White River and Pea Ridge National Military Park

Our campsite was on the White River just below the dam on Beaver Lake.  The water was really cold, 43 degrees!  One day there was a layer of fog just hovering over the river as well as the reflections in the water.  It was really beautiful.

Every afternoon between 1 and 2 p.m. a siren would blow and water would begin being released from the dam.  The amount of water released depended on how much electricity was being generated that day.  That would determine how high the water would go up in the afternoon.

This is what the river looked like just after the siren had sounded

and here it is a couple of hours later. The bottom walkway is covered as well as the rocks that were protruding from the left side of the picture.

Here's another before and after set of pictures.

The Pea Ridge National Military Park was just about 30 miles from us making it a great day trip.  Pea Ridge was one of the most pivotal Civil War battles deciding the fate of Missouri and the West.  On March 7-8. 1862, 26,000 Confederate and Union soldiers fought.

Our first stop was the Visitor's Center which had a great video on the battle for us to watch.

Pea Ridge is the most intact Civil War battlefield in the country.  There is a seven mile driving tour stopping at the major points of the battle.

You can see the entire battlefield from this point. It was extremely rare, but here you would have been able to see an entire army lined up for a fight with all regiments within sight of each other.  There was a sign saying that "if you had been standing here on March 8, 1862, you would have seen 10,000 Union men in battle lines stretching for a mile over the open fields below."

This was the Elkhorn Tavern which has been reconstructed from photos from the 1880's where fighting took place around it and the tavern was used as a field hospital.

We have visited other Civil War battlefields and it is a humbling experience to try to imagine just how horrible it was.  Through major mistakes by one of the Southern generals, the South lost the battle.

Many Union and Confederate veterans attended several reunions at the Pea Ridge battlefield promoting not only remembrance but healing.  

The veterans dedicated the first monuments to both the Union and Confederate dead.

After our visit to the battlefield, we drove over to Bentonville to visit Sam Walton's (Wal Mart) first store.  It was a five and dime store he opened up in 1950

right on the main street in downtown Bentonville.

There is a Wal Mart museum in there now that we enjoyed touring.  As you complete the tour, there is an old time soda shop where you can purchase goodies, a great way to end a day!

Mountain View, Arkansas

Last Sunday, we traveled a little over 100 miles from Little Rock to Mountain View,  Arkansas, a little town in the Ozarks known as the "Folk Music Capital of the World."

Music is an integral part of this town with less than 3,000 people.  The town is famous for the preservation of folkways and traditional music and in 1973, the Ozark Folk Center State Park was opened.

Visiting the state park is a look back into the Ozark culture as it is the only center that preserves the Ozark heritage.  More than 20 crafts are demonstrated throughout the park as well as classes are scheduled to teach others.

That is why we traveled on a Sunday, something we don't usually do.  I signed up for a two day soap making class.

I started Monday morning learning how to mix and prepare the ingredients as well as the process involved.  Here's my first batch poured in the mold.

I made two batches the first day and made soap bunnies, lotion bars, spritzers, bath salts, felt soap, and soap on the rope the second day.  I also took the soap from the day before out of the mold and cut it.

Now I have 50 bars of soap!  It was so much fun!

Getting back to Moutain View being the Folk Song Capital of the World,  local and visiting musicians  meet out on the square by the courthouse each evening to just "jam" out the mountain tunes.  There is also a program at the Ozark Folk Festival Auditorium each Wednesday thru Saturday nights where musicians perform songs from the culture.  Mountain View was just such a neat place, we hope to get back there again.

Today, we left to go further north to Eureka Springs.  We're staying at Beaver Lake about 10 miles north of town.

We have a great shaded site.

The river is right behind it, unfortunately, there are lots of trees and shrubs between us and the river, so we can't see it from the rig.  It is just a short little walk to this beautiful place.

We're looking forward to checking out the sights here.

Little Rock, Arkansas

We have really enjoyed our stay here at the Maumelle Corps of Engineers Park in Little Rock.  We liked it so much we extended our stay another four days for a total of twelve days.

We have found plenty to do.

There is the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. It is recognized for the part it played in the desegregation of public schools in the United States.  The Visitor's Center is across the street from it.  I thought one of the most interesting things was watching the film clips of the events from 1957 and looking outside the window where everything took place.

We also went to the Clinton Presidential Museum in downtown Little Rock on the Arkansas River.

There were some permanent exhibits like this full size Oval Office.

Our favorite part of the museum was the Chihuly Glass Exhibit.  The pieces were absolutely gorgeous! You could walk right around them. I was sure careful knowing many of these pieces are thousands of dollars each.

Little Rock had one of the best Farmer's Markets we have ever been to.

We loved it so much we went both Saturdays.

Our campground is just two miles down the road from Pinnacle State Park.  One night we took a sunset boat cruise that was very enjoyable.  Pinnacle Mountain is also here and we hiked it.

There is also a new distillery in town that we toured.

It was interesting to hear how they made their bourbon, scotch, gin, and moonshine.  There was a tasting at the end, most of our group was not into the hard stuff, but we all sure did like their Arkansas Lightning with flavors such as Peach, Blackberry Cobbler, Grape, Apple Pie, and the Lightning Hot that tasted like cinnamon red hots.

We also visited the State Capitol Building

as well as the Old State House.

We loved our stay here.  Little Rock has approximately 193,000 people, so it has a lot of activities and shopping that you find in cities, but it's not crazy big with crowds and traffic.  We are really loving Arkansas!