FORT SMITH ARKANSAS

4/24/09---The following info is provided by Maryann:

The Wanderers are still at it – we’re slowly making our way back south. Our time in Gillette, WY, was capped off on Sunday, 4/19, with shooting practice for us 2 McGees. We bought two 357 Magnum pistols; this is our first time shooting guns bigger than 22 caliber. We had a good time, & we’ll get better. Gotta be ready for those pirates! We also drove by a new power plant that is being built south of town and got to watch a coal train being loaded that day. We left Gillette on Monday – it was very hard leaving our family after such a nice, long visit. We decided not to travel through CO due to their recent storms, so we headed east through Nebraska instead.

On Monday night we camped in the parking lot of the Cabela’s World Headquarters in Sidney, Nebraska alongside I-80. WOW – they sure have changed from the store they used to have downtown!

I power-walked around their property the next morning, and I couldn’t even cover all of it in 45 minutes! Their huge bronze statue of fighting elk is awesome. The “guard ducks” quacked at me during my AM walk.

Later that day we passed through Gothenburg, Nebraska, and visited an original Pony Express Station they had relocated into town. A helpful docent explained that the Pony Express operated for less than 2 years, and there were stops every 10 miles for riders to change horses & gather more mail. What a colorful part of U.S. history! We would have stayed longer, but their museums do not open until May.

From there we headed to OKC to visit a family friend. Unfortunately he was out of town, so he’ll just have to visit us sometime on Dream Manor (hint, hint).

We spent last night, Wednesday, in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Altus, OK. This morning we dropped in on the crew at Turbines, Inc. north of Altus. It was great fun getting to meet folks “in person” that Keith and I had only talked with via phone or e-mail. They were gracious enough to show us around their facility and even took us to lunch. Later today we back-tracked to OKC to the State Fairgrounds where Kevin from Turbines has a booth at the Farm Show through Saturday. We had a wonderful visit with him also. Oh, Keith had me take a photo of a huge flag, so you could see that the wind was pretty strong today in this area of OK. Kevin said they go right from this into tornado season – YIKES! We’re spending tonight in one of the Wal-Mart parking lots in Fort Smith, Arkansas (they have 5 Wal-Marts here!). Tomorrow we head for northern Mississippi.