We left Branson Monday morning and went back into Arkansas to Bentonville – the birthplace of Walton’s 5 and 10 – the original Wal-Mart. They have a museum, shop and soda fountain. The town is very nice and spread out with Wal-Mart logistics, transportation etc. headquartered there. As much as some people may hate Wal-Mart, it’s quite a story. We went north back into Missouri and stopped in Joplin at Cunningham Park where several memorials now reside from the devastating tornado of 2011. We made it to Springfield that afternoon (didn’t find Homer Simpson) and stayed in a hotel. Doug had to fly to Austin really early on Tuesday for some meetings and Fran stayed behind in the hotel for a 2nd night before he returned on Wednesday. The weather here is sunny then thunderstorms but thank goodness it’s not like what’s been going on in Texas; we feel for those people. Imagine 12 inches of rain in one night!
We took in Game 6 of the Chicago/Anaheim series at a sports bar in downtown Springfield. It was not very busy – maybe about 20 patrons and we were the ONLY ones watching hockey – but they did give us a big screen to ourselves with sound and we had a fun time. We parked in a quiet neighbourhood near a city park and the next morning we took advantage of the tennis courts and went out and made fools of ourselves! That was fun.
We spent Friday night at Pomme de Terre Lake State Park and did a hike Saturday morning out to Indian Point. Unfortunately it began raining before we got to the Point but we slogged through it and were totally drenched by the time we got back to the rig. Luckily we’d not had our showers yet! Fun, fun, fun!
We are heading to Lake Ozark now where we have another condo booked for a week at a great deal again. It’s right on the lake and we have large balcony overlooking the yacht club marina. It’s very, very quiet at this resort – far enough from main road so you hear no traffic. There are two pools: one indoor and one out as well as a small hot tub.
Later that week….
We had a relaxing week although weather was very unsettled; not a lot of sun, some thunder storms, cool a couple of days, rain at some point pretty much every day and growing humidity. Glad our condo had AC! Friday the sun came out for the whole afternoon. We went for walks every day, watched game 7 of the Western Conference Finals and then Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, checked out a rummage sale one day and a park near the Bagnell Dam another.
We began the drive via minor roads to Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday the 6th of June, in weather that continued to be a mixed bag. We stopped in Warrensburg for the night at a Lowes and braved an extremely humid night. Yuck!
As we drove westward, we would drive past batches of trees and hear a strange sound; first we thought it was the truck; turns out it was periodical cicadas. They come out every 13th or 17th year (depending if you are in eastern or western Missouri) and make huge ruckus. After feeding off the roots of trees for years, they come up near the end fo their lives to mate. The male makes the noise to attract a female. After mating, she then makes tiny slits in the tree to lay her eggs. After about a month the eggs will mature into insects and crawl back into the ground to begin the cycle again.
Sunday we drove to Powell Gardens near Kingsville, outside of Kansas City, and met up with a colleague of Doug’s, Tom, who is a member there. He took us on a walk through the Gardens where they have a Lego sculpture display event. They also have a chapel on the ground which is pretty much a replica of the Thorn Crown Chapel we missed near Eureka Springs, AR; same architect. How fortunate! It’s made mostly of glass with some rock at the foundation and wooden beams. Quite lovely and so nice and cool inside as the AC was on full blast. Would be a beautiful setting for a wedding.
Tom took us to Jack Stacks’ BBQ for lunch before we parted ways. This place is a Kansas City institution and Fran enjoyed the ribs which were fall off the bone tender. Doug and Tom enjoyed a mixed meat sandwich each and they were equally scrumptious. Today was sunny and very hot – up to 36C (97F) at one point. We parted ways and went on to see the Country Club trendy district downtown and went over to HNTB’s headquarters (company Doug works for) to have a boo and see the scenic overlook nearby. Fun fact: KC’s sister city is Seville, Spain and a lot of the architecture in this area is copied from Seville.
The night we drove northwest to Atchison, Kansas to Warnock Lake where they have RV sites near the lake with electric for a mere $10 a night. There are 18 RV sites and we were all alone. We took a site with a lovely big tree and enjoyed a beer sitting outside and then discovered they had hot showers (was not disclosed on our app) and enjoyed washing off the sweat from the humidity before turning on the AC in our rig. Much more pleasant evening.
UPDATE: Our daughter-in-law, Alyx, has modified our website to make it mobile friendly and Fran has updated galleries and the Tigger pages. Please let us know if you come across any issues we may have missed. Thanks!
