Know what Northwest Arkansas is famous for?

Would it help if I mentioned the city of Bentonville? How about the largest private employer in the United States? Hopefully that’s enough to figure out I’m talking about Walmart. On a recent trip, I journeyed to the hometown of this well-known retailer. I make no judgements about the company here, I merely note I stopped by the Walton’s 5-10 store in downtown Bentonville which is home to the Walmart Museum.

The trip was short, just a weekend getaway beginning with flights to Little Rock (via Chicago). From there it was north into the Ozarks in both Arkansas and Missouri. Around mid-afternoon on Saturday, I stopped briefly in Branson on my way between nearby county seats. While the downtown was interesting, it was also crowded with both people and traffic, so I didn’t feel like staying long. My last stop for the day was in Bentonville where I took the photograph above.

Sunday morning began with rain that lingered through most of the day. It was unfortunate as that when I covered the most scenic parts of the trip. Jasper, Arkansas is near the Buffalo River which was the first river to be designated a National River back in 1972, and over 130 miles of it are managed by the National Park Service. The river is popular for boating, particularly canoeing, and the adjacent hills are crisscrossed with hiking trails. Sadly, I drove through on a cloudy, wet, and sometimes foggy morning. By late afternoon, I returned to Little Rock for might flights home. Due to a delay of the inbound aircraft to LIT, I landed at CLT a few minutes after my connecting flight started boarding. I hustled through the terminal, and arrived just as they were getting ready to close the flight.

Over the course of the weekend, I visited 17 county seats in 16 different counties. How is that possible? Arkansas is one of a handful of states in which some counties have more than one county seat. On this trip, it was Carroll County Arkansas where both Eureka Springs and Berryville are official county seats. When I come across these situations, my practice has been to mail postcards from both county seats. Also of note, I have now ‘collected’ all the counties in Arkansas, making it the 29th state completed. Here are the before and after maps.

The 17 new county seats brings my total for the year up to 61 and my overall total to 2790. Up next is another weekend trip, this one to North Dakota and Montana.

Until then…

Happy Travels
Brian