We had a great time hanging with family for a few weeks, but we had places to be and people to see, so we hopped back into the truck and lit out once more. The first stop on our spring/summer Midwestern journey was Bentonville, Arkansas – the home of Wally World! Given that Sam was now an employee of the Evil Empire, we felt obligated to make the pilgrimage while we were in the area.
Getting to Bentonville was a reasonable 4-5 hour drive, first up the Turner Turnpike to Tulsa, then east along highway 412 into NW Arkansas. Once we hit Bentonville, we kept heading east for about 20 minutes until we got to our final destination – the Horseshoe Bend Campground, an Army COE campground located on the shores of Beaver Lake. The area was so beautiful and we were excited to get set up and start exploring, however, someone was in our site! In all of our travels, this was the first time that this had happened. And of course they weren’t there when we knocked and since we were arriving on a Sunday, nobody was working and we couldn’t get anyone on the phone… Thankfully, we were finally able to get a hold of the camp hosts, who contacted the delinquent campers and got them to come back and move their stuff.
With that out of the way, it was time to have some fun and enjoy our new home for the week. This also happened to coincide with Sam getting a new phone with a fancy camera, so we were able to snap some beautiful, green, spring-y HD pics while we were out on our many walks!
We also ventured out of the campground a few times and made our way into Bentonville – which turned out to be a great little area. The first of our adventures into town was a trip to the quant downtown square to visit the Sam Walton Museum. This free exhibit was actually pretty dang fun! I never would have imagined that a museum about Sam Walton and the early days of Walmart would be so interesting, but we learned a ton and thoroughly enjoyed our visit.
Our next trip into Bentonville came a few days later when we brought our bikes into town and went for a spin on one of the cities many bike trails. This particular path took us back near the Sam Walton Museum and terminated at the downtown city square where the weekly farmers’ market was taking place. Sam and I have really gotten into eating cleaner, more local foods, so we try to visit farmers’ markets as often as possible. This market was bustling, and we had fun just taking in the sights and sounds of the busy bazaar – in addition to all the goodies that we picked up!
While all of those activities were fun and all, they are not what we think of when we reminisce on our time in Bentonville. The true defining moment of our time in Bentonville came on the last morning of our stay as we were packing up to leave. Sam had been struggling with vertigo during our time in the area and let’s just say that certain parts of her body had grown noticeably bigger over a very short period. We had a feeling that something was going on inside her belly, but we stopped by Walmart and picked up some pregnancy tests just to be sure. (BTW, complete tangent, but the Walmarts in the Bentonville area are top notch!)
And our hunch was correct – WE WERE HAVING A BABY!
We were so eager to start telling everyone that we knew (at least I was), however, check out time was rapidly approaching, so we did our best to calm our busy brains and focus up on getting the trailer ready to go. Let’s just say there were lots of calls and texts to friends and family from the truck while we made our way up to our next destination – Moberly, Missouri. Tune in next time for one of our more unique stops along our journey, as well as more baby-based content, of course!
I guess that this is a baby blog now… 😅