Carthage, Missouri

We are at the 3 week stage of our current trip, and this is where we are camping at the moment. The Big Red Barn RV Park in Carthage, Missouri  - about 2 hours south of Kansas City. It is also only about 25 minutes NW from Joplin, where in May 2011, an E5 tornado came through and killed about 156 people and injured around 1200 others. Nasty business these tornadoes. In the Joplin case they only got 20 minutes notice of the tornado. Last year with Jen and Peter we drove though Moore, Oklahoma, just one week after an E5 tornado killed twice as many people - they only had 10 minutes warning.  

We discovered the Big Red Barn RV park last year, and it has good wifi and cable TV. The Golf Masters is on at the moment, hence the need for cable TV! Some of the trees have spring buds on them, and I saw my first red cardinal bird of the trip. So they are in this location which is a bonus, and I look out for them constantly. 

We have had a slower start than usual this trip, owing to the fact of needing to get the new tyres balanced (see previous blog) before we could do much driving. We did go to a Ford place in Bentonville, but they weren't capable of balancing tyres as big as ours - 19.5, but they did decide that we had a cracked radiator and a leaking water pump while they were at it. Murray had noticed some leaks under the rig, and asked them to take a look. Uh oh, in the shop for another few hours. Thankfully they offered us a courtesy car and we were able to check out some shops and restaurants, and we even got to visit the cinema and see 'The Monuments Men'. We really enjoyed it. The waiting room in many of these larger car dealerships can be very comfortable - big, flat screen TV, free wifi, clean toilets, hot coffee, and this one even had freshly made biscuits (cookies). Very nice indeed. In the photo above you can see Murray checking his iPhone for aussie football reports. However, as Ford couldn't sort out the tyre balance, they referred us to a Truck Service centre in Joplin, and they sorted the problem out quickly for us. We only had time to eat a leisurely breakfast at a cafe next door, and it was done. Great service, and at no charge to us. Thanks Ford. 

Before we made it here to Carthage,  we stayed at a Golf/RV Resort in Cave Springs, Arkansas. A nice little RV Park, that we discovered last year, and which is a very convenient way for Murray to play golf. He just walks out of the front door of the RV, takes a few steps, and he is at the Golf Club house. While we were there for 2 weeks, our dear friends Sandy and Joe Bill from Fordyce, Arkansas came and visited us for a few days. They booked into a nearby hotel, and we were able to spend the days together - the guys even played 9 holes of golf which gave Sandy and I time to check out a beautiful bakery cafe selling mouth-watering pastries. Delicious. Once the menfolk joined us, we went back into Bentonville and checked out the Walmart/Walton Museum - we visited it last year, but Sandy and Joe Bill had never been there. It is amazing to see the story of how Walmart started from a simple five and dime store. If you check out the blog entry that I wrote about it last year, you will get the story. 

Walton/Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas

A visit from Sandy and Joe Bill

Thankfully, despite being so far away, Tony and Yudian send me regular photos and videos of Jackson, so I keep up to date on how he is growing. Such a happy little boy.