stimulate all the eggs to begin forming baby birds at the same time, so they will all hatch at the same time. The mother killdeer is on alert now, and will fake a broken wing to lure any strangers away from her nest. 

We found another nest near the pool, and did more research. Even though the killdeer bird is about the same size as a robin, these eggs are much bigger than a tiny blue robin egg. They have enough food inside to nourish a baby killdeer far longer. So the just-hatched killdeer baby will be much bigger than the tiny, bald, blind, baby robins that must be fed in the nest when they hatch. In fact, these baby killdeer will walk right out of the nest and begin feeding themselves within hours of hatching. We have discovered more of God's wonders just wandering around here!

As the sun sets on the motor home in its storage spot, we are packing our bags to leave without it. But if it keeps its windshield open, it might even see those baby birds as they hatch and leave those rock nests. We're storing it for a while . . . but with all the animals here it won't be lonely.

Checking out Bentonville, Arkansas and All things Walmart

When we originally booked a camping stay in northeast Arkansas, we knew that this was the headquarters of the Walmart corporation. Everything was shut down last October because of the pandemic, and we couldn't have visited any tourist attractions anyway, since we had Covid.  But with our current return trip, we are ready to visit "all things Walmart." We started with the original five-and-dime store in downtown Bentonville where this retail empire had its humble beginnings.

Now a museum, they request that visitors make appointments so they can socially distance people by time. We started with a video, and then read displays with time-lines that explained Sam Walton's progress through retail. When Sam decided to lay new tile in this first store, he bought miss-matched tiles that he got at a bargain price. Those red and green tiles are still looking good in the museum.

He continued to look for bargains, passing them on to his customers. As he built more stores, he usually visited them in his favorite old pickup--now on display in the museum.

Even though he was one of the wealthiest men in the United States, he didn't flaunt that wealth. From driving an old pickup to working at his old desk, he was a simple man. Detailed pictures were taken before disassembling his old office, and then it was put back together here in the museum. 

Famous for allowing customers to bring back merchandise that they weren't satisfied with, the museum also displays some interesting returns. They include this obviously crushed tennis rack because the customer "could not serve well with it."

Walmart also took back this outdoor thermometer because "it never had the correct time."

It was a fun museum with no admission fee. We also liked that Walmart runs the Spark Cafe next door, where they sell snacks from their store inventory. We made more than one purchase here.

This stop included a 99-cent ice cream cone for Mark, and a 50-cent cutie cone for Denisa.

Walmart corporation has gone through several CEOs since Sam Walton died in 1992. His three sons and one daughter have been active in the business. His daughter has also spear-headed the most prominent tourist attraction in Bentonville--The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

We discovered that the art museum was closed on Tuesdays, and that was the day we planned to visit. But the beautifully natural grounds surrounding it are filled with trails, and they are open every day.

We walked along the outdoor sculpture trail, to find interesting exhibits outside.

Who could possibly resist a picture with a pig with such a sweet expression? (No comment here about which one we are writing about!?!)

Who could possibly resist a picture with this scary mother? (No comment here about which one we are writing about !?!) The title of this sculpture is "Maman"--French for "Mom." The artist explains that she sees a spider as caring, helpful, and hard-working, looming over her children in a protective way--the way she remembers her mother.

Even without going inside the museum, we could walk for miles around the grounds, entertained by what we saw.

The grounds also include a Frank Lloyd Wright house, that is currently closed because of Covid restrictions.

We were glad to see that the locals also seem to make good use of the 5-miles of hiking trails that the Walton family foundation has made available to the public. We saw many people out getting their exercise among the white and pink dogwoods during our visit.

Even though the outdoor sculptures were great, we didn't quite feel like our visit was complete. So we decided to drop by the indoor museum on our way out of town. No fee is charged, but they ask that visitors call ahead for a ticket so they can monitor crowd numbers. We didn't have any problems securing a free ticket, but we were surprised at how full the large parking lot was when we arrived in our motor home. A walk down to the entrance brought us by another huge outdoor sculpture. There's construction barriers in this area, as they are planning another new addition to Crystal Bridges.

Once inside, we visited all the rooms filled with paintings and sculptures. We took a few pictures of our favorites. We are always amazed at the detailed paintings like this one of George Washington by one of the old masters (Charles Wilson Peale) of the 1700s.

We also love Norman Rockwell's version of Rosie the Riveter from 1943.

Denisa was anxious to see a rendition of the Last Supper, made with spools of thread. She had seen a picture of it, and she was looking forward to seeing it in person. But when we couldn't find it anywhere, we asked about it. The display was removed to the storage vault just last week. They rotate art displays every eight years, so we'll have to come back around 2029 to see it. So instead, we pictured this interesting display. It took us some time to see that it spelled a phrase.

"We the People" is made up of shoe laces discovered in and around New York City.

We always enjoy Chihuly art, and these giant glass spheres were hanging from the ceiling high over our heads.

But God is our favorite artist. We took this picture of Mark standing beside this large God-made crystal. Even inside a man-made art gallery, we can wander God's wonders!

Our last stop in Bentonville is right across the parking lot at the children's museum--Amazeum. It was closed by the time we arrived, but we enjoyed a walk around the outside exhibits.

Our granddaughter enjoys the Goldilocks story, so we had to take a picture of Mark in the great big Father-Bear chair . . .

and Denisa in the medium Mother-Bear chair.

They also had a traveling seesaw display outside, that the parking lot host encouraged us to try. Too big to fit both ends into one picture, the see saws lit up and made electronic sounds as we went up and down on the "Seesaw Impulse" display.

Our four-day stay at Prairie Creek Campground near Rogers and Bentonville, Arkansas, has been filled with hiking and kayaking and sight-seeing--all of the things we couldn't do last October when we visited here. Besides all the nature-filled things to do in this area, we obviously had a great time checking out Bentonville and all things Walmart too!