Hot Springs AR to Independence MO

March 25 through March 31, 2005

Friday March 25:

It felt warm at 6AM, and after the weather radio's severe thunderstorm watch, and then in the wee small hours of the morning a warning, for a different part of northern Arkansas, I was content to sleep a little longer. By 7AM the sun was up and the temperature was well above 50 under the RV. Today we spend the final day soaking at the Libbey, then move on north. It was near 11:00 by the time we were ready to get out of Lake Catherine campground, with showers and dumping. That's OK, we can stay late at the Libbey to make up for it! Claire drove us back to town, and I got a glimpse of the rather large Carpenter Dam which creates Lake Hamilton at Hot Springs.

We found our favorite not too un-level on street parking spot near the Libbey, I made us sandwiches, and was soaking before noon.

It would be a shame to let this grand old building decay to unusable...but it is unfortunate the Park Service picked this week to beat up their concessionaire, however justified that action might be. Claire joined me in the pools in half an hour or so. The pools at the Libbey did look cleaner, but there were shrouds on the hot water pipes feeding the pools...one of my favorite places to sit under when the hot water flowed... Oh well, SOMEONE might not have the sense to avoid them if they were too hot...maybe! But at least we could soak. I heard a complaint that the hot pool was too cool at 105 degrees...it should be 109, and that the Japanese visitors are disappointed it is not the 120 they are used to at home.... I do not know about immersing my whole body in 120...surely not for long! :-)) I do know the Japanese baths are HOT though... a recollection from many years ago while enjoying a winter visit there, courtesy of my Uncle Sam and cousin Dottie and Luther. The high cost of fuel there made it common for everyone to keep their living quarters cool; those hot public baths were a highlight of my trip, and I do understand why they might like the water HOT... hmmmmm, maybe that is why we like it hot too; the RV is usually not kept very warm unless the sun shines in. :-) I noticed a lot of folks coming around testing the water at the Libbey today....some from the park service, many seemed almost like training sessions for different employees. :-) The lower pools were more crowded than usual as the upstairs was closed, but still I could get access to my favorite super strong whirlpool pump most times I wanted it. Claire went back to the RV around 2:30, but I soaked until 5PM, then we moved to the Walmart for our final night in Hot Springs. The weather is forecast to deteriorate tomorrow, with rain...but we take what we get and move through it unless it's snow. Our schedule is firming now, with only a week to get to Kansas City.

Saturday March 26:

It is Saturday...so it must be internet day.... I was up early, doing net business, and when daylight came noted gray skies. We decided to spend the early afternoon at Hot Springs Mall so Claire could shop and I could work the web page. By the time she finished, it was raining steadily with some lightning. We drove the winding hilly two lane SR 7 to Russellville in HEAVY rain. Frequent stops to let following vehicles pass were needed, as much of the road was "no passing" due to limited visibility ahead on hills and curves. The weather makes pictures impossible, and we were ready to stop by the time we reached Flying J in Russellville, even though we had not driven far by a day's driving standards. The gas price here was a good $2.009/g and we decided to fuel NOW, to avoid possible price increases in the morning. Fueling under the gas island roof was WET, WINDY, COLD, and MISERABLE....but anything can be justified to save a few pennies a gallon. :-)) I went back for my rain jacket when I found out how nasty it was under the roof, but even so a change of jeans was needed after the job was complete, and a LARGE snifter of brandy was oh so welcome when we got parked for the night (in place of another hot soak, you understand...). :-) Dinner is burritos with left over beans. We ran the generator again later for coffee and TV, and used the furnace to bring the RV up to WARM while it was running, hoping to keep the damp chill off for much of the night. Sleeping was very good after the rain stopped rattling on the roof sometime during the night.

Sunday March 27:

I did not hear the furnace run during the night...so our strategy of warming the RV before retiring seems to work! :-) My old faithful watch gasped it's last waking me for net time; one brief flash of the light to see what time it was in the dark, and the screen was blank. I hope it is just the battery….and that Walmart here in Russellville will renew it! It is 45 under the RV at 6:30, when rain started again. I finished the web page and uploaded it, and sent our regular email before showering, and then dumping and refilling water. This was a wet job too, but now we knew enough to use our full rain suits to do it, and returned to the RV dry and comfortable. We stopped at Walmart on the other side of the highway to replace the watch battery...and found them CLOSED...wow! It is Easter, but still we're surprised. We move on up SR 7 toward Branson in rain, through what I'm sure is a very scenic Ozark National Forest. We pass the Arkansas Grand Canyon... the deepest in Arkansas according to the sign, and it might have been infinitely deep, as we could not see the bottom...or even 50 feet off the road in the dense fog on the mountain top. :-((( We had noticed the sign "Harrison 86" when we started, and knowing that Walmart store number 2 was located there, it seemed like a better destination in today's weather than Branson 120 miles away. The store is right on our route, and should have plenty of parking if it is closed for Easter. We arrived before dark, finding a few other RVs there already, and the store open doing a brisk business. We made a few phone calls on the weak digital tower (which performed flawlessly), then shopped. The jewelry counter ladies asked if I had bought my watch at Walmart ("yes"), then replaced my watch battery for $3, and seemed surprised that it started running after having lived long enough to exhaust two 5 year batteries previously. They gave it back unset, saying they said they did not know how to set it. I thought that odd, until I realized all the button nomenclature is worn off... :-)) The cashier is surprised to hear the Russellville Walmart is closed...remarking she did not think they could close on any day but Christmas. She wanted to go home herself! Claire's special Easter dinner of corned beef and cabbage is delicious and quite warming, with plenty of steamy broth. :-)) We again run the generator and furnace to warm up the RV nicely before bedtime. Sleeping is comfortable for me, but Claire watches TV until late.

Monday March 28:

It's 45 under the RV again today, but SUNNY at 8 AM! :-)) The furnace ran at times during the night…but sleeping was good and it is warm enough so raising the shades to let the sun in did the rest. I moved Spike into the sun, and in an hour his closed blossom was spreading it's pretty petals. :-) Claire went to look for Easter candy on sale...and deposit the night's trash before our departure for Branson. We expect to walk around the mile or so of tourist row and see what's interesting before finding the Branson Walmart to overnight. Lambert's Cafe is well on the way to Springfield, so we will dine 'southern' there when we leave Branson...then probably overnight the following day at the Sam's in Springfield. We were off before noon and the drive to Branson was short. Lake Taneycomo south of Branson is pretty.

This area is obviously highly developed! Our drive IN Branson was short too, by choice. It just is NOT our kind of place...brazen tourist hucksterism on billboards crowding the main street, has been performers highlighted everywhere....

The Walmart lot is FULL at midday, and justifiably signed "No Overnight Parking". We are happy we got here early in the day, and have the option to move on without exceeding our comfortable driving range. We stop just long enough to switch drivers, then get OUTTA TOWN! We change our plans, and decide to stop for dinner tonight at Lambert's Cafe; it's 30 miles further north in Ozark, and that is where we head. As we near Ozark, the US 65 sign for Murphy's gas indicates a possible Walmart, so we exit and find a new Super Walmart with gas at $2.009/g with the shopping card. That price was good in Arkansas two days ago, and should be today also. We fill, taking on 20 gallons. Our gas mileage over the Ouachita and Ozark mountains on twisting hilly AR 7 is predictably awful; 7.23 mpg Texarkana to Russellville, and 7.45 mpg Russellville to Ozark MO, where US 65 flattened out a bit and gave us some straight road..... We drive to Lambert's Cafe; it is quite a decorated tourist oriented "country Restaurant" that we might normally pass up, but coming highly recommended we dare eager to try it.

Chicken fried steak is on the menu, but Claire notices it is round steak, and expects it to be tougher than her shoe sole.... We have decided on it anyway, but I ask the waiter, Mark, what it is; he replies that it is ground round, breaded and fried, covered with mashed potatoes and gravy. Claire asks "a deep fried hamburger?".... We ask for more time to decide, but ultimately both of us pick the chicken fried steak. It came incredibly fast, served in a huge skillet, before we could eat our securely caught but thoroughly smushed "thrown rolls", and our first of many fried okra side servings (which was extra special delicious, crisp and flavorful with no trace of sogginess).

We were both pleased that it had texture and flavor that was NOT like hamburger; I think Mark got it wrong. I think it was a 1/2 inch thick piece of round run through a tenderizer machine that sliced little cubes into it on both sides without cutting through (cubed steak might be the meat market term). It was tender, but still had the cutting texture of real meat. This place is full and bustling with activity!

Later Mark (that's him a bit blurred from moving fast in the center of the picture) took time to chat with us, despite the full restaurant and long waiting line; he was in college here, a divinity student, married with children, and hoped to start his own Assembly of God church after graduation; he looked young to have wife and kids, but maybe it's just our point of view moving older..... :-) He said Lambert's buys the chicken fried steak frozen, all breaded and prepared for frying. I'm pretty sure it's not made from ground meat..... The restaurant servers come around with big dishes of "sides", which they serve as often and as much as you wish. Tonight the sides were macaroni and tomatoes, black eyed peas, and DELICIOUS fried potatoes with onions, as well as the okra and thrown rolls with sorghum molasses....no they did NOT throw them with the sorghum molasses already applied....although that stickiness would probably have avoided the few missed catches we observed. :-) The rolls and sorghum syrup made a GREAT dessert.... We were STUFFED by the time we left, and found long waiting lines on the porch. We were lucky to have arrived here shortly after 5PM, when we had only a 5 minute wait. We chose to drive to another Super Walmart in nearby Nixa, about the same distance from the restaurant, but possibly closer to Springfield. The drive on Route CC was interesting after dark. The road looked straight as an arrow on our map, but was narrow, with some short twists, and no shoulder. We arrived without incident, but one impatient driver following us passed in an illegal zone and nearly hit an oncoming car....YIKES! Nixa seems like a now developing bedroom community for Springfield, with roads that have not yet caught up with increased usage. The Walmart was exactly where Street Atlas said it would be, and we were happy there were no dishes to do... :-) We noted gas was $2.059 with the gift card here, so we did well to fill earlier. I made coffee for the morning, and retired for the night.

Tuesday March 29:

It was warm over night, the heavy blanket not being required for the first time since we left Texas, and we did not think to turn on the furnace either. It is forecast into the high 70's today…no more COLD feelings for a day or so! :-) We discussed the trip after Kansas City, and moving directly east on I-70 and I-64 appealed to both of us as long as the weather stays warm. It takes us through some places we've seen before, like St Louis, but most of the places will be new to us until we reach I-81 in VA. It should be far enough south to avoid the cold that could still linger further north, but has frequent escape paths south to I-40 if needed, too. The locals are all smiling broadly at the weather here.....as well they should! It's SPRINGTIME in the Ozarks! We decide to do laundry today, then drive to Flying J in Peculiar MO for dump and water tomorrow before visiting the Truman library in Independence MO Thursday. Claire talks to folks in Walmart, and they point her to a nice laundromat a block away. While she is doing laundry, I decide to look at the ever more loosening toilet seat on our new toilet. I thought the threads were stripped on one of the bolts, so removed it to look...no, not stripped, just loose. It was in a very awkward position to get the nut back on; I dropped the nut, and as luck would have it, it fell into an opening between the plastic shroud and the china bowl, and I lost the nut irretrievably. I tried again with the remaining nut and lost it the same way.....this is NOT luck at all, but stupidity! This procedure has taken a loose seat and turned it into a ready to fly seat. :-((( I decided to try Walmart for more of the special plastic nuts that hold toilet seats on. They had sets of new bolts and nuts special for the purpose for $2. I proceeded to stuff the offending hole the nuts drop into with a rag, and used the old bolt threaded a few threads into the new nut to help me get it into position. Now the process took only a minute, and the seat is again as secure as new. The bolts actually would have needed only a screwdriver turn to re-secure them after they loosened under vibration, not being tightened enough from the factory. However I had assumed wrongly that the bolts were captive in the seat, not being able to see the bolt head, and had removed the nut from below. The seat assembly has a decorative flap that covers the bolt head on top that pops up with a screwdriver for access to the bolt head...DUHHHHH!

Well, it's fixed, and really only caused us a 15 minute delay over the time taken for laundry, and on a day we did not plan on anything much in the way of additional activities anyway... We drive the short distance to Sam's in Springfield, and stop mid afternoon for the night. Gas here is $2.029 for members, so we did well to top off at Walmart's in Ozark yesterday. By the time we shop, and I take a bit of a nap, it's time for Claire to make dinner. She tries a tasty grain dish consisting mainly of wild rice and barley, steamed collards, and a tofu based sauce with vinegar flavoring which goes well on the collards. This is quite delicious, light yet satisfying, inspired by and reminiscent of the macrobiotic meal we had at the Casa de Luz in Austin. This is a good way to recover from eating way too much good country cookin' yesterday.... :-)) Hopefully we'll see something similar again... (hint hint). :-))) The Sam's lot is quiet, not having much traffic after closing, and is lighted brightly all night. Claire watches TV, but after making coffee and charging the battery I retire. We sleep well, with only a solitary truck idling for a time far across the lot to keep us company through the night.

Wednesday March 30:

Temperature under RV at 5:00AM is 57.2….WOW, spring is indeed sprung in western MO! I work the log, and Claire awakes after 8AM. The wind picks up, rocking the coach occasionally. We are in leisurely start up mode, I'm just starting breakfast, when we hear a strange whup…whup…whup noise, loud and close. I step outside and the noise draws my gaze up...to the Sam's sign 50 feet away and 75 feet above us. The fabric sign material has been ripped away from the sign on the top and sides, and is flapping vigorously in the wind, with an attached piece of solid material...wood, plastic, metal, I cannot tell.... on the free end that is about to break away and land...on us??? It is up wind..... It is time to MOVE! NOW!. I jump in the driver's seat, Claire holds the loose stuff in the RV, and we pick a clear place in the middle of the parking lot to stop..... By the time I get outside again, with the camera, the piece of solid material has dropped, but the sign is still flapping.

It never occurred to me to wonder about how those signs were made...but now we know! :-) We return to the RV, now thoroughly awake. Claire walks to Sam's to alert them to the problem, but a crew is already coming out to work it. They soon return inside, after finding the solid piece on the grass near where we had been parked, and not having any way to reach the flapping fabric 75 feet up. We are considering what we should do next, when I see (appearing to me to be in slow motion, but really quite fast) out the rear window, one of Sam's cart kiosks translating and rotating towards us in the wind, rotating just enough to miss our back end, and overturning on a nearby small tree. This place is NOT a healthy place for an RV in this wind! We move in the parking lot again, to a spot down wind from the gas pumps. Perhaps they will catch loose blowing objects? There are high wind warnings on the weather forecast, winds steady at 30, gusting to 45 mph, with notice to high profile vehicles to drive with caution. We know driving will not be pleasant in this wind, but NOT driving is already proving hazardous. We tie everything down for travel, and start for our day's planned destination (Flying J in Peculiar MO) before 9AM. We swap drivers every 45 minutes, as the constant correction for wind gusts is very fatiguing. There is an opportunity to stop at Osceola Cheese Shop, and we do not pass that up. The samples are fun and we buy some cheese curd as a good addition to lunch...but it is not as fresh as that we got in Lowville NY last summer; it does not squeek on our teeth, even when slightly microwaved. :-( We blow by an Amish buggy trotting on the shoulder of the 4 lane 65 mph US 13 highway.... Soon we see another waiting to pull out on the highway....

Despite the signs to share the road with buggies (and we are certainly willing to), they are hard to see and I do fear for their safety on a road like this! Claire takes the last driving shift, and has possibly the worst road to drive; the wind AND the uneven road surface both cause necessary steering corrections. The general scene turns wintery as we join US 71 and approach our destination.

The leaden skies and leafless trees without buds is something that seems strange to us.... We are very much back in the north, although I'm sure spring here is only weeks away!! We are glad to stop driving when we reach the Flying J, but it is only a bit after 1PM. We have the rest of the day to spend here. Fueling in the wind is .... not real pleasant, but at least it is not wet. We take the last open RV parking spot, but most other travellers are moving on after a short stay. A trailer load of bulls is fun to see up close.

The trailer pulls up next to us with 12 bulls packed three to a separation, closely enough that they cannot fall over with motion.... The genial driver properly outfitted with cowboy hat is taking them to a rodeo in St Joe, MO then on to another rodeo after that. He says they are easy to get onto that trailer...but I think 'easy' is a relative term in this case....I'll believe easier than RIDING them! :-)) They all have the sharp points cut off their horns...I do not recall that the bulls at the rodeo we saw last year in Mountain View AR had points removed from their horns, but then we did not get quite this close either. I reviewed the pictures we took then, and indeed, when I zoom in to look closely, the sharp points were all lopped off the horns. I guess in the excitement of the moment those details do not get noticed..... and it certainly would make injury from handling the animals less life threatening. :-)

I just don't understand why all these guys seemed to studiously avoid eye contact with the camera though....what do they have to hide? :-))))) The bulls depart after leaving a few yellow trickles to run under our RV. After a couple "end of the month" phone calls, Claire starts our dinner early. It is left over corned beef with vegetables and steaming broth, served over brown rice. It goes well on this blustery, almost "winter" day. Tomorrow we plan to visit the Truman Library in Independence before moving towards Blue Springs for the weekend. I work the computer log, and am amused that the mileage from the last gas fill is over 9.5 mpg. Could this be due to the strong tail wind today? :-)) It is always possible when doing small fills as we are now, that the attitude of the vehicle at the pump influences how much we can get in when we top off, too. We'll never REALLY know... :-)) I must look up in the log from January how to set up the DVD player Claire wants to use...I have NO CLUE from memory.....now you see why all these boring details show up in this log? :-)))) Those are for US! I retire early, but Claire watches a Taikwondo tape, then TV until 10PM.

Thursday March 31:

It's 44 degrees under the RV at 6:30AM, the wind is down, and it's SUNNY! :-)))) The heat has come on a few times early this morning, so it is not uncomfortable in the RV. I used 5 minutes of unused regular cellphone minutes to reset my Yahoo groups to use the larger mailbox at the Access-4-Free email address; the end of the month is coming, and they will just expire anyway. This task had remained undone last Sunday night when we could not use the net from Harrison AR. Now that we are back in native Verizon service around Kansas City, internet operation should be easier. :-) Claire is awake shortly after 7AM, and since there is power in the battery from yesterday's driving to bring the RV up to comfortable showering temperature.... we use it! :-)) We avoid running the generator before 8AM if there is a possibility of disturbing others nearby. We take our time getting out...and when dump time comes, I find the regular dump hole has a lock on it, but it opens anyway. The lock is not fastened through two holes... and I had asked last evening if the dump was working, and was told "yes". I notice the water level is visible in the hole, so am watching VERY carefully as I pull the valve handle on the RV...and shut it off almost immediately when the overflow starts..YECH! I ask for help at the desk, and maintenance almost immediately responds, WITH rubber gloves... He suggests that I could dump into the sump drain opening. I move the hose there after I rinse the area down and he removes the sump drain grate. He says the lock is not secure because one of the holes is broken, and he promises to get someone out again to auger out the clogged regular dump hole. He is quite apologetic...but I think a sign might avoid the need to clean up messes. I leave the sump hole grate off...maybe others will get the message that way! We proceed to the Truman library, noticing very active police presence on the highways here. The library guards ask us to park in bus parking after we are nearly parked in "visitor's parking"...which we happily do, but usually try to leave those big spaces for busses that need them.. The signs to the lot say "bus parking"; only in the parking slot does it say "bus/RV parking". The guard DID say they were poorly marked... :-)) The library is housed in a very impressive looking building.....

We find the exhibits are well worth the $5 each senior admission price. I dimly recall some events associated with Truman's administration... I was in early grade school when he was elected to his own term, and do recall being one of few in my class that wanted him to be reelected...but do not recall why, or if I even HAD a reason! :-) I do recall the start of the Korean war....and even more clearly recall the home town newspaper article with a picture of my grandfather as an HST look alike.

Anyway YOU can make up your own mind how close the resemblance was, but I do think Pappy was pleased by the association, as he was a staunch lifelong democrat himself... :-) I do NOT recall Pappy with as broad a smile as Harry had here below, though....

Of course, Pappy didn't defeat Tom Dewey for president against all predictions, and even newspaper headlines on the street, either. :-)) I do recall how excited many in my family were that Eisenhower won the Republican nomination in 1952. I was not aware that Truman had made the decision himself not to run again in 1952. I always thought a succession law had prevented him from doing so, but that is not the case. His approval rating was a low 30% at the time, the Korean war was becoming increasingly unpopular, and he had "had enough". He did always follow his personal instincts, despite any popular opinion that resulted. He fired WWll hero General Douglas MacArthur as Korean War Commander when MacArthur went public with disagreements on Truman's "limited war" policies there. Nobody knows what would have resulted if we HAD attacked China as MacArthur advocated, but Truman feared widespread nuclear war with the Soviet Union...and he WAS the Commander in Chief! Truman always had the guts to act on his own ideas of what was best for the country, often against respected advice to the contrary. His desk was adorned with a still famous sign...

"The Buck Stops Here". The museum has made a game out of designing a slogan. :-) The legacy of many of "Give 'em hell" Harry's decisions remain today...the early recognition of Israel as a state, the Truman doctrine "to support free peoples resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures", and the world wide containment of Communism during the cold war, were all Truman policies. His decision to use the Atomic bomb on Japan seems to still be controversial....but I cannot understand how one can justify second guessing a commander "on scene" with his "guns drawn". He knew many of his soldiers would lose their lives in a continuation of the war, and that was his primary concern... and rightly so in my mind! But the debate will go on.... Truman did not for a moment second guess his own decision...again, rightly so! Harry and Bess are buried in the courtyard here at the library.

They served as President and First Lady from April 12, 1945 to January 20, 1953. We met a friendly library security guard ...who told the story of a night he was on duty in the secured and motion detector protected building, sitting alone in the guard room in the interior of the building, with the door locked. He heard footsteps in the hall...and they could ONLY be an intruder. The alarms had not sounded, but he drew his weapon and waited until the steps were right outside the door, to capture the intruder, and opened the door to find... NOTHING. The footsteps stopped, and he was left with nothing but another ghost story....and his not the only one among the guards here! President Truman was an avid walker all his life...perhaps his walks continue? :-) Still, our friendly guard thinks the library is a fun place to work and meet lots of interesting people; some that you see, and some that you do not, I suppose. :-)) This statue is said to be slightly taller than Harry was....

he was not extremely tall, an average man's height of 5' 10''. He did (at least as a statue) keep his belly bulge under better control than some folks we are close to... perhaps bronze abs are the secret? :-) We stay until after 5PM...even though the library is open until 9PM on Thursdays, we have had enough fun for one day, and we're getting hungry. We drive to the Walmart/Sam's on the east side of Independence, and find the lot is fairly sloped...we find level enough parking on our third attempt, and decide to have dinner before asking Walmart if we an stay over night. There is security patrolling the lot, so we decide if they had wanted us to move, they would have already asked; I find bed around 8:30. Claire is up for a while with TV. The night passes very quietly.

PLANS: We will head east, leaving the Kansas City area on Sunday, ahead of another weather front that may catch up to us in West Virginia...or may not! We know the weather back there now is soggy, but here it has turned pleasantly sunny and spring like after the rain and wind of last week moved east. :-) We'll be visiting with friends in Virginia, and then moving toward home, planning on arriving there around April 15. This trip is drawing to a close! C'mon New England, we want SUMMER when we get there! :-)