It took a while to get down to Arkansas and Bentonville but we arrived in the afternoon and pulled into the big Walmart parking lot only to be greeted by large signs which said that overnight parking was not allowed. This was something of a surprise as Walmart policy is to encourage RV’ers to use their parking lots for overnight stays, both for safety’s sake and the added sales they bring. Sometimes however the local authorities will pass legislation to prohibit staying in parking lots to supposedly protect the local campgrounds.
Checking our Elks directory we found a lodge in Rogers, AR, that we didn’t realize was right next to Bentonville so we checked it out. This turned out to be a very nice lodge in a quiet setting and with a little help from a member; we found a 50 amp electric power connection. We were so impressed with the pastoral setting that we extended our stay for an extra night.
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| The Visitor Center in the Original Store |
The next morning we headed downtown to the Walmart Visitor Center on Main Street just across from the town central park with a large monument to the “Soldiers of the South.” It was then that we realized that we were truly in the South and that Arkansas was really a “Rebel” state. Unfortunately, the Visitor Center was being renovated and a temporary center had been set up around the corner. In a way this was quite nice as they could have just closed it up for a year while they did their renovating.
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| Monument to the Soldiers of the South |
The center had a museum documenting the growth of Walmart from its inception to the present day. Sam Walton and his brother had owned a number of Ben Franklin stores in the area but decided to change the name to Walmart Discount stores in the early 1960’s and through hard work and incredible business sense grew their Walmart stores into the largest retail business in the world! Along the way he bought up many failing store chains and somehow made them profitable mostly by controlling costs and working hard to obtain the lowest procurement costs. His stores are now in most every country in the world and wherever they are they strive to be generous good neighbors. There have never been unions in his stores although the salaries and benefits certainly seem to be acceptable. The main headquarters building on Walton Blvd. is very large with a huge parking lot chock full of cars in front. We somehow expected Bentonville to still be a little Podunk town in Arkansas so we were amazed at the development and modern prosperous look to the city.
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| At the COE Horseshoe Bend Park |
Our friends Arnie and Barb Lane had recommended the nearby Corps of Engineers campground at Horseshoe Bend so we went out to check it out and they were right, it is a very beautiful lake with a typical COE park. They are all reasonably priced and very clean, of course they are all built around COE water reservoirs and projects. Unfortunately most do not have any sewer hookups, probably to help restrict the length of stays.
So with thanks to another Elks Lodge for coming through in a pinch we decided to make our next stop at Midway City, OK, to visit the Old Germany Restaurant in Choctaw, OK.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bye y’all!
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